Last mine gone

[Guest77]

End of an era, it costs us £43 quid to make and we can buy it for £30 quid, so we have decided to close the mine, and we have decided to buy from abroad where it is cheaper, is it sensible? is price the only reason and is jobs and creating our own coal more important than feeding the Russians? thoughts lads.

 

[Pete999]

Great Britain? another stab in the back for the sake of the almighty Dollar, what a bleeding waste of money,all the skills gone to waste, false economy IMO, and a drain on the social services, what are all the poor miners going to do? a travesty thats what it is a damn travesty, whoever made this god awful decision want's putting down.

 

[Octopus]

A daft decision if you ask me.

There was a resounding silence from all parties on this.

The UK has over 300 years of supplies, so lets hope the green tree hugging brigade learn in the future and re-open the ones that can be.

In the meantime China is burning more coal than most of the planet put together and don't get a fxck about emissions.

 

[plugsandsparks]

Tesco opened a petrol station near me and undercut their rival, cheap petrol ! - Happy days !! - then the rival stopped selling petrol and disappeared. Almost like magic Tesco increased the price beyond the market value. Even an idiot can see what will happen in the long term. A good time to buy shares in UK coal, if you ask me.

 

[Midwest]

Whilst depressing for the local economy and jobs, you have to look at wider picture. It seems that coal consumption is on the decline; Paris Climate Agreement Deals a Crushing Blow to Coal - Truthdig

Although there is an argument to the contrary; The Paris Agreement won't stop coal, but future climate talks might

And if you believe the media, gas will be next; Britain will have to scrap gas boilers and cookers as it panders to UN climate change deal | UK | News | Daily Express

Would love to be around in a 100 years from now. Think the only thing to be certain of, is electricity will still be in our homes. How we generate it, only time will tell.

 

[Barry White]

the mine has closed, now the power station it feeds has to go,lots of engineering firms nearby will be affected.
Now we have no deep mined coal the price will increase when we need it.
the money is going abroad and not being spent in the uk.

Its called putting your eggs in one basket. and the real reason they have shut it is carbon tax it doubled this year
Carbon floor price hike will trigger UK coal slowdown, say analysts | Environment | The Guardian

 

[Guest77]

Good comments lads, I am confused by it all, to close down working mines and to lay off workers who then need to claim benefits, proud hard working men, and then to buy the very same product we have loads of from Russia seems ridiculous to me. I appreciate 13 quid difference in the prices of it, but it makes no sence, we did it with other industry and if we carry on like this we will end up with nothing industry wise, surely creating our own has to be the way forward if we need coal, the powers that be need to sit down and look at other options concidering costs and ouput IMO. This cannot be good long term, the Russians are already holding us to ransom now over Gas, if we are to survive alone which may be the case once we have left the EU, then we need to create our own industry surely, pretty confused here.

 

[BES]

Acording to one report they are leaving £150 m of equipment underground. Mind you not much use to us no bloody miners left to us it. Sad times another 450 out of work a week before christmas and the max payout they are getting is 12 weeks pay.

 

[ian.settle1]

Acording to one report they are leaving £150 m of equipment underground. Mind you not much use to us no bloody miners left to us it. Sad times another 450 out of work a week before christmas and the max payout they are getting is 12 weeks pay.

And filling the shaft with concrete so if they wanted to reopen it they would have to sink a new shaft.

 

[Midwest]

Tis sad times, but times move on. Coal is old hat and we need a cleaner source of fuel. That said, when I did a bit of research on this thread, one of the main sources of contribution to global warming, was the fuel we burnt in our vehicles. Guess its easier to power our cars on petrol/diesel than nuclear/solar power!

 

[newtothis]

They were, doing interviews with minors leaving the PIT
One lad said, "he'll end up selling flat pack furniture at B&Q".
The reality is he'll be competing for that kind of work with people with Russian sounding accents, subsidised by 'in work benefits'.

Fracking - that's what 'they' want to do on a large scale.
They; being the relative few who will actually £££benefit.

Sorry just my personal feelings on the subject, they may not be factual.:evil2:

 

[Marvo]

.......I appreciate 13 quid difference in the prices of it, ......

How can it be nearly 45% more expensive to mine your coal locally in the UK than have it shipped half way around the planet? Surely that has to be the question?

 

[davesparks]

Tis sad times, but times move on. Coal is old hat and we need a cleaner source of fuel. That said, when I did a bit of research on this thread, one of the main sources of contribution to global warming, was the fuel we burnt in our vehicles. Guess its easier to power our cars on petrol/diesel than nuclear/solar power!

With today's technology a new coal fired plant could be a very clean source of power, but sadly not very trendy.

 

[ruston]

With today's technology a new coal fired plant could be a very clean source of power, but sadly not very trendy.

Yes the methods to burn coal clean have been around a long time now. We were blending low sulphur coal in the late seventies and supplying power stations.

 

[davesparks]

Yes the methods to burn coal clean have been around a long time now. We were blending low sulphur coal in the late seventies and supplying power stations.

Add the various flue gas technologies and I believe a very clean plant can be achieved

 

[ruston]

Yes , even then they were doing that to a degree , I'm not sure of the full technology , but to be honest it just was not wanted.
We went out of business, the mines and opencast run down, opencast up here here complimented deep mine coal with it's high quality to blend. We put a lot of coastal land back to a higher quality than it was before, made it suitable to farm , where it was not before . Made environmental sanctuaries out of wasteland , and drained land that was bogs, employed over 1000 people on one site
Then hero to zero, all on the dole at the whim of a certain PM.

 

[Barrie Patrick]

If their is No Market for coal how come we are buying it from Germany and Columbia as well as Russia?

Its probably cheaper to dig it out in Columbia because the miners, some apparently are little more than children, are not paid as much as ours, they're probably not as well trained as ours and they probably don't spend much profit on Health & Safety. Russia is probably not much different but once out the ground it has to be transported here which surely then has to make it cost more than our own mined coal at its point of use?

As for Germany they probably have some EU subsidy, that UK doesn't get or ignore a rule the UK doesn't break that makes their product cheaper.

During the Coal Miners strike in the 1980's I heard Arthur Scargill give a speech on how foreign coal was subsidised which made it appear it was cheaper than coal we mined here.

 

[ruston]

If their is No Market for coal how come we are buying it from Germany and Columbia as well as Russia?

Its probably cheaper to dig it out in Columbia because the miners, some apparently are little more than children, are not paid as much as ours, they're probably not as well trained as ours and they probably don't spend much profit on Health & Safety. Russia is probably not much different but once out the ground it has to be transported here which surely then has to make it cost more than our own mined coal at its point of use?

As for Germany they probably have some EU subsidy, that UK doesn't get or ignore a rule the UK doesn't break that makes their product cheaper.

During the Coal Miners strike in the 1980's I heard Arthur Scargill give a speech on how foreign coal was subsidised which made it appear it was cheaper than coal we mined here.

l can't highlight your comment on columbia,but suffice to say we had 'mines and quarries act' that made H&S look like mothercare.
We could produce a million tons a year on our site standing on our head,that was all we were allowed to do over our contractual tonnage We produced unwittingly a mountain to to overstock the underground miners to their demise. The game was subterfuge

 

[Midwest]

With today's technology a new coal fired plant could be a very clean source of power, but sadly not very trendy.

Be interested to know what happens to all the gases produced by burning coal?

 

[Octopus]

How can it be nearly 45% more expensive to mine your coal locally in the UK than have it shipped half way around the planet? Surely that has to be the question?

When Steel was being discussed, the Chinese workers get about £8 per week, whilst our workers need more than that for 1 hour!

Gordon Brown used to go on about "importing deflation" - but the way I see it is that the less we produce the long term problems will get bigger. Couple this to the drive to close down all the coal power stations..... whilst the Chinese keep openign new ones..........

 

[Marvo]

I think manufacturing is more important than the resources themselves. Far more profit is made and stronger economies built by turning the resources into something that's saleable than by trading in the actual resources themselves. Take many African countries for example, they're very resource rich and always have been but as countries they're economically poor.

 

[Richard Burns]

Be interested to know what happens to all the gases produced by burning coal?

Gases produced from burning coal are primarily oxides of carbon, sulphur and nitrogen in an effectively acidic medium, the heat breaks things down to basic compounds and elements, these can reform into dioxins and acids as the temperature drops so the gases tend to be quenched rapidly in water to avoid dioxin formation, the solids (dust and non soluble compounds) are removed from the water, the gas that is now cool can then be scrubbed (in high surface area "washers") to remove nitrogen compounds and neutralise the gases, residual dust can be filtered out either electrostatically or physically and the gas can also be cleaned by passing over absorbents that again neutralise and also trap dioxins and any remaining dust. The gases are now generally cleaner than city local air quality and can be discharged to atmosphere (via gas analysers to check for any remaining contaminants), normally at high temperature to remove any steam plume and to allow the gas to rise rapidly and disperse widely.

 

[Midwest]

Be interested to know what happens to all the gases produced by burning coal?

I only asked, because I read this; Can Coal Ever Be Clean?

 

[Richard Burns]

Carbon dioxide is not removed from the gas stream except minorly by water absorption.

 

[shanky887614]

End of an era, it costs us £43 quid to make and we can buy it for £30 quid, so we have decided to close the mine, and we have decided to buy from abroad where it is cheaper, is it sensible? is price the only reason and is jobs and creating our own coal more important than feeding the Russians? thoughts lads.

yes but if we mine it in this country at least 15 will be reinvested in our eco system so yes its more expensive but its better for us in the long run.