It’s called Underground Coal Gasification, or UCG, and energy companies plan to turn the UK into a massive testing ground

[EF! Editor’s note: For a look at the possible future this could bring, check outthe wikipedia articleon Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an underground coal seam caught fire in 1962 and is still burning to this day, leaving the town almost entirely abandoned.]

from SchNEWS

Just when we were all getting to grips with fracking, another mind-blowingly stupid and dangerous form of extreme energy extraction gains momentum. And it’s no distant threat: licences have been sold for some time, 21 so far just off the coast in places like Swansea Bay, and now companies are boasting to investors that production is imminent. Watch out, Wales, Northumberland and Warwickshire among others.