Metro Mayor Dan Norris unveils Heat from Mines initiative at Radstock Museum

Watch Metro Mayor Dan Norris unveils Heat from Mines initiative at Radstock Museum - Tindle News on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00 Well we've got a long history of mine working. There are a hundred former pits across the west

00:05 of England and particularly in the north east Somerset area of course. I know that I live near

00:09 Pensford but people will remember that there have been mine workings in places like Bishop Sutton,

00:14 you come down further to Poulton, Rivington and Kilminsden here and that's quite recently some

00:22 of that, you know since the 1970s they've only relatively recently closed down. But while they

00:28 are a fantastic thing, they had a great tradition, there's great pride, they were also backbreaking

00:33 and tough but what I'm excited about is that there's now this potential because technology

00:38 has moved on to use the water that's flooded those former mines right across the region and

00:43 north east Somerset in particular which has warmed up and is full of energy and to get that energy

00:49 out and heating homes, heating schools, heating hospitals not just in a more sustainable way but

00:55 actually a more cost-effective way and we've just heard today about the Hinkley Sea nuclear power

00:59 reactor building program being much more expensive than people thought. That energy means that energy

01:05 will be very expensive, it won't be cheap, it'll be in some way sustainable but not totally but it

01:09 won't be cheap and I believe that getting this heat out of mines will not only be the sustainable

01:14 and green thing to do but actually a very cost-effective thing to do that will provide

01:18 more affordable energy for people. So it's very exciting and potentially thousands of individuals

01:24 and homes right across the west of England but particularly in north east Somerset

01:27 will benefit from that and that's why we've got £1.5 million now to start these studies,

01:34 to start drilling some boreholes so that we can turn that potential into something

01:38 that is reality in the future.