The amazing tech that could bring coal back into British homes

There's nothing like an open fire to raise your spirits in the middle of winter, but this quintessentially British pastime is not what it used to be. The troubles of the world seem distant when friends and family gather as the flames roar, the drink flows and chatter fills the living room.

However, in the 2020s, such Dickensian delights have to be well and truly earned. I often make repeated attempts at getting my open fire going – and waste countless minutes just watching and hoping. You need faith in your skill in preparation, the choice of firelighter and the quality of the kindling – small, very dry pieces of wood that act as a kind of catalyst. Of course, the fireplace itself must be functional, the chimney swept and adequately lined.

Much of this would be familiar to generations past, but the added challenge today is eco-coal, which has arguably saved my hobby from an outright ban. This uniform briquette fuel is now the favoured choice for many, as it's a better option than buying bags of expensive logs at the garden centre or supermarket service station. I’ve had eco coal that has even been sopping wet, leaving damp patches on my hearth. How to get a blaze going with that?

Assuming it is at least dry and the lighter has set the kindling alight, the best I can hope for is that the eco coal acquires a reddish glow and gives off at least some heat. Encouraged by judicious use of more bits of dry wood and even paper, I pray that the glow will spread and, hallelujah, become strong enough so that I can throw on an approved dry log, which is really the thing that will actually give off flames akin to times past. If you are hoping your open fire will heat your living room, you need patience and, at least initially, to keep your coat on!

Before the last Conservative government’s 2023 ban on selling the real thing domestically, there were tales about house coal – as it was known then – being smuggled into cities, evading local emissions curbs. But now even in the countryside, the eco stuff holds sway.

Not so long ago, you could have been warming yourself within a matter of minutes – it all seemed so simple back then. What was dug out of Mother Earth seemed far more combustible in my 70s childhood when my father built a chimney so he could have an open fire in a modern detached house. He was so proud of the fireplace he designed and had built out of Lakeland blue slate.

My grandparents on both sides had long converted to gas fires and considered coal a dreadful, dirty, almost wartime memory – but my dad stayed true to his beliefs as the world even then was moving on.

I recall as a teenager filling the coal scuttle and cutting wood – things considered a bit strange in the suburbs of Liverpool in the 1980s. I became a dab hand with the axe at a fairly early age, lighting a fire was second nature, clearing the ash a regular chore.

Looking back, my often-absent parents placed a great deal of trust in their children, but this was another era and approach to life. I’m still here to tell the tale.

It was a different world in so many other ways as well. In the 1980s, the Solid Fuel Advisory Service had an advert you can still watch on YouTube featuring a Darth Vader figure coming home to a real coal fire in his futuristic space-age house, with the voiceover boasting that Britain still has 300 years' worth of supplies. I can recall similar promotions for that other climate scourge, gas.

The upshot of my dad’s open-fire obsession is that my two siblings are also wedded to this truly atmospheric source of heat. And quite possibly we are not alone. Period homes that boast original features such as fireplaces – whether used or not – are much in demand, claim estate agents. People can’t help gathering around a real fire, whatever the time of the year. And having a chimney offers essential household ventilation.

Of course, our understanding of the dangers of emissions and climate change has moved on since the 80s, and open-fire users were probably among the first to appreciate and to be confronted with the sacrifices that had to be made.

So, given global warming, I am paradoxically grateful that firms such as Homefire go to somewhat painful lengths to keep my wintry pastime alive and officialdom onside. An outright ban is not out of the question, given the health fears over domestic household emissions raised by experts at the consultancy Ricardo recently. They claim solid fuel burners in homes have been linked to heart problems, lung disease, strokes and cancer.

Homefire uses anthracite, a high-quality mined coal that is prized for being smokeless, and otherwise discarded stones from olive oil production for its Ecoal, which the company says emits up to 80% less smoke than house coal and 50% less than kiln-dried logs. Crucially, it says it produces 40% less carbon dioxide than the regular black stuff.

The Sheffield-based firm says that anthracite is “much harder and denser than traditional house coal, making it hotter and longer burning, although harder to ignite. It is these qualities of being smokeless and longer burning that explain why it is included in our smokeless coals, but you cannot have these without the longer ignition times.

“Whilst individual bags of Ecoal are more expensive, you use less for the same heat.”

As for the charge that their product is often damp, Homefire blames that on outdoor storage in wet weather. “It does not affect the burning quality once lit” but can makes the initial lighting “more challenging”.

Is there any lingering hope that technology can save the day and perhaps put Old King Coal back at the heart of the British home? Homefire’s alternatives are clever ecological wonders, and the company makes strong promotional claims. But this enthusiast is still nostalgic for the roaring fires of his youth. Perhaps FutureCoal can help. Whatever much of the world thinks about fossil fuels, this London-based global lobbyist is committed to an energy source that is still widely available underground in Britain.

Essentially, it is an industry body “with members across the coal value chain”. It adds that it “supports a transition towards clean coal; calling for a level playing field in policy making and greater collaboration between industry, Government and investors to advance both global economic and climate aspirations”.

It hails “efficient coal abatement technologies” with the striking claim that “end-of-pipe or in-boiler emission control systems can capture up to 99% of emissions”. Paul Baruya, the group’s director of strategy and sustainability, rejects the charge that carbon capture is uneconomic, adding “thermal” fuels will be essential alongside renewables.

He claims the “hidden energy costs of wind and solar are being ignored”, such as ensuring the grid can cope with power surges and lulls. However, so far, no one appears to have scaled down capture tech for use on the ordinary British house with an open fire or log burner. Some sort of machine latched onto the chimney, perhaps?

Paul is optimistic in principle. He does not rule out technology such as smoke filters, similar to devices we use every day in vacuum cleaners, that can remove minute particles in domestic and industrial settings.

Could the ash and even the carbon be collected during the weekly bin round and then sent for reuse in construction or storage in former oil and gas fields in the North Sea?

With an estimated 70 million tons of the stuff that powered the Industrial Revolution still beneath our feet, it is too early to write off Old King Coal. A clever application of tech may mean it has its day once more.