Friends of the Earth were celebrating in some style this week after permission to develop a new coal mine in South Wales was denied by the local council.

After Caerphilly county borough council rejected the application from private company Miller Argent to mine six million tonnes of coal open cast from the Nant Llseg project near Rhymeny, out went the message on social media about the a great victory won against “big business”.

And there was no shortage of local people willing to back up the Friends of the Earth narrative with supportive and joyous quotes.

“I can’t stop smiling”, said one local, happy to be quoted by Friends of the Earth.

“Coal is only a limited source”, said another, “and if we went into something like renewable energy there would be jobs for the future that would be guaranteed and reliable.”

A third was quoted as saying: “You wouldn’t allow someone to take over your back garden without putting up a fight.”

The quotes are interesting because, although they are undoubtedly a fair reflection of sentiment against the proposed mine, they do not in themselves address the issues surrounding potential mine developments like this.

Coal is a limited resource up to a point - but mining industry experts put that limit at around 300 years as far as the UK’s own coal deposits are concerned, depending on the prevailing coal price.

And as to taking over a back garden, that’s as classic a statement of nimbyism as you’re likely to find anywhere.

So what exactly are we dealing with here?

It’s true that coal mining is loud, dirty, and not particularly environmentally friendly.

The burning of coal contributes significantly to global warming and also to the creation of smog particulates in the air.

The Welsh know that as well as anyone - a famous Max Boyce joke from the 1970s finishes with a punchline involving a man from Llangyfelach being unable to distinguish the sun from the moon because of all the coal dust in the air.

But just how bad would this particular mine have been?

For a start, it’s worth noting that the mine wouldn’t have been that big. A big mine can mine upwards of two million tonnes of coal in a single year over a mine life of many decades. This mine would have done a fraction of that over a fraction of the time.

What’s more it would have done it using tried and tested modern methods. Miller Argent already operates one large open cast coal mine in the UK – the country’s largest, in fact – and so it does at least know what it’s doing when it comes to mining.

These are not fly-by-night newcomers riding the tails of a mining boom that’s now come and gone.

The company has already extracted five million tonnes of coal from its Ffos-y-fran mine in Merthyr Tydfil and plans to extract at least six million tonnes more.

It also plans extensive rehabilitation work when it’s done, including return the land surface to a quality fit for pastoral grazing.

And even while the mine is being worked the company still has one eye on the environment – a rare variety of Great Crested newt is thriving at Ffos-y-fran, and the company is proud of it.

Perhaps more significantly in a country that’s lost much of its industry in over the past decades, Miller Argent has created jobs.

Around 200 local people living within 10 miles of the mine also work there, and the plan at Nant Llseg was to create even more jobs.

In addition, Miller Argent supports community projects with hard cash, and revenue from production at Ffos-y-fran will contribute around £11 million directly into the local community.

The same type of deal was on offer at Nant Llseg too.

Naturally Miller Argent expressed disappointment at the council’s decision. It pointed out that the project would have created 239 jobs in the area and contributed roughly £1,000 worth of value to each local household via a benefit fund “which would have transformed the economic future for the area for the better”.

It was not to be. Or at least not yet.

There is an appeals process. How much money either side wants to pour into that remains open to question.

Friends of the Earth has said it will try to mobilise financial support for the council, should its legal bills start mounting up.

And as far as Miller Argent is concerned, it will have to weigh up whether the cash that Ffos-y-fran is generating would be wisely deployed in pursuing an already controversial cause at Nant Llseg.

With President Obama railing against the coal industry in the international media, now is a good time to be coming out as anti-coal.

But things may not look so quite so rosy if you were one of those 239 people who was hoping for a job at the end of the process.