Two of Britain’s last three deep coalmines could close within weeks unless owner UK Coal finds £10 million in new investment.

If they shut, a billion-pound taxpayer investment in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will benefit imported coal, not coal mined in Britain.

UK Coal and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) hope the government will invest at least part of the money to secure the short-term future for Kellingley colliery in Yorkshire and Thoresby colliery in Nottinghamshire.

Along with Harworth, a Nottinghamshire colliery not currently in production, they are all that is left of a once-mighty industry which provided 90 per cent of Britain’s energy needs.

Today the figure is four per cent. Britain imports almost 10 times as much foreign coal as it produces.

Centuries of British coal reserves lie abandoned underground following the Conservatives’ destruction of the British deep coalmining industry after the 1984-5 miners’ strike against pit closures.

The industry’s current difficulties stem in part from the rapid expansion in the United States of fracking — the extraction of gas from underground shale and other minerals.

It caused US coal use to plummet, hitting prices worldwide as US coal is exported at cheap prices.

NUM general secretary Chris Kitchen said a £10m investment would keep Kellingley and Thoresby going for about 18 months, giving UK Coal a breathing space and a hope that the market might change in the meantime.