Britain uses around 40 million tons of coal every year to keep the lights burning – but only a third of it is home mined.

Why? Because a country which once had 180 working collieries and a payroll of 200,000 now has just six deep mines still turning coal – two of them in Notts.

Yet, despite an ever-increasing clamour for clean energy, mines company UK Coal is convinced there is a future for the industry and its 3,000 employees.

Spokesman Stuart Oliver told the Post: "The main challenge to coal is the environmental one... and we all have a view on that.

"But if you do not want coal used for power generation, then what part of your power are you prepared to do without?

"Tell us what will replace it."

Even in these tough economic days, UK Coal is prepared to back that confidence with hard cash.

Harworth Colliery, on the Notts-Yorkshire border, has been "mothballed" since 2006 but UK Coal is spending £2m on exploring access to vast new reserves. If the figures stack up, they will spend £200m to bring Harworth back to life and create around 500 new jobs.

"However, these are difficult financial times and we will have to wait and see whether that becomes a practical reality," he added.

Down the road at Thoresby Colliery, as one seam of coal nears the end of its life, £50m is being spent on opening up new coal reserves of around 11-12m tons which will secure the pit's future for the next eight to nine years.

UK Coal is fighting for a share of the energy market which is dominated by natural gas.

Its biggest challenge comes from the environmental lobby.

"More coal-fired plants will be decommissioned in the next four to five years," said Mr Oliver, "creating an energy black hole which will have to be plugged by other fuels, and the problem is that that will mean another increase in gas and wind farms.

"While many people welcome cleaner forms of energy, no one wants a wind turbine within eyesight."

UK Coal believes it can fill the gap and satisfy the environmentalists.

"There are ways of burning coal more cleanly.

"Power stations have been around for 30 years. There have been a substantial number of improvements during their lifetime in flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) which removes more than 90% of sulphur from emissions.

"The Government is shortly to reveal the location of a pilot scheme to capture and store CO2 emissions from power stations.

"That could open the door for coal in the longer term."

The reserves are certainly there – huge seams of untapped coal lying beneath Notts and into Lincolnshire, as well as other parts of the country.

Should they be needed, UK Coal will have to find ways of harvesting it from their existing sites.

Answering those people who suggest old pits could be revived, Mr Oliver said: "The reality is that since the strike, 180 mines have closed, 200,000 miners have lost their jobs, and with those closures went the reserves. Old mines become gassed, flooded, the roads sealed by collapse and upheaval.

"Just to preserve the shafts at Harwood, the existing maintenance systems, you are looking at £2m a year."

Sinking new mines is just as unlikely.

"Realistically, it takes ten years to develop a coal mine, with all the infrastructure that involves.

"The chances of a new mine in Britain must be very low."