Coal has so many disadvantages beyond simple price that it's not even funny. It is by far the most deadly energy generation method.

This may be true but until there is a suitable alternative most of the developed world will continue to use it.

Europe is now at a critical point where choosing not to burn coal is going to have a high economic cost that many people are not going to be able or willing to pay.

UK stopped mining coal mostly in the 1980s when Russia was still the Soviet Union. The cause was not Russian gas which isn't a direct substitute for coal anyway and especially not back then, but rather that the NUM destroyed the domestic coal industry, which became totally uncompetitive relative to more or less any foreign producers. It wasn't Russia specifically, it was that UK mining became dysfunctional and unreliable.

is it fair to call it disfunctional? Are you expecting to compete on price with countries where workers have no rights, no health and safety and live a dog's life?

Those stereotypes about Australia are mostly unfounded nowadays.

> but rather that the NUM destroyed the domestic coal industry, which became totally uncompetitive relative to more or less any foreign producers. It wasn't Russia specifically, it was that UK mining became dysfunctional and unreliable.

If you think miners should not be fairly compensated for their work you're free to go work as one for one of those foreign producers that less "dysfunctional" and more "reliable"

Perhaps I'm mis-remembering but I was certain that the abundance of cheap gas was one of the main arguments for closing down a lot of mines that were considered to uneconomical as a result.

Maybe we were also importing cheaper coal from elsewhere?