> Coal mines, I don't know, but you don't see them in France or Japan.
France and Japan have cleverly outsourced their mining needs to South Africa and Russia. Japan is the largest coal importer in the world, requiring about 4% of the world total for electricity generation and other industrial use.
As for France:
24-Apr-2004:
>> The last lump of coal was ceremonially carved last night
>> from the La Houve mine near Creutzwald in Lorraine. An industry
>> that produced 60 million tons of coal and employed 150,000 people
>> as recently as 40 years ago has ceased to exist.
But:
20-Aug-2006
>> More than two years since France brought up its last lump of coal
>> and turned its back on three centuries of mining industry, a new
>> consortium plans to reopen a pit and resume excavations. As the
>> world faces spiralling energy costs from record high oil prices,
>> a group of French investors has placed their bets on the black
>> rock that powered Europe's Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
>>
>> But now the Nivernais energy resources company (Seren) plans to crank
>> up the machines again at France's biggest opencast mine in
>> Lucenay-les-Aix in the Nievre area of France's central Burgundy
>> region
>>
>> "Coal that comes out of the mine will have a cost price significantly
>> lower than that of South Africa, which arrives by boat in French
>> ports,
>> and it will be of comparable quality," said Francois Jaclot,
>> president
>> of Seren, a holding created for the project.