Partly from ignorance, he didn't realise who much coal was stockpiled at powerstations to ride out a strike (unforgivable lack of preparation on his part really)

Why didn't his friends in the power supply unions tell him?

As I understand it, he simply didn't bother to ask.

Vanoord, the pit closures would have been on a far smaller scale if it hadn't been for the strike. In the end it became an issue centered around breaking the power of the Unions, the loss of coal mining was incedental to Thatcher as far as I can see

Putting history in it's rightful place and considering the future.

I gather that we will be seeing Windfarms exposed as the fiasco they are in the next 10 years, as well as man made climate change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report 

The hirsch report suggests gearing up properly to minimise the peak oil pinch. I'd say that there will be a twofold pressure on getting coal mining out in the next decade or two.

1. CO2 driven climate change will be blown out of the water due to the solar forcing backing off. Hence the lines of mean earth temp and RELEASED CO2 will diverge. Models out the window.

2. Since renewable energy (wind/wave) will be shown to not meet the needs by lifecycle data, there will be an increased drive to get the coal we do have working.

This will happen on a Euro wide scale and Europe will be requiring ours and German coals.

Nuke power is looking less likely as I gather from a mates dad (who is Mr Nuclear) saying there is nothing big enough in the pipes.

The awareness of the criteria in the Hirsch Report and the urgency to actually do something will result in pits reopening... perhaps on a fair old scale.

I only hope they are not still banging on about tax gas / plantfood gas / CO2 (delete as appropriate according to your POV) and burying it, which in my opinion and having perused the data to great length, think CO2 is utterly minor in the grand scheme of things. Burying it is just a huge waste of energy.

Anyway.... mostly IMO

No not dropped, Thrown.... I raised my kids to always do the right thing! 😉

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having read the thread some thoughts
1.reopening deep mines-sorry never happen,the cost in time and money to put right the damage will be to much.so new deep mine shafts and pitheads.whose back yard do we put them in and as few new houses are built on rafts who pays the subsidence claims?
2.even in a national emergency people wil kick up a stink,vale of bevior was planned as 3 mines,only 1 sunk and it never drew a cobble of coal off a face,closed as uneconomic by private industry
3.workforce i was made redundant in 93 from littleton(3rd highest proven reserves in the country) aged 33,im now 48 and never going back down.even with enough voluenteers how many people will you need to train them and where can you train them without affecting production-caphouse,big pit?
how many trained miners will there be in the EU by the time any deep mines are ready for production,might they even be needed in their own countries?
4.to be able to fight for themselves-health & safety etc men will need a union which will be the NUM. i speak as an ex num official and in my view the tories needed to try and break the NUM so the strike would have happened one way or another no matter who was the NUM leader
politics and history over. new deep mines into fresh reserves only.who would be willing to resink,rehead,salvge and reinstall a 15-18 year old pit for no money and lots of danger and backbreaking toil,sorry but not i 😉

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having read the thread some thoughts
1.reopening deep mines-sorry never happen,the cost in time and money to put right the damage will be to much.so new deep mine shafts and pitheads.whose back yard do we put them in and as few new houses are built on rafts who pays the subsidence claims?
2.even in a national emergency people wil kick up a stink,vale of bevior was planned as 3 mines,only 1 sunk and it never drew a cobble of coal off a face,closed as uneconomic by private industry
3.workforce i was made redundant in 93 from littleton(3rd highest proven reserves in the country) aged 33,im now 48 and never going back down.even with enough voluenteers how many people will you need to train them and where can you train them without affecting production-caphouse,big pit?
how many trained miners will there be in the EU by the time any deep mines are ready for production,might they even be needed in their own countries?
4.to be able to fight for themselves-health & safety etc men will need a union which will be the NUM. i speak as an ex num official and in my view the tories needed to try and break the NUM so the strike would have happened one way or another no matter who was the NUM leader
politics and history over. new deep mines into fresh reserves only.who would be willing to resink,rehead,salvge and reinstall a 15-18 year old pit for no money and lots of danger and backbreaking toil,sorry but not i 😉

Interesting reading Cobba :)

The person who I mentioned earlier, who'd been a site manager on the construction of Drax said the largest problem they had was keeping skilled men between big jobs and that they'd sometimes end up doing other work at a loss just to keep hold of the men.

I wonder if the dreadful state of the coal industry means that it's gone too far to be recovered, even if someone wanted to open up pits again?

I'm going to stray into slightly dangerous territory and suggest that protectionism of jobs is a sensible policy and that we should tax imports if they threaten British jobs.

The coal that flowed into places like Glasson Dock in 1984/5 from Poland was only the start of something that has gone on to cripple the UK's mining and manufacturing industry and as we can see now, the financial sector can't be relied on.

We'd have been a lot better off maintaining our heavy industries and protecting them against cheaper imports by imposing import taxes than trying to "help" the third world by allowing a near-free run to sell us goods - and then watching them destroy 300 years of industry.

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ICLOCK wrote "The UK as a whole has its problems",I couldn't agree more and as for Cobba, I don't blame you one little bit mate.
It is all very well fr the rest of us to wax lyrical about such and such a mine or surface remains, but mine exploration is a far cry from working in such a place.
Mining is hard dirty dangerous work and always will be irrespective of what is being mined and anyone that ventures underground for a living is a better man than I.
However there are men that will and they must be given all the backing possible.
Successive governments certainly since the war have been more or less lukewarm so far as mining is concerned, and an island blessed with natural resources such as ours this is nothing more than a disgrace
The message should go out loud and clear to Westminster or any NIMBY that wants to drive a car or switch on a light,

If it can't be grown it has to be mined
🅱

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The person who I mentioned earlier, who'd been a site manager on the construction of Drax said the largest problem they had was keeping skilled men between big jobs and that they'd sometimes end up doing other work at a loss just to keep hold of the men.

I wonder if the dreadful state of the coal industry means that it's gone too far to be recovered, even if someone wanted to open up pits again?

I'm going to stray into slightly dangerous territory and suggest that protectionism of jobs is a sensible policy and that we should tax imports if they threaten British jobs.

The coal that flowed into places like Glasson Dock in 1984/5 from Poland was only the start of something that has gone on to cripple the UK's mining and manufacturing industry and as we can see now, the financial sector can't be relied on.

We'd have been a lot better off maintaining our heavy industries and protecting them against cheaper imports by imposing import taxes than trying to "help" the third world by allowing a near-free run to sell us goods - and then watching them destroy 300 years of industry.

Streuth are we starting a Free Trade debate. To quote Adam Smith.

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.

I'm off to batten down the hatches. 🙂

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Vanoord.... Phew.... I admire your sentiment and welcome your honesty, at least you've said what so many of us believe!!!

I used to marvel at the loaded import coal trains that passed each other (SW to NE and NE to SW) in my region carrying coal that was £1.62p per ton cheaper than uk!!!, I am sure the savings by the buyers outwayed the cost of keeping people on the dole and benefited the economy far more... cough... cough.... than supporting british coal products...

And of course the profit in the country of origin all goes to those poor low paid workers not into the mining corps with little or no social concience.

I agree, we should be a bit more protectionist.... but a series of ministers with some idea of what they were talking about re future energy would have helped!

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I remember hearing a governement minister say on Radio 4 at about that time "We have to reduce our coal mining output to allow more capacity for imported coal".

Another thing that helped the hag with a bag was Scargill himself. He was, long before he became NUM leader, a "popular hate figure" (if that isn't a contradiction in terms), so any thing he said was mostly disbelieved, twisted, etc, by large sections of the media.

Vanoord.... Phew.... I admire your sentiment and welcome your honesty, at least you've said what so many of us believe!!!

Well count me out, I don't believe.

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So we are back to were we started and where the UK is now.... Our glorious and wonderful leaders (Both Con & Lab)have conducted a wonderful free market experiment that has failed not only in the UK but Globally.... especially in the UK, where we have been herded into a so called service economy reliant on selling services to each other
But there are only so many burgers, TVs, insurance policies, cars, computers, IT items and DIY products you can 'Brass Plate" then sell to each other before you have to manufacture something. If you aren't making the Burgers, IT equipment to do your job, TV's that you sell and the DIY products etc in the UK, then you're importing them and it does not matter how you phrase it or box it up, the manufacturer or oversea distributor gets the money not the UK.
GB is a crazy place with regards to energy policy, we should use the assets we own if still viable and think of the job creation prospects for new clean coal plants thus creating real jobs and a real products that the public has to have- electricity. Having control over your energy supplies is economically crucial, we should also consider nuclear too. What we certainly don't want is to end up being strangled by foreign coal, gas & oil suppliers in the future raping us for every penny because of so called rising demand elsewhere or due to some snot nosed youth in a suit gambling on oil futures etc, they will milk us for all its worth. The same greed that will shove up energy prices so high that we won't be having this debate as it will cost too much to turn the PC on.

Sadly having destroyed most of our engineering and skills bases, could we even build the installations let alone manufacture the components? I don't know and I work with the industries concerned!!.

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I agree entirely regarding energy policy. Or rather the lack of one. There hasn't been a coherent policy in this country since the destruction of the coal industry. IMHO there should have been a three pronged policy in place years ago based on nuclear, coal and gas, with renewables as a back up. Planning regs. should have been revised to avoid the lifetime in delays in getting nuclear schemes off the ground. One of the problems was that successive goverments avoided making decisions on matters nuclear for fear of the political fall out.

Putting all you eggs in one basket is a particularly precarious policy. It might be okay if the chickens were in our own backyard but not if they reside elsewhere.

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Love the Chicken analogy!!!! 🙂

You phrased that well..... all we seem to be doing is bouncing from one proposal to another whilst sorting nothing.... I think this is one of the UK's most pressing issues :thumbsup:
(least we agree on that) 😉

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Who says its failed?!?
We are in a recession...we will be out of it come late 2009/2010
We are all far more prosperous now than we were 25 years ago
We are a nation that all own our own houses/two cars/shares/pensions/big TVs etc etc...
There is little real unemployment - most people being made redundant at the moment will find new jobs in the very short term.
Britain still has an excellent manufacturing base - here in Sheffield we manufacture more steel now than we have ever done at any point in our history
Specialist manufacturing for the aerospace and oil and gas sectors is booming...
So whats the problem...what countries can we point to as examples of countries that have done better than us?
The so called "command" economies beloved of armchair socialists?
The

YWho says its failed?!?
We are in a recession...we will be out of it come late 2009/2010,
Even the the CBI are saying that we won't and even the government are back peddling saying its going to be a long haul!
We are all far more prosperous now than we were 25 years ago.
We are a nation that all own our own houses/two cars/shares/pensions/big TVs etc etc...
Thats the problem, you might be and the people you know might be but I am sorry but that is simply not a true statement as its Paid for by a £1.25Trillion personal debt that will never get re-paid, and is now looking unsustainable. And am sorry but the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger.
There is little real unemployment - most people being made redundant at the moment will find new jobs in the very short term.
Yes at minimum wage on a contract basis probably packing boxes or some other unskilled mind numbing task! I have a family member high in the governments D of W & P and know alot of facts re the contraction of professional jobs in order to reduce wage bases and the debasement of skills based jobs to unskilled to reduce costs.
Britain still has an excellent manufacturing base - here in Sheffield we manufacture more steel now than we have ever done at any point in our history
Where is all this engineering then, I'm paid to sign off lots of engineering products?, I have spent £millions a year buying engineering products too, 80% of which I had to buy abroad as I cant get the rest here as all the old companies have either gone or buy abroad then brass plate and sell it in the Uk as British but at high price... thus the manufacturing profits still go abroad, and the government falsley claims the output.
Oh as for steel according to the 2008 uk figures we now make less using far less people
Specialist manufacturing for the aerospace and oil and gas sectors is booming...
Ok so thats taken care of 0.01% of the workforce who have specialist skills in a high return industry but that does not provide low level permanent jobs, even at BAE they are reducing numbers by efficiency gains, still the redundant can work in Lidl or pack boxes! Why are RR laying off then??
So whats the problem...what countries can we point to as examples of countries that have done better than us?
Non of them in the G8 as mostly they too are saddled with huge debt and a self created recession based on borrowing and greed.
I'm not a socialist but I do have a social concience and am proud to say I have friends from Bog cleaners to Judges and evry where between, and I have a job that brings me face to face with market realities.
http://www.howitends.co.uk/introduction.php http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_r/Rolls_Royce/20081121_downsizing_hits.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7674050.stm http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6cec75e0-7e4d-11dd-b1af-000077b07658.html http://www.independent.co.uk/money/loans-credit/for-the-first-time-britons-personal-debt-exceeds-britains-gdp-462825.html http://www.needanadviser.com/html/article.php/cntid/6534/zcid/12/type/news .http://www.independent.ie/business/european/uk-banks-predict-prolonged-downturn-cbi-says-1333315.html 
Without a massive re-think re how we live spend and work the future is not clever..... and every professional finance co such as KPMG are saying the same!
People are simply not being realistic! You can't talk a country out of recession, it will take strong leadership and where is that gonna come from given the muppets available in both parties. I buy British whenever I can and I support industry in Britain but still have to be realistic!

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Here, here, ICLOK :thumbsup:

You only have to look at the activities (?) of the SWRDA as discussed at length on previous threads to see all that you have stated. They even wanted to close one factory making 200 employees redundant in the process to see the short sightedness of it (I am sure Knocker and/or Stuey will provide details of that company).

If you want to get really depressed there is a series of films on Utube highlighting the financial greed that killed of our manufacturing industry in the late 70s 80s mainly by businessmen who took over companies simply to asset strip them. I will try and hunt out the links later.

This is the link to the first episode of the video. Each episode is in two parts.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=3281665019508672875&ei=mpoxSZSYMZOQiQK5wsmXCw&q=mayfair+set 

I will leave you to work through the other clips, that is Ep 1, Part 1.

Nothing surprises me and I would love to see the links.... If I'm negative about the economy its because I am very close to it and see all the underhand deals, b**lshit schemes, quality jobs replaced by low paid crap, false economies and so on.

We have a very hard time coming and I tell you now unless people pull their heads out of their A**es and start challenging the things done in their names by the suits the future will be a very socially, financially and morally bankrupt one.

Watch for credit card debt next, was with some bankers in a Washington hotel who had just been discussing the looming crisis on personal debt in a conference, they reckon thats the next financial Sunami coming our way.... apparently Britain has set a new first as its populations persoal debt is now bigger than our GDP 😮

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25 years ago Weardale was a prosperous valley, there was investment in mining fluorspar and we had a cement works in full operation.
The last spar mine closed in 1999 a victim of falling fluorspar prices due to the Chinese flooding the market in search of foreign revenue, closely followed by the closure of the cement works, bought by a French company and closed down to fix a perceived oversupply in the market despite making 9 million profit in its final year of operation.

One Northeast were given the challenge of regeneration for the area and eight + years later we have nothing to show for it. They've spent a few hundred thousand on consultancy fees and come up with a master plan involving some kind of eco theme tourist village on the site of the old cement works.
This, they claim, has the support of the local population (no one I know!) the only guy they can find to quote in every press release is the owner of the pub next to the site.

What a total waste of time and money.

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having had a sleep and a bit more thought
1.where do we source new equipment.anderson strathclyde no longer exist(they GAVE china 1 or more roadheaders in the 80,s according to their own reps),dosco are still going but are not as large,joy have a unit by the m1 in notts.thats just the machines,what about gullick dobson,huwood,fsw,eimco and dowty meco for all the other equipment needed.
2.do we build the pits first or the power stations and do we build them together at one site
3.i said to friends in 93 that my generation and the one after would be dead before any new pits were built sothat it would be a "green" labour force.call me a cynic but im still thinking on that time scale.
4.a bit off thread but there was the Plan for Coal circa 1974 i think with a national planned production of 80-100 million tonnes
5.if we do end up with large scale coal production again do we export any excess.remember that a lot of the coal ports are import only.our local tory mp assured us that avonmouth at bristol was for export as well.found out last year he was telling porkys
6.just a thought but is there a museum or somewhere with any mining equipment ie ab 16,22,am500 shearers,dosco sl 120,mk 2a.mk2b,dintheaders.rh 25,rh 22 roadheaders.eimco and gullick fsv,s possibly a new thread
7.work at a 1000MW coal station now.a lock down exercise is being carried out today in case of environmental protesters.if one was to get in a P.F. mill and it started would it be classed as burning solid and liquid biomass :offtopic:

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