Scottish Coal was the biggest surface mining supplier in Britain, and biggest coal firm in Scotland.

BBC: Open cast mining

Where surface coal mining disfigures landscapes, these must be restored imaginatively, creating more work for labourers but also for gardening designers, arborists and the such like.

FORBES: How Much Energy Do Apple's Data Centers Get From Coal? [UPDATED]

Hargreaves is restructuring the ATH operations in a bid to make them viable, while also pledging to use profits towards the restoration of surface coal-mining after operations are complete.

BBC: Colliery

Coal mining accounts for 90% of sales at Joy's underground division and 33% at its surface-mining unit (copper and other ores account for the rest).

FORBES: The Big Dig

Meanwhile, falling coal prices and other factors are undermining the economic logic behind surface mining.

FORBES: A Turning Point for Mountaintop Removal Coal?