The fossil fuel industries – coal, oil and gas – are a really determined lot. They are intent on finding even more CO2-producing fuels, despite all the difficulties.

These multi-nationals now use very sophisticated technology to squeeze the dregs out of old oilfields, and to develop new ones in the deep oceans, or the Arctic. And it seems that the fracking of gas, to frighten it out of the ground, is not the end of the road, as they are having another go at coal.

Indeed, world coal production was a record in 2012, doubling in two decades, with 41 per cent of world electricity production still using it – about the same as in the UK, though most of our coal is now imported. It’s likely that we will need much less in the future as EU emission regulations are steadily closing our coal-fired power stations. Only one, Fiddlers Ferry, near Warrington, will meet the 2022 European CO2 standards.

Since the 1980s we have all but given up deep mining in this country, and most of the ten million tonnes home production comes from opencast, surface, sites. Indeed, there are 50 planning applications for new ones, in the North, Wales and Scotland, and they are likely to upset the neighbours.

However, the emphasis has now moved to another way of burning the coal and making a profit, as well as excessive amounts of CO2. We already know that we can get gas from coal, as it was the only way of cooking and lighting before the North Sea natural gas was discovered. Coal gas was stored in big gasometers for local use, and the coke residue was sold for heating.

The proposal, now, is to burn the coal seams underground, and pipe up the gas given off using technology rather like that used for fracking natural gas, though there’s little international experience of how successful, or dangerous, it might be. There are small-scale projects in underpopulated Uzbekistan, Wyoming and Queensland, with the last one recently closed down following serious pollution.

There are least four reasons why such developments will prove problematic, and a major one must be uncontrolled burning underground. Past fires in coal mines have been notoriously difficult to extinguish, and there can be a serious leakage of methane.

Also, it won’t be easy to prevent the pollutants from contaminating water supplies and there could be subsidence, particularly in built up areas.

The likely sites are coastal – off Swansea, Liverpool and Northumberland – with a pilot in the Firth of Forth, though, surprisingly, a license has been granted for under much of inhabited Warwickshire.

How daft – we should insist on a coal-free UK – now.