Question about the mining industry

theres hundreds of years of coal left in this country, were built on it self sufficiant and dont let anybody tell you any different, least of all a politician

 

Really interesting thread - thanks to all contributors. Despite having a grandfather who was a miner and going to school in a mining village my knowledge of the subject was sorely tested by my Politics "A" level studying daughter last night. Can anyone recommend a book that gives a balanced account of the history and the rise and fall of the coal industry in the uk? Cheers

 

Our own coal fired plants won't be closing as scheduled because the alternative is that the lights are going off. We will need wind turbines all over the shop to get anywhere near what coal can achieve. And even then you would need to store the wind energy by other means such as pumped storage schemes like Dinorwic, so you can supply the electricity when it's needed. We are going down the gas route medium term but I'm not sure they will be ready on time for the coal power station closedowns. We will end up a busted flush.

 

I was in Germany at that time Gimmer, working in the chemical industry near Frankfurt. The first thing that struck us Brits was that the works canteen was totally egalitarian. You bought your food tickets at the start of the week and everyone had a hot meal. When you queued up for your food you took the next seat and so did the MD. You could be sitting next to the yard sweeper one day and the chairman the next. Everyone talked to each other, everyone worked hard and there was no strife. In England they were arm wrestling over who was better than the next man. The class system is the most destructive element in our society, but it's gone on for hundreds of years, the wealth has polarised and no-one knows how to get out of it. Oddly enough the German union system was based on ours and our union leaders advised their's on how to implement it. Good job for them that they didn't listen.

 

For anyone with an interest get yourselves to the Mining Museum - good, cheap day out and a massive eye opener to conditions that your families worked in.

Also a strong theme of the working man being **** on by the powers that be.

 

If mining was finished, at least in the so-called first world, ask yourself why both Germany and the USA are still 2 of the biggest coal producers in the world today.

 

Two closed in march 2 GW

 

mining is far from finished,for anyone interested google mining jobs in Australia,,then imagine if those jobs were here and the amount of money that would be generated.

 

dek, i worked at frickley in the early 70's down the "big pit" 104's hooton/dunsil when it was under developement

 

Interesting that you were in the chemicals industry. When I left the steel industry I worked for 4 years as a management consultant with ICI Paints and with ICI's National Starch division. My experience there was similar to that I'd seen in steel - the UK plants were run on a different model to their German/French/Italian/Dutch/Swedish counterparts. In summary, the UK management team was hung up on status and protecting their own positions, while everywhere else (with the possible exception of the French) the culture was way more open and inclusive. Perhaps instructive that most of ICI (including ICI Paints) is now owned by Akzo Nobel (the Dutch multi-national).

 

That had crossed my mind. Obviously they have a huge advantage with their relative proximity to China, but even so, what is happening in the extraction industries in Australia serves to underline just how short sighted decimating our own mining industry was.

 

I was with Cassella and wasn't doing much more than labouring, but I was young then and not bothered. We did dyestuffs for other industries, probably ICI paints, but notably VW cars. Cassella was part of the Hoecht group and I was amazed at the age of some of the equipment we were using. Whilst over here it was all about modernisation over there they sweated every asset.

 

great thread.....education is knowledge.......ex wath main and treeton.

 

I went down wath main when I was doing my training at manvers,our instructor Judd Whitley used to work there,we walked across the pit top on the lines that ran to manvers washer.
cortonwood was my first pit.