Anyone watching BBC1 tonite 9.00pm 'The Last Miners'

The issue is that coal 'wasn't needed' because the Govt of the day took a decision to destroy its market and load costs onto pits to make them 'uneconomic' - you can make a balance sheet say what you want - and has been alluded to - the clean coal technology (there was a plant at Grimethorpe) was flogged off - this was a deliberate policy decision to obliterate an industry - not a natural progression.

And isn't the current energy industry wonderful ? Hope this winter isn't too severe.

Oh and this ******** about EU clean air/greenhouse gas policy etc and we have to adhere...

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/germany-opens-another-new-coal-plant/

We don't have a balanced energy policy.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^withnobson^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I've always been of the opinion that the country should have a balanced energy policy

a) It negates any of the 'holding the country to ransom' quotes from politicians
b) Importing energy???
c) It circumvents the need to find replacements when the oil/gas deplete
d) Would have stopped the wholesale change in the social fabric of certain parts of the country (call centre job anyone?)
e) We (the brits) were global leaders in clean coal technology
f) subsidies to nuclear energy anyone?

 

I have never thought that coal "wasn't needed", only that many domestic customers switched to gas or electric central heating, thus destroying that sector of the market. Where do government decisions come into that argument?

I don't know what the balance was during the 70s and 80s between domestic and business use but I would have thought losing most of your household customers would have led to a surplus of coal if we had carried on bringing it to the surface at the same rate. Or am I mistaken?

 

The Govt worked towards swapping to gas fired power stations - whilst simultaneously loading costs onto UK produced coal to make imported coal look cheaper (poorer quality for burning in power stations but that didn't matter) = no market for UK coal.

 

Domestic markets are typically tiny in comparison to industrial markets.

However the general loss of heavy industry including some really heavy users like the steel works would have delivered the same effect that you note.

 

just out of interest,we still burn enough coal in power generation to keep an
industry of 40 1millon tonne pits in production.

 

You're a pillock

 

I'm sure that if a Conservative government had closed all those mines the NUM would have kicked up a huge fuss and gone on strike, it's all poilitical and hypocritical.

Thd NUM were a bunch of communists totally beholden to the Comitern, if the Soviets had invaded they would have had to be interned.

 

Nope it was just the scumbag Tories.

 

do some homework

the union did kick up a fuss when labour were shutting the pits in the 60's and there were localised strikes in opposition to it.The biggest difference was there were no redundancies,as men were offered work at neighbouring pits AND there was big investment going on in the industry.

 

Thanks Dekparker although I fear you've just wasted your bandwidth.

Some folk cannot accept that the so called guardians of Britain, the patriots, are actually more concerned with money and don't actually give a bollock abart their country or more importantly the folk within it.

 

Yes and the coal is awful quality stuff mainly imported from Poland.

I watched it on the iPlayer last night and there were a few soppy bits in it but on the whole it was entertaining and informative.

 

bulk of our imported coal comes from russia believe it or not,thats how ridiculous how energy policy is.

 

As others have said, we don't have an energy policy. At least not one beyond "let the market decide".

 

I'm probably behind the times....