Now, near-record high energy prices on world markets are bringing the traditional work of mining back to Wales, one of the poorer regions of Britain.
"It's an old dinosaur, a dirty word," said Rhidian Davies, a thirty-year veteran of Welsh coal mining who is as surprised as anyone at the turn of events. "Nobody ever thought coal prices would be this high."
Davies is the managing director of Energybuild, which is mining the Aberpergwm Colliery in the Neath valley, the heartland of coal mining in south Wales. Aberpergwm was one of the many pits closed by state-run British Coal in the aftermath of the miners' strike in the 1980s, but now it is open again, hiring men and talking about expanding.
As China builds coal-fired power stations to meet demand for electricity, the price of coal -- along with almost every other form of energy, from oil to ethanol -- is booming.
Prices of coal for delivery in Europe hit a record high of almost $130 per tonne in late October, double what they were at the start of the year and around five times as much as in the late 1980s. Industry watchers expect that number to rise even further next year.
Such is demand for electricity and concern that coal prices could rise further that the Aberthaw power station, owned by Germany's RWE, is considering a 10-year supply contract with Aberpergwm instead of the normal one or two years, Davies said.
"It's politically very sensitive," Davies said of the Aberthaw contract. "They don't want to be totally reliant on foreign coal."
COAL MEANS JOBS
At ground level, coal has always meant jobs in Wales, and today it is no different.
From employing more than a quarter of a million people in the early 20th century, Welsh mining was decimated after the miners strike of 1984 and 1985, in which former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took on the powerful National Union of Mineworkers, led by Arthur Scargill, and won.
