We don't produce enough coal to run coal plants anymore, that's why we've dumped coal power. Almost all of the remaining handful of coal mines in the UK are 100% allotted to our (also near gone now) steel industry.
I thought the cause was the other way round? That we dumped coal power so that we could stop producing coal, which we wanted to do because the coal miners’ strike demonstrated they/their unions were dangerous to the government?
Timing is wrong. The big wave of mine closures was the 80s. The plants ran on imported coal from e.g. Poland. In the 90s the "dash for gas" switched fuel. Then finally the renewable buildout got going and the EU directive killed the remaining coal plants. Drax has mostly switched to imported wood pellets.
