Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nickbat]

Get the Pits opened again

Daz, you may well be on to something. I think we need to follow Germany's lead, where a substantial number of coal-fired power stations are being built. ANYTHING but relying on Russian gas and French nuclear. We need to be strategically independent in energy production.

Unfortunately, due to Maggies industrial vandalism, where she stopped the pumps so the mines flooded when they closed, it is in many cases impossible to reopen them. We were told at the time that this would render them unusable by future generations.. She did it to stop Government authority being contested by the mining unions again, but even Lord Tebbit admitted recently, it was a step too far and could / would have repercussions for future energy policies. 

In hindsight, it may have been a step too far but remember that Scargill was holding the country to ransom. There is also the fact that many would-be miners are not now dying of emphysema. These days, just three decades later, I would suggest that mining is safer.   

[Nickbat]

Booker gets it:

"Around lunchtime last Monday, for instance, National Grid was showing that all our 4,300 wind turbines put together were providing barely a thousandth of the power we were using, 0.1 per cent, or a paltry 31MW (as compared with the 2,200MW we can get from a single gas-fired plant).

The harsh fact is that successive governments in the past 10 years have staked our national future on two utterly suicidal gambles...

...Yet, at the same time, by devices such as the increasingly punitive “carbon tax” due to come into force on April 1, they plan to double the cost of the electricity we get from grown-up power stations, which can only have the effect in the coming years of doubling our electricity bills, driving millions more households into fuel poverty."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9889184/One-day-turning-off-the-lights-wont-be-up-to-you.html

 

[Rods2]

Don't worry Nick this article will cheer you up no end, knowing how all these expensive wind farms are saving CO2, oh err except they don't.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9889882/Wind-farms-will-create-more-carbon-dioxide-say-scientists.html

And just to cheer you up even further, an Australian scientist has been for sometime researching what happens when you have a significant amount of electricity generated by windmills. Well Germany has found out that you have major instability in supply in gusting winds, so much so industry has demanded the emergency building of coal powered stations, which are being built at the moment. But this Australian scientist has also found that the large numbers of base load coal and gas fired stains that you need to have running on idle ready to step in at short notice actually creates more CO2 than the wind turbines save. 

Still what the Liverpool Pathway doesn't kill along with lack of NHS care and waiting lists, will be killed by fuel poverty. I'm sure those in their 50's and 60's are really looking forward to this euthanasia their retirement. 

[Varche]

I saw an article that said we have only mined 25% of the coal under Britain. A company is looking at a viable way of extracting coal energy(in the form of gas) without expensive and dangerous mining operations. That might help (unless we give it to the Chinese so they can sell it back..............)

[Sir Tigger KC]

I saw an article that said we have only mined 25% of the coal under Britain. A company is looking at a viable way of extracting coal energy(in the form of gas) without expensive and dangerous mining operations. That might help (unless we give it to the Chinese so they can sell it back..............)

Isn't that what we used to do? When every town and city had it's own gas works? 

[STMO123]

None of the current domestic appliances would run on coal gas. So it would have to be doctored or used to supply power stations.

[Varche]

I saw an article that said we have only mined 25% of the coal under Britain. A company is looking at a viable way of extracting coal energy(in the form of gas) without expensive and dangerous mining operations. That might help (unless we give it to the Chinese so they can sell it back..............)

Isn't that what we used to do? When every town and city had it's own gas works? 

I don't know. Not old enough (hopefully). I do remember we used to go to the gasworks to buy coke to power our greenhouse heater. I always thought it was gas created on site. This new system pipes the created, from coal, gas out of the ground. Then could be used in power stations

[Sir Tigger KC]

We had a gas works in our little town and as boys we'd climb the fence at night and dare each other to climb to the top of the gasometer!   

The domed metal roof would cave in under the weight of a 12 year old boy and was bloody scary!!    I guess it was some sort of right of passage! 

[Lizzie_Zoom]

I saw an article that said we have only mined 25% of the coal under Britain. A company is looking at a viable way of extracting coal energy(in the form of gas) without expensive and dangerous mining operations. That might help (unless we give it to the Chinese so they can sell it back..............)

Isn't that what we used to do? When every town and city had it's own gas works? 

I don't know. Not old enough (hopefully). I do remember we used to go to the gasworks to buy coke to power our greenhouse heater. I always thought it was gas created on site. This new system pipes the created, from coal, gas out of the ground. Then could be used in power stations

Perhaps with only a few exceptions, the coal was brought in by trains regularly feeding the town gas works, such as the wonderfully interesting one down the road from where I lived as a child, the Highbrooms Gas Works, Tunbridge Wells.  In fact it was always interesting to see the coal trains come in usually by then pulled by a Standard 9F 2-10-0.  In fact my Great Aunt often took me for a walk and it was either the brickworks we went past on our way to a park, or the fascinating gas works!  All that smell of sulphur and smoke I can still smell, and I remember always taking note of how high or low the gasometer's were.  Just great fun and they just stirred my imagination.

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Get the Pits opened again

Daz, you may well be on to something. I think we need to follow Germany's lead, where a substantial number of coal-fired power stations are being built. ANYTHING but relying on Russian gas and French nuclear. We need to be strategically independent in energy production.

Unfortunately, due to Maggies industrial vandalism, where she stopped the pumps so the mines flooded when they closed, it is in many cases impossible to reopen them. We were told at the time that this would render them unusable by future generations.. She did it to stop Government authority being contested by the mining unions again, but even Lord Tebbit admitted recently, it was a step too far and could / would have repercussions for future energy policies. 

That is the romantic view.  In fact Maggie stopped the tremendous waste of taxpayers money in keeping open uneconomic pits that were many.  It was a past age and no more did the masses use coal for the home fires or the railways use coal to pull trains. No more did many industries that had used coal to power their machines do so.  In addition modern man did not want the awfully dirty, highly dangerous, and very uncomfortable job of mining coal along narrow tunnels.  To keep those pits mothballed would have been highly costly, and for no reason.  The country when Maggie came to power was on it's knees with outdated industries, requiring great subsidy, when the country was bust and fast "going down the toilet" as one American put it at the time with constant industrial disputes.

No, in short, if Britain wants more coal to be mined then it will be by way of  vast open cast mines being operated by modern machinery and a relatively small workforce.

[Rods2]

Get the Pits opened again

Daz, you may well be on to something. I think we need to follow Germany's lead, where a substantial number of coal-fired power stations are being built. ANYTHING but relying on Russian gas and French nuclear. We need to be strategically independent in energy production.

Unfortunately, due to Maggies industrial vandalism, where she stopped the pumps so the mines flooded when they closed, it is in many cases impossible to reopen them. We were told at the time that this would render them unusable by future generations.. She did it to stop Government authority being contested by the mining unions again, but even Lord Tebbit admitted recently, it was a step too far and could / would have repercussions for future energy policies. 

That is the romantic view.  In fact Maggie stopped the tremendous waste of taxpayers money in keeping open uneconomic pits that were many.  It was a past age and no more did the masses use coal for the home fires or the railways use coal to pull trains. No more did many industries that had used coal to power their machines do so.  In addition modern man did not want the awfully dirty, highly dangerous, and very uncomfortable job of mining coal along narrow tunnels.  To keep those pits mothballed would have been highly costly, and for no reason.  The country when Maggie came to power was on it's knees with outdated industries, requiring great subsidy, when the country was bust and fast "going down the toilet" as one American put it at the time with constant industrial disputes.

No, in short, if Britain wants more coal to be mined then it will be by way of  vast open cast mines being operated by modern machinery and a relatively small workforce.

Personally, I don't disagree with what Maggie did at the time, as she was making sure Governments authority wasn't going to be threatened by unelected left wing union members, some in the employ of the KGB, from challenging the Government's authority again. After Ted Heath was defeated by the unions (worst prime minister I have lived under to date and from what we now know a vile, vile man), Maggie made sure all the powers stations were full to the brim with coal, most of it imported from Poland before the miners strike started.

Without her taming of union power we would not have had the boom years from the mid-80s until 1997, the ERM fiasco under the Tory wets being the exception. Unfortunately, from 1997 (particularly from 2000) to 2008 where Gordon Brown let rip with public spending and many tax rises, this killed the golden goose, the fallout from which has already lasted 5 years with many more years to run.

I also wonder in the future with deep underground coal whether the we might actually produce coal dust and pump it out and use this, as it is the most efficient way to burn coal in power stations where you inject it like fuel into a furnace. But it has to be handled carefully as it can cause explosions! 

[ozzycat]

Get the Pits opened again

Daz, you may well be on to something. I think we need to follow Germany's lead, where a substantial number of coal-fired power stations are being built. ANYTHING but relying on Russian gas and French nuclear. We need to be strategically independent in energy production.

Unfortunately, due to Maggies industrial vandalism, where she stopped the pumps so the mines flooded when they closed, it is in many cases impossible to reopen them. We were told at the time that this would render them unusable by future generations.. She did it to stop Government authority being contested by the mining unions again, but even Lord Tebbit admitted recently, it was a step too far and could / would have repercussions for future energy policies. 

That is the romantic view.  In fact Maggie stopped the tremendous waste of taxpayers money in keeping open uneconomic pits that were many.  It was a past age and no more did the masses use coal for the home fires or the railways use coal to pull trains. No more did many industries that had used coal to power their machines do so.  In addition modern man did not want the awfully dirty, highly dangerous, and very uncomfortable job of mining coal along narrow tunnels.  To keep those pits mothballed would have been highly costly, and for no reason.  The country when Maggie came to power was on it's knees with outdated industries, requiring great subsidy, when the country was bust and fast "going down the toilet" as one American put it at the time with constant industrial disputes.

No, in short, if Britain wants more coal to be mined then it will be by way of  vast open cast mines being operated by modern machinery and a relatively small workforce.

Personally, I don't disagree with what Maggie did at the time, as she was making sure Governments authority wasn't going to be threatened by unelected left wing union members, some in the employ of the KGB, from challenging the Government's authority again. After Ted Heath was defeated by the unions (worst prime minister I have lived under to date and from what we now know a vile, vile man), Maggie made sure all the powers stations were full to the brim with coal, most of it imported from Poland before the miners strike started.

Without her taming of union power we would not have had the boom years from the mid-80s until 1997, the ERM fiasco under the Tory wets being the exception. Unfortunately, from 1997 (particularly from 2000) to 2008 where Gordon Brown let rip with public spending and many tax rises, this killed the golden goose, the fallout from which has already lasted 5 years with many more years to run.

I also wonder in the future with deep underground coal whether the we might actually produce coal dust and pump it out and use this, as it is the most efficient way to burn coal in power stations where you inject it like fuel into a furnace. But it has to be handled carefully as it can cause explosions! 

totaly agree  with you their rods  if she had backed down who knows what kind ot sh1t we would be in now  i know its not good at the moment but it would have been 100 times as bad and we would all be comis now

[Vamps]

I remember the Strike very well, living in South Durham I was aware of many people affected by it, but I could also sit in a south Durham Pub and condemn it, along with the majority..... However, Maggie did what Scargill (sp?) said she would, but was not believed, closed all the mines and that was stupidity, there is coal for over 200 years still available

[albitz]

Personally I think she should have had Scargill (and several others) shot in front of his family and then gave the miners the evidence that he was p1ssing up their backs.Then told them to go back to work and have a long hard think about their misplaced loyalty while they were down there.
I was a young left wing TGWU shop steward during the strike,and although I tried to be loyal and show support,it was the thing that started me thinking that maybe this was all a bit wrong.
Theres no denying that all that cheap coal would be of great benefit to the U.K. currently.

[Sir Tigger KC]

Personally I think she should have had Scargill (and several others) shot in front of his family and then gave the miners the evidence that he was p1ssing up their backs.Then told them to go back to work and have a long hard think about their misplaced loyalty while they were down there.
I was a young left wing TGWU shop steward during the strike,and although I tried to be loyal and show support,it was the thing that started me thinking that maybe this was all a bit wrong.
Theres no denying that all that cheap coal would be of great benefit to the U.K. currently.

But would it be cheap?  If it wasn't viable to dig it out in the 1980's, why would it be viable now? 

Granted the price of coal has increased hugely since then, but so has everything else....