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HO - I wish you'd been around to comment on Dave Rutledge's post. It was hard work trying to convince certain folks that UK coal mines were closed for economic and political reasons and not because they were empty of coal.
I posted some stuff on UK trade balance and on that basis will bet (yes another pint of Guinness) that we hear about plans to expand deep coal mining in the UK within a couple of years. Quite simply, the UK will be importing oil, gas and coal - and the trade balance which is already shot to Hell will be heading down the toilet. I think we will see a drive to produce as much indigenous energy as possible. Poiliticians will mumble about clean coal technology - if we are lucky that may involve SO2 scrubbers - but I think we can forget CO2 sequestration. Economics of deep UK coal can be modified by subsidies and employing E European miners perhaps.
If you get a chance to do so, I'd really apprecaite an authoratitive review of UK coal - resources, reserves, produced, economics - with maps and data tables - if that's not too mauch to ask:-)
I was down a coal mine once - beneath the Firth of Forth I seem to recall - and there they were alowing the roof to collapse behind the work face. The strata were dipping at some 30 degrees and it was scary as Hell to pear into the abyss that lay beyond the line of roof supports. Room and pillar is clearly not that efficient on the recovery front and you have to feel that this is selected on grounds of safety and operational efficiency. If there was a feeling that the resource was scarce - I'm sure they'd find another way.
How many times have we said "Peak Oil is not running out of oil, but running out of cheap oil"?
Peak Coal is not running out of coal, it is running out of cheap coal. The politics of coal in the UK is a red herring, it is like saying Peak Oil is about geopolitics. Politics is not going to change the EROEI of coal extraction in the UK. Call EROEI "economics" if you wish. At the time the pits were closed, extraction was becoming commercially unviable.
Even if we could produce more coal, CCS would make the econmoics worse, and we don't want coal without CCS. UK coal is dead and buried. Get over it! Surely we have better things to discuss, rather than trying to revive a dead industry.
I do not see an argument on why it can't be that the UK has used other sources of energy (Oil and NG) when these have been cheap and now will return to coal? What is cheap coal?
I guess the world economy would not like a trippling in the price of coal, but if that will double the coal reserves of the world, we are going to burn more coal, simply because other alternatives are even dearer. A worse eroei is not a problem as long as the kwh is cheeper than the alternatives.
A negavtive eroei would of cource stop exploration, but how do you know that a little bit deeper coal seams would give us that?
Comrade Bob, I thinks its time you started posting you're eroei data comparing UK deep coal with surface mined S African and Australian coal, including transportation costs to the UK but ignoring the differnt sulphur contents.
I have no problem accepting that the eroei for surface mined coal may be higher - but is this deterministic? I'm equally sure that the eroei of ME oil is much higher than N Sea oil - and yet we still produce N Sea oil - strange isn't it?
I think one of the main reasons UK coal is not favoured is high sulphur content. And so, like Safaniyah crude, it is unpopular with the market for so long as alternatives exist. But it sure as hell still exists and will be burned one day - that is UK coal and Safaniyah crude.
Why do you keep repeating this nonsense? Please refer me to any study prior to 1984 that mentions the energy required to extract and transport coal in the UK. Informed opinion in the UK coal industry was aware of « Peak Oil » in the early 1960s. I quote Dr Schumacher again, Economic Advisor the National Coal Board from his article « European Coal in the year 2000 » from the German revue « Schlågel und Eisen » February 1963
« According to all the conclusions of a careful investigation of the future, one must accept that the world is approaching a period of energy shortage that will be tied to lasting price increases for all imported fuels. This will not occur immediately…The need for a careful, responsible policy of conservation of the European coal industry should no longer be in doubt. It is clear that that not only the position in the world but the very existence of Western Europe would be seriously endangered if she were faced with an unfillable energy gap. Such a situation does not need to last long before it shakes the political and economic institutions to their foundations. »
Despite the now obvious correctness of Schumacher’s argument, the Thatcher Government sterilised some 6000 million tons of easily extracted, concentrated carbon. If it were true that UK reserves are down to 200 million tons, this must rank as one of the largest acts of vandalism ever by a Government. Fortunately, I suspect it is not true: that there is a lot more coal still down there. It will require a minimum of 10 years to construct new collieries and I was told this morning that Meridian Television (a UK digital channel ) had a program about a month ago about an feasibility study that a private company was undertaking to reopen Betteshanger colliery. I will try to get a video. BTW the private company is Chinese.
Whatever. Lap up what the National Coal Board says. Blame the right wing government. Of course, we believe what KSA says about it's oil reserves, why would they lie? Peak Oil? Nah, it's just lack of investment and politics. Why, there are trillions of barrels of oil yet to be produced.
When annual UK coal production shows a year on year increase, get back to me. Otherwise don't bother.
Again, could we have some evidence please rather than a stupid rant.
It's not up to me to prove the negative. The case for renewed investment is your claim, it's up to you to show some convincing reasons why anyone should put their money into coal mining.
The facts speak for themselves. UK annual coal production has declined since the peak in 1910, and that trend shows no sign of changing. More pits are closing than opening. If this trend reverses, then maybe you have something.
The former Betteshanger colliery has been redeveloped at a cost of £18 million to office, light industrial and leisure use. I guess the Chinese deal fell through.
Instead of looking back to past glories, we need to be investing in less polluting energy sources like wind and solar.
Straw man - nobody's asking you to prove a negative. Nobody's even asking you to prove anything.
What they appear to be asking is that you provide evidence for your apparent claim that UK coal production's decline is irreversible; i.e., that UK coal production is low for geological and EROEI reasons rather than for political or economic reasons. Large coal deposits are known and located in the UK; you are asserting that they are not being mined due to physical constraints. That is a positive assertion, and requires evidence to back it up.
In response, you've provided only semi-coherent rants. Those aren't evidence, no matter how strongly you believe them.
WTF does "not" mean? Hey, is that a negative? "irreversible" is also a negative. You ARE asking me to prove a negative, so don't lie.
Anyway, I am not arguing there is no longer coal down there, nor am asserting there are physical limits. Those are YOUR strawmen, so another lie.
I agree! It is for economic reasons. The "political" decision that was made was to stop subsidising a loss-making industry. QED.
If you think that the economic or political stance will change in the future, it is up to you to provide evidence for that.
Thanks for poking your nose in, but your objections are not even semi-coherent!
You'll have to excuse Pitt. He often confuses posters on this board for the demons in his head.
The system where the roof is allowed to collapse behind the miners is called longwall mining. Obviously, it increases the recovery enormously. Equally obviously, it means that the land above the mine will sink.
My Dad was a mining engineer and worked briefly in a Welsh coal mine around 1938 when he was a student - the rest of his mining career was spent in Africa. I studied some of these things as a civil engineer as we did geology and soil mechanics and so on.
I really don't know why it is still deemed necessary to have humans at the cutting face. It would seem to me that if you can control a drone from the Pentagon that is shooting at cars in the Empty Quarter of Arabia, then you should be able to control mining machinery from above ground - a few miles away. I mean, no one sends divers down to great depths any more - that is a job for ROV's (Remote Operated Vehicles).
Once there are no people below, the safety margins can be redefined. Ventilation can be dispensed with. Escape shafts dispensed with and so on. In many mines, for example the gold mines of South Africa, the miners spend most of their time either being taken to or returning from the Face. Ridiculous and very dangerous and unpleasant.
Just think of it. A highly redundant communications system to the machinery (e.g. Internet Protocol). I guess if some of the money being wasted on "clean coal" went in this direction, it could be done.
Alfred:
A couple of points, first it is actually not necessary to have the ground sink. Sometimes (as when mining under Duisburg) it is something that is wanted, other times, such as mining under the aircraft plants in Coventry, it was not. In the latter case they blew washery waste into the hole left as the supports moved forward, back filling the hole, so that the ground moved imperceptibly. (The story I was told was that the precision lathes were only stopped for recalibration once, and off-line for a day).
In regard to automation of mining, the Remote Operation of Longwall Mining Project ran in 1964. All the equipment on the face was automated, with no-one there. There were some teething troubles, but in the end it was closed because of union opposition (local Union said it was fine, National Union said it was fine, Area level union said no dice, as I heard the story), rather than because of technical show stoppers.
Bear in mind that many of the mines were kept open after Nationalization as part of the social compact and that coal could be purchased more cheaply from abroad by the time of the 60's. With a typical mine employing more than a thousand folk, the transition had to be handled somewhat carefully to allow the development of alternate jobs. Which arrangement went by the wayside during the Thatcher years.
HO,
Thanks for the information. I guess it should be much easier to automate now.
BTW, I was a fan of Thatcher at the time - when all my friends detested her. Now, I am not so sure.
I guess the sudden wealth of her son has something to do with the reluctance of Blair and co. to allow a proper investigation of BAE over the Al Yamamah deal. If he were to allow her scandals to be exposed just think what some future conservative prime minister might do to him!