Britain is sitting on a fortune. Why are we not using more of it?

From warm water trapped inside abandoned coal mines to lithium in Cornwall, tidal power around our coastline and one of the world's largest fertiliser projects in North Yorkshire, the UK has more economic potential under its feet and around its shores than most people realise.

I started looking at this after working through my earlier ideas around North Sea production and British coal. The more I researched it, the more obvious something became. Coal and oil are only part of the story.

Britain still has an extraordinary mix of natural resources, industrial knowledge, subsurface infrastructure, ports, engineering skills and geographic advantages. Some of them are being used. Some are only partly developed. Others are sitting there while we import energy, minerals, components and finished products from abroad.

This is not an argument for digging up everything we can find. That would be economically stupid. A geological resource is not automatically a profitable reserve. It is also not an argument for the government to own every mine, turbine or heat network.

My argument is simpler than that.

If Britain possesses a resource that can be developed safely, legally and profitably, government should be obsessed with removing the barriers that prevent private capital and industry from turning it into jobs, exports, tax receipts and national resilience.

The numbers already suggest the opportunity is much larger than most people think.

Britain is still a resource economy

There is a strange assumption that Britain stopped being a resource-rich country when the pits closed and North Sea production declined.

That is not true.

British Geological Survey figures show that 172.3 million tonnes of minerals were extracted from the UK landmass for sale in 2024. A further 75.5 million tonnes, mainly oil and gas plus marine dredged aggregates, came from the UK Continental Shelf.

That is nearly a quarter of a billion tonnes of material in a single year.

The real question is not whether Britain has resources. It clearly does. The question is whether we are developing the right resources, capturing enough of the value after extraction, and building industries around them rather than allowing the highest value parts of the supply chain to happen elsewhere.

1. The warm water sitting inside Britain's abandoned coal mines

This is probably the resource that surprised me most.

When an underground coal mine closes, the tunnels do not simply disappear. Many gradually fill with groundwater. That water absorbs heat from the surrounding rock and becomes a huge, distributed underground heat source.

Using heat exchangers and heat pumps, the warmth can be recovered at the surface and fed into district heating systems for homes, offices, schools, public buildings and industrial sites.

According to UK government research, around 25% of the UK's built environment is located above abandoned coal mines. Mapping work has identified more than 6 million homes and 300,000 offices and businesses above abandoned workings.

Think about that for a second.

We spent generations digging a network underneath many of Britain's towns and cities. We then treated that network largely as an industrial relic. In reality, part of it could become energy infrastructure.

This is already working in Gateshead

Gateshead's mine water heat network has been operating since 2023. A 6MW water source heat pump recovers heat from disused workings around 150 metres below the town. The network supplies council homes, offices, Gateshead College, the Baltic Arts Centre and other buildings.

It is not a PowerPoint idea. It is working infrastructure.

The economic case is even more interesting

Government analysis says the Coal Authority identified 42 mine heat opportunities advanced enough to progress. If they proceeded, the modelling estimated:

That means the initial opportunity set alone was associated with roughly 13,000 to 15,000 direct and wider jobs and around £693m to £793m of GVA in the modelling.

It also happens to overlap heavily with former industrial areas that have spent decades trying to replace lost mining employment.

This is where policy becomes interesting. The old mine is no longer just a liability that needs pumping, monitoring and remediation. It can potentially become part of a heat network that reduces gas demand, attracts infrastructure investment and supports engineering jobs in the same communities that originally powered Britain.

2. Go deeper on geothermal

Mine water is the obvious starting point because the underground workings already exist. But Britain also has deeper geothermal resources that could provide heat, and in some geological settings potentially power.

The government's Future of the Subsurface work identified 45 local authority areas with particularly promising deep geothermal potential. Many large population centres sit above or near sedimentary basins where underground water temperatures are estimated at around 40°C to 60°C, making them potentially useful for direct heating.

Yet geothermal sources, including ground source heat pumps, deep geothermal and mine geothermal, supplied only around 0.3% of UK heat demand in the 2021 data cited by the government review.

So there is a clear gap between geological potential and deployment.

The economic opportunity is not only lower imported gas consumption. It is drilling, surveying, engineering, heat network construction, maintenance and the creation of a specialist UK geothermal sector.

Britain already has world-class subsurface capability because of the North Sea. Geologists, drilling engineers, reservoir specialists and service companies do not suddenly become useless as oil and gas activity changes. Their knowledge can be deployed into geothermal, carbon storage and other subsurface industries.

That human expertise is itself a national resource.

3. Lithium: do not just mine it, build an industry around it

The government's Critical Minerals Strategy expects annual UK lithium demand to increase by around 1,100% by 2035.

Its stated ambition is for at least 50,000 tonnes of lithium, or lithium carbonate equivalent, to be produced domestically by 2035.

Cornwall is central to this opportunity.

At Trelavour, Cornish Lithium expects to produce up to 10,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium hydroxide each year and create more than 300 skilled jobs.

But simply saying "Britain should mine lithium" misses most of the economic opportunity.

The chain looks more like this:

The further Britain can move down that chain competitively, the more wages, intellectual property, industrial capacity and tax revenue we retain.

This does not mean forcing every stage to happen here regardless of cost. That creates subsidy-dependent factories and eventually political embarrassment. It means looking at the complete supply chain before handing out planning approvals or public support.

If public capital helps unlock a mine, the policy question should be: what else can that mine make economically viable in Britain?

Processing plants, specialist chemicals, recycling operations, engineering suppliers and battery manufacturing can all multiply the value of the original resource.

4. Bring back British tin, then capture the processing value

Cornwall was once one of the great mining regions of the world. Tin helped build its economy for centuries.

Today tin is strategically important again because it is used throughout electronics and electrical infrastructure.

South Crofty, Cornwall's last working tin mine before it closed in 1998, is being developed towards reopening. The UK government says the project could create more than 300 direct jobs, with roughly 1,000 additional jobs supported through local suppliers and the wider economy.

That is up to 1,300 jobs linked to one revived mineral asset.

The bigger point is the processing gap.

Britain should not become obsessed with exporting raw or lightly processed material, only to import a more valuable finished version later. Where domestic refining or processing is competitive, government should treat that missing middle of the supply chain as a strategic industrial opportunity.

Mining creates value. Processing often creates more. Manufacturing can create more again.

5. Tungsten, copper, nickel, cobalt and the resources we have not properly proved yet

This is where I would be careful about political promises.

The UK has prospective geology for several strategically important minerals. The government's strategy highlights activity and potential across Cornwall, County Durham, Anglesey, Aberdeenshire and Northern Ireland, including lithium, tin, tungsten, copper, zinc, nickel and cobalt.

That does not mean Britain can simply announce a mine and start collecting billions.

Most exploration prospects do not become commercial mines. Geology, grade, depth, water, infrastructure, energy costs, environmental requirements and market prices all matter.

So I would not launch a "dig everything" policy.

I would launch a British Strategic Minerals Exploration Fund that co-invests with credible private operators in geological surveys, drilling, resource definition and feasibility work.

The taxpayer does not need to own the whole project. The taxpayer needs to help answer the question that private capital often struggles to fund at an early stage: is there actually an investable resource here?

Once that is proven, private capital should do most of the heavy lifting.

6. Polyhalite: the scale of one British project should make us pay attention

If you want an example of how large a single resource project can become, look at Woodsmith in North Yorkshire.

The project is being developed around a roughly 2 billion tonne polyhalite resource. Polyhalite is a naturally occurring mineral fertiliser containing potassium, sulphur, magnesium and calcium.

The latest March 2026 economic impact assessment is based on a full production case of 13 million tonnes a year.

At that level, the project report estimates:

Those are project economic impact estimates, not an OBR forecast, so I would never present them as guaranteed outcomes.

But look at the scale.

One mine, if completed and successfully brought to full production, could become a multi-billion-pound annual export industry.

That is exactly the sort of project Britain should be trying to identify elsewhere.

Not because "mining is good" as an ideology. Because a commercially viable resource that generates thousands of jobs and billions in exports can materially improve the country's productive capacity.

7. Tidal power: an advantage other countries cannot copy

Britain cannot patent the tide.

But we can build the industry that captures it.

ORE Catapult cites research estimating around 11.5GW of UK tidal stream potential, equivalent to roughly 11% of current UK electricity demand.

Unlike wind or solar, the timing of the tide can be predicted years in advance. That makes tidal generation particularly interesting in a power system that will increasingly need a mixture of generation, storage and balancing technologies.

Industry modelling cited by ORE Catapult suggests tidal stream projects could contribute up to £17bn to the UK economy by 2050 and support up to 22,000 jobs by 2040.

Again, those are sector projections rather than guaranteed outcomes.

But the industrial opportunity is obvious.

If Britain simply installs foreign-made tidal technology, we capture some construction work and the electricity.

If Britain develops the turbines, subsea systems, foundations, control software, vessels and maintenance expertise, we create something exportable.

That is a much bigger prize.

8. Floating offshore wind: generate the power, but keep more of the industrial value

The UK is already one of the world's major offshore wind markets, so this is not an unused resource in the same way as mine water heat.

The underused opportunity is the domestic supply chain.

The first commercial Celtic Sea leasing round is intended to unlock at least 4.5GW of floating offshore wind. Government says that is enough electricity for the equivalent of around 6.5 million homes and could create up to 5,000 jobs.

Port Talbot is receiving up to £64m of government support to become a floating wind hub, and Associated British Ports expects the development to unlock more than £500m of investment.

This is how I would think about offshore wind from now on.

Do not ask only how many gigawatts we can install.

Ask how much British steel, port infrastructure, marine engineering, electrical equipment, software, fabrication and maintenance work each gigawatt can support.

The global floating offshore wind market has been estimated by the Floating Offshore Wind Taskforce at up to £1 trillion by 2050. Britain has excellent deployment zones and decades of offshore engineering experience.

We should want part of that global industry, not just turbines in British waters.

9. The critical minerals sector already proves this is not fantasy

Britain's critical minerals industry already contributes around £1.79bn to the UK economy and directly supports more than 50,000 jobs, according to the government's 2026 strategy.

There are more than 50 UK critical mineral projects at different stages across extraction, processing and recycling.

So the question is not whether a British critical minerals sector can exist. It already does.

The question is how much larger, more productive and more integrated it can become over the next decade.

The government has set goals for 2035 including at least 10% of aggregate annual UK critical mineral demand being met through domestic production, 20% being met through recycling, and at least 50,000 tonnes of domestic lithium production.

I would go one step further and make the central metric domestic value added.

Tonnes are useful. Jobs are useful. But the economic objective is how much valuable activity occurs inside Britain before the final product leaves the country or enters a British factory.

The biggest mistake Britain could make

There is a lazy version of this policy that I would reject.

Government announces a giant national programme, throws billions into projects because they sound strategic, protects them from competition, ignores costs and then discovers ten years later that taxpayers funded assets nobody wanted.

That is not what I am proposing.

The strongest version of a British Resources Plan is ruthlessly commercial.

Every major project should have to answer five questions:

1. Is the resource genuinely there? Independent geological or technical verification first.
2. Can it be produced competitively? Not in a perfect price environment, but under sensible downside assumptions.
3. Who is buying it? Serious projects need credible demand, offtake or a clear domestic market.
4. What does Britain capture? Jobs, GVA, tax, intellectual property, supply chain work, energy security or export revenue.
5. What happens if it goes wrong? Restoration, decommissioning and taxpayer liabilities must be funded from the start.

If a project fails those tests, leave the resource where it is.

There is nothing patriotic about losing taxpayers' money.

What I would actually create

1. A British Resources Commission

Not another talking shop. A small commercially focused body bringing together geological data, offshore resource data, mine heat maps, grid constraints, ports, planning information and industrial demand.

The output would be a live British Resources Atlas showing where the most economically interesting opportunities are and what prevents each one from being developed.

2. A one-stop project pathway

Major resource projects often deal with multiple regulators, planning authorities and infrastructure bodies. The Trelavour lithium project is already testing a lead environmental regulator model.

I would expand the principle. Keep the environmental standards. Remove duplication, dead time and confusion.

3. An exploration fund, not a blank cheque

Use relatively small amounts of public capital alongside private money to fund high-risk early exploration, drilling and feasibility work.

Government's job here is to unlock information. Once a resource is proven commercially, private investors should finance most of the development.

4. A Mine Heat Accelerator

Take the 42 identified mine heat opportunities and turn the strongest into investment-ready projects. Package heat demand, property ownership, pipe routes, electricity requirements and financing into structures that pension funds and infrastructure investors can actually understand.

5. Regional resource clusters

The most successful industrial regions tend to be ecosystems, not isolated factories.

Cornwall: lithium, tin, tungsten, geothermal, processing and mining services.

Yorkshire and the North East: polyhalite, mine heat, ports, processing and industrial heat.

South Wales: floating offshore wind, steel, ports and fabrication.

Scotland: tidal power, offshore engineering and critical mineral exploration.

Former coalfields: mine water heat, heat networks, engineering and regeneration.

6. Measure British value, not British slogans

I would not impose crude local-content rules that make projects uneconomic.

I would publish a British Economic Value score for any project receiving meaningful public support. It would measure domestic wages, domestic procurement, exports, research spending, tax receipts, apprenticeships, regional GVA and supply chain investment.

Then taxpayers can see what they are getting back.

A 10-year plan

So what could this mean economically?

This is where I want to be precise because it is very easy to make a policy sound bigger by adding numbers that should never be added together.

The figures below come from different studies. Some are annual GVA. Some are project exports. Some are cumulative economic contributions. Some are direct jobs and some include wider employment.

They are evidence of scale, not one giant total.

What interests me is not one heroic headline number. It is the pattern.

We are looking at opportunities capable of producing high-value regional employment, billions of pounds of exports, meaningful GVA, lower exposure to imported energy and minerals, and new industrial supply chains.

Done properly, that feeds into the public finances in several ways.

• More workers paying income tax and National Insurance.
• More profitable UK companies paying corporation tax.
• Business rates and local economic activity around industrial clusters.
• Higher exports improving the trade position.
• Less dependence on imported fuels and strategically important materials.
• Infrastructure investment funded partly by private capital rather than day-to-day taxation.
• Productivity gains where workers move into higher-value engineering, processing and manufacturing jobs.

There is another benefit that is harder to put into a spreadsheet.

Resilience.

If Britain can produce more of the minerals, energy and industrial components that its economy depends on, we are less exposed when overseas supply chains break, wars disrupt trade, commodity prices spike or another country decides it no longer wants to sell us something.

That does not mean self-sufficiency. Britain will always trade. It means not being unnecessarily helpless.

The shift I want to see in Westminster

What frustrates me about British economic debate is how quickly it becomes an argument about who pays more tax.

Higher taxes may sometimes be necessary. Spending cuts may sometimes be necessary. Borrowing can be sensible for productive investment.

But none of those things should replace the more important question:

Countries become wealthier over the long run by producing more valuable goods and services, improving productivity, developing technology, exporting successfully and creating companies that can compete internationally.

Britain has assets that can help us do exactly that.

Old coalfields can become heat infrastructure.

Cornwall can become a lithium, tin and critical minerals cluster.

Yorkshire can export fertiliser minerals at global scale.

Scottish tides can support an engineering industry.

Welsh ports can become manufacturing and deployment hubs for floating offshore wind.

North Sea expertise can migrate into geothermal and the next generation of offshore engineering.

None of this is guaranteed. Some projects will fail feasibility. Commodity prices will change. Planning will remain difficult. Energy costs matter. Communities have to support development. Investors need a return.

Good. That is exactly why the strategy should be commercially disciplined.

I would rather test 100 opportunities and build the 20 that work than ignore all 100 because government is frightened of making a decision.

My conclusion

The more I look at this, the less convinced I am that Britain's central economic problem is a lack of assets.

We have the coastline. We have geology. We have ports. We have universities. We have engineers. We have former coal infrastructure. We have North Sea expertise. We have mineral deposits. We have one of the world's most sophisticated financial systems capable of funding infrastructure once the risks are understandable.

What we often lack is coordination, urgency and a willingness to think commercially about national assets.

The British Resources Plan would not promise that every tonne in the ground becomes wealth.

It would promise something more sensible.

Every serious British resource opportunity gets identified, tested quickly and judged on its economic merits.

If it works, help it get built.

If it does not work, stop.

Then, where Britain does have a genuine advantage, do everything possible to retain more of the processing, engineering, manufacturing and export value here.

That is how I would like government to think.

Less obsession with slicing the existing pie.

More obsession with making the pie bigger.