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Tamarmole
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

9 years ago

18.12.2015. End of deep coal mining in Britain.

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sinker
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

"Tamarmole" wrote:

End of deep coal mining in Britain.

12 noon I believe.... 😞

Yma O Hyd....

Grumpytramp
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

Thinking back to my youth, it seems inconceivable that such a massive and important industry, which I had expected to keep me in gainful employment for all my years, would be finished before I had even completed my working life :(

Even more poignant for me is that Kellingley Colliery was where my career in mining began.

So coal joins the ever growing list of lost British industries

Margot
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

And if it's up to the current government, the renewable energy sector won't replace it...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34946228

watchman
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

They said on the news today that trains full of imported coal pass the site every day. What a crazy situation.

ncbnik
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

I never thought I'd see the day, a very sad day. Even Arthur Scargill and Derek Ezra surely couldn't have forseen this in their worst nightmares. My copy of the 'Plan For Coal' is now, alas, just a footnote in history.

There's a march tomorrow (19th), around noon, from Knottingley Town Hall to commermorate 'the end'.

John Lawson
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

It is very disappointing end to one of the great industries of our country.
Unfortunately once they closed our local opencast pits I knew it was just a matter of time.
I had always, naively thought, that we should always be able to work coal opencast and compete with anyone in the world.
It seemed to me all you had to do was dig it out and load it into coal wagons to be taken away, but clearly there must be hidden costs there, which forced the closure of all of the Nith valley strip mines.

sparlad
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

John, I think that the hidden cost is they have to pay decent wages. Much cheaper to get desperate people in south america to work a 60+ hour week with little or nothing in the way of safety procedures.

Morlock
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

May be of interest, sorry about the source.;D

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12058456/IEA-sees-peak-coal-as-demand-crumbles-in-China.html

More of his pearls here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/

Yorkshireman
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#10

It was even on the main evening news on most TV channels in Germany.

The end is in sight here, too - Marl (Auguste Victoria), also closed today - the first of the last three collieries in Germany to stop production.

tiger99
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#11

The coal fired power stations are closing at a much faster rate that alternative reliable sources are being introduced. We may get through this winter, but, next winter, expect severe power cuts.

We can't even blame Cameron for that. The timescales involved are long, and the current problem began when Benn was Secretary of State for energy in the Wilson government, and stated that there was no need to rush the decision on new nuclear plants. Well, actually there was, and finally the decision on Hinkley C came far too late to fill the energy gap.

Each party has been playing about to try to make the power cuts happen when the other party is in power, knowing that when it happens the government will fall.

The loss of the coal mining industry is a side effect of the only thing that concerns politicians, the quest for power.

Coggy
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#12

Ha hahahaha. Windmill and arrays of solar panels will provide our power as gas becomes illegal -
the Paris climate change deal spells the beginning of the end for cooking and heating with gas, experts claimed yesterday.
Within 15 years, British families may have to start phasing out gas cookers, fires and boilers if the UK is to meet new tougher targets aimed at halting rises in global temperature.
The United Nations agreement to stop global warming, approved by 195 countries at a summit in Paris after two weeks of intense negotiations, commits nations to reducing greenhouse gases from 2020 onwards to halt climate change.
[i]

if eight out of ten cats all prefer Whiskas
Do the other two prefer Lesley Judd ?

J25GTi
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#13

What is funny about that?

Gas is a thing of the past, and cooking and heating with it are one of the largest wastes of energy out there.

Houses won't be using energy from the grid to heat and power their homes as much in the future as the cost will become prohibitive.

Heating, hot water and electric can be had from solar panels on the roof, and even heating your water to35degress can almost half the amount of energy needed to maintain your 60degrees.

Bbattery arrays are improving to allow you to store your generated electric, so solar power will become viable in the near future.

And then there is the invent of air and ground source heat pumps which can produce ~20kw of heating for 3kw of electrical input...... Your gas boiler can't do that....

So the death of gas won't be a bad thing, it also means less reliance on russia etc for imports of gas!

Vanoord
54.4% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#14

I think my gas boiler is 94% efficient?

What really is inefficient is using gas in a power station that's only switched on when the wind isn't blowing, bringing it up to temperature, using it for a few hours and then switching it off again.

Not to mention the energy loss in converting the gas to electricity, changing the voltage, sending it around the grid, converting the voltage again to deliver it to a house and then using it in a boiler.

Gas power stations are positively bonkers compared with piping the raw material into houses and using it directly.

You want carbon-free, reliable electricity that's produced 24/7/365? Build nuclear power stations.

:off-topic:

Back on topic - we allow tariff-free coal imports from countries with low wages and low regulation. What did we expect?

Hello again darkness, my old friend...

ncbnik
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#15

Not only coal imports; as if to mock us, whilst we were marching, two train-loads of wood chips, imported from the USA, were hauled past en-route to a power station only around 5 miles from Kellingley.

By the way i've posted a few pictures of the march on Kellingley's page. I'm not the world's best 'snapper' but I thought it should be documented.

ttxela
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#16

For domestic buildings I think better building standards and insulation will be the way forward. A few years ago I had a look around the 'Passivhaus' examples at the BRE's place in Enfield. They had no heating system to speak of, just relied on keeping in the heat from people and cooking etc. inside the house with just a trickle to back it up.

exspelio
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#17

Went on an alternative energy course a few years back, after a long debate and some number crunching, came to the decision that the most environmentally friendly and efficient answer was a diesel generator for each household--

Although, after more consideration, maybe a wood burning steam engine driven generator??

Always remember, nature is in charge, get it wrong and it is you who suffers!.

Peter Burgess
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#18

Just wearing warmer clothes indoors would help!

exspelio
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#19

"ttxela" wrote:
For domestic buildings I think better building standards and insulation will be the way forward. A few years ago I had a look around the 'Passivhaus' examples at the BRE's place in Enfield. They had no heating system to speak of, just relied on keeping in the heat from people and cooking etc. inside the house with just a trickle to back it up.

That's OK, unless you live in a Grade2 listed building in a National Park, double glazing not allowed, wooden frames essential, 2ft thick stone walls, though it is useful to deter cold callers--(Everest, etc.)

Always remember, nature is in charge, get it wrong and it is you who suffers!.

JohnnearCfon
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

9 years ago

#20

"exspelio" wrote:

That's OK, unless you live in a Grade2 listed building in a National Park, double glazing not allowed, wooden frames essential, 2ft thick stone walls, though it is useful to deter cold callers--(Everest, etc.)

Any such regulations can only apply to new buildings. There will always be vast numbers of "old" buildings that people live or work in that cannot be upgraded to that extent (even without being listed or in a national park). I live in a 19C stone cottage (not listed or in a NP I am glad to say) it does have double glazing and the latest standard of loft insulation, but it still needs a fair amount of energy to heat it properly.