Can Britain mine coal while it’s going green? It’s complicated.

Along England’s northwest coast, the Haig coal mine for 70 years supplied the local economy around Whitehaven with jobs until it closed in the 1980s. Its muscular winding engine, which used to haul the coal and several thousand workers up from the depths, still towers over the site, a relic of this proud but also danger-filled past.

Now, many people in the region have a surprising hope: that the phrase “bygone era” will prove premature.

They see Whitehaven as a promising site for a new coal mine, even though the world is entering an era focused on how to steer toward zero carbon emissions.

The company West Cumbria Mining has been pitching its idea

Coal’s role in steelmakingApproving a coal mine “looks terrible”A debate over jobs