BBC: A pledge by the government to not back environmentally-damaging opencast mining is being broken, the BBC’s Panorama programme reveals. Britain was once peppered with collieries, providing fuel for the country’s energy, industry and transportation needs. This is no longer the case. Nowadays nearly three quarters of the coal we burn is shipped in from Russia, South Africa and even Australia. But with overseas energy supplies becoming alarmingly unpredictable, the UK …