§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will compare the tonnage, as a percentage of total coal produced, of opencast coal produced in the United Kingdom, France and the Federal Republic of Germany, including brown coal.
§ Mr. EadieIn the United Kingdom opencast coal was 7.7 per cent. of total production in 1973. I am advised that hard coal in the Federal Republic of Germany and in France is almost entirely40W from deep mines but that brown coal is obtained almost wholly by opencast methods. Brown coal is not produced here. The calorific value of brown coal is very much less than that of hard coal, and two sets of percentages are given below. The first has been calculated from physical tonnages and the second from coal equivalent tonnages calculated on the EEC basis. These percentages relate to 1972, the latest year for which figures have been published by the Statistical Office of the European Communities.
ESTIMATED PERCENTAGE OF BROWN COAL IN TOTAL COAL PRODUCTION, 1972 Tonnage Basis Coal Equivalent Basis Federal Republic of Germany 50 22 France 8 5