Claig….I believe that you main point here is “were they lying” about running out of energy resources
Based on the vast changes in the world’s geology over millions of years, I’d have thought that if they found oil and gas under the North Sea, that there would be a coal.
So I don’t think that ‘they’ were concealing a state secret; may I suggest the key reason may be in this sentence?
“Energy companies have previously ignored them because they were seen as inaccessible.”
Do you remember the old P.G. Tip advert with the chimps on a building site and one says something like;
‘Here Harry, I hear they are looking for a good man with a pick axe to dig the Channel Tunnel’ and the other one replies, ‘lay off, I can’t swim’.
Well I thought of that as a practical solution to building more infrastructure, as we could build tunnels to more countries, including Scandinavia, extracting coal at the same time - but the government would need to put on the job spec that those applying, need to be able to hold their breath for a long time as well.
Which brings me nicely onto Mr Farage and his attempts to get Russian party funding into Ukip, sucking up to Mr Putin.
Like digging coal at sea, you need to know when it is smarter NOT to open your gob.