Sad Day For The Miners

[Leadwasp]

The problem is that energy, energy reserves and therefore accessible energy reserves are of vital strategic importance to the UK. However we refuse to let these be developed and would rather rely on imported gas and coal or the resultant electricity over electric string from Europe. Our generating capacity is also lagging. Our power stations are ageing. Very little renewable energy is UK owned - for example most of the money in tidal is not UK investment. Our refinery capacity is reducing too - look at the situation on the Thames. If the Suez canal goes courtesy of the fallout of the Arab spring then suddenly all our gas imports into Milford Haven suddenly leap in cost. Putin controls Nordstream, Blue Stream and South Stream (condolences to Turkey). China is buying into the North Sea and now the nation with the crappiest quality record is building nuclear power stations for us. That really is supping with the Devil. Need I say more.
Ultimately you can only generate wealth through the 4 primary industries (fishing, farming, mining or forestry) yet we live in a country where people are more motivated to hold a sit-in in Sussex over a technology - fracking - that they don't understand rather than employ their energies in keeping the incubators going in Great Ormond Street. As an example I live in a National Park where the authority is proud (PROUD) of the fact that the area hasn't allowed any new mineral extraction for over 20, possibly 40, years!!
Coal is too expensive in the UK and any unionised industry is pretty screwed over costs to start with. Chinese miners are cheap and don't often sue when they get squashed. However the national importance of deep coal technology in the 21st century IS now more relevant than perhaps it was a generation ago. Not only will we lose the skills to mine it but also the support infrastructure and industry too. Yet most importantly those reserves which have been developed but not extracted will be denied to future generations because of ground collapse. It is highly unlikely that these areas could be safely mined again - the same is true of any coal mine that is abandoned. So perhaps it is of national strategic interest that mines are put into care and maintenance literally as a matter of national survival. Some things go beyond corporate economics and into those of survival. We've forgotten where our wealth and security comes from, we just move other people's money around now and they might choose to bank elsewhere..

 

[Kai]

For those people out there who think miners were payed too much all I can say after 18 years in the mines rescue service as a part time rescue man I have seen many things happen underground ,when you have dug out work mates and close friends out of the ground carefully by hand beacause you are worried that if you used a shovel you might damage the body of the trapped miner and have saw the mans wife and mother crying on the surface of the mine pleading with you to find their loved one you will understand why the men deserve the amount of money they are payed !!!!!

 

[Leadwasp]

I've been in mine rescue, I've been half buried (as was my Uncle - Anderson Boyes) and gassed. High pay applies to any high risk job but we need to get the emotion out of the coal argument even though whole communities were built around it (coal). If we see a retention of some mining capacity in the UK as being in the national strategic interest then at least some of those communities might be protected even though largely speaking it is an uneconomic industry in the UK a the moment. The UK has depended on coal for it's very survival within living memory. If we can protect military capability by investing in a pool of technology skills to underpin it then we can do so with lifeblood industries like water, power and minerals etc. and I include nuclear with that. Without a resilient nation there is sweet FA for a military to protect.

 

[8x57]

Kai I for one will never suggest that the miners were ever paid too much. It was a bloody awful industry but none the less it was an industry and I feel for the Yorkshire community surrounding the latest closure because like so many communities in south Wales there will be a loss in ways that only those that live in mining areas will understand.
Both my grandfathers worked underground and my paternal grandfather was determined that none of his three sons should follow him into the pits, as during his foreshortened lifetime he had been buried alive twice and brought home on a stretcher. He paid double pension contributions for the last three years of his life to pay for the times that he had been unable to work when recovering. He never did reach pensionable age as he succumbed to the deadly dust and no doubt the gassing he received in his short stay in France during the first world war played its part too. Like so many he signed on underage and had only fought in the trenches for two weeks when he was gassed and returned home unfit for further military duties only to return to the mines as there was no alternative work available.

 

[willie_gunn]

Coal usage in the UK has been steadily declining since the 1950's, such that it is now at a level below that at the start of the Industrial Revolution. There are a whole host of reasons, not just the move to greener energy - the Clean Air Act, the Dash for Gas, the electrification of the railways, the decline of heavy industry and, yes, the Miner's Strike, all had an impact. That production would have to fall to match the reduction in usage was inevitable.

UK coal producers need a price of between £50 and £55 per tonne to be profitable, whereas the spot price of coal on the European open market is currently below $50 per tonne, or roughly £33 per tonne. Our total output in 2014 was 12 million tonnes, so to keep production going we would have had to spend nearly a quarter of a billion pounds per year. Prices have fallen again in recent months because of the slump in demand from China, so that cost would inevitably have increased.

The reality is that we live in a global market, and when it comes to commodity production we simply can't compete.

None of this is written to mitigate the tragedy of closing the coal mines, whether for the individuals, the communities they live in, or the country as a whole.

But we do need to recognise the realities of the world we live in.

 

[VSS]

Coal usage in the UK has been steadily declining since the 1950's, such that it is now at a level below that at the start of the Industrial Revolution. There are a whole host of reasons, not just the move to greener energy - the Clean Air Act, the Dash for Gas, the electrification of the railways, the decline of heavy industry and, yes, the Miner's Strike, all had an impact. That production would have to fall to match the reduction in usage was inevitable.

UK coal producers need a price of between £50 and £55 per tonne to be profitable, whereas the spot price of coal on the European open market is currently below $50 per tonne, or roughly £33 per tonne. Our total output in 2014 was 12 million tonnes, so to keep production going we would have had to spend nearly a quarter of a billion pounds per year. Prices have fallen again in recent months because of the slump in demand from China, so that cost would inevitably have increased.

The reality is that we live in a global market, and when it comes to commodity production we simply can't compete.

None of this is written to mitigate the tragedy of closing the coal mines, whether for the individuals, the communities they live in, or the country as a whole.

But we do need to recognise the realities of the world we live in.

^^^ A very fair and frank summary of the situation.

 

[mchughcb]

Just maybe they're not thick or bemoaning but proud folk whose families had mined coal for generations.

All my family worked down the pits and you mate can poke your comments up your fkin arse

Unfortunately there's not a lot of sympathy for miners like there is for farmers. When I see governments bending over backwards to keep generational farmers on the land with welfare handouts, they wipe their hands when tens of thousands of miners are out of work. Not sure why that is.

 

[enfieldspares]

Coal usage in the UK has been steadily declining since the 1950's....that production would have to fall to match the reduction in usage was inevitable. The reality is that we live in a global market, and when it comes to commodity production we simply can't compete. None of this is written to mitigate the tragedy of closing the coal mines, whether for the individuals, the communities they live in, or the country as a whole. But we do need to recognise the realities of the world we live in.

+1 indeed it is interesting to speculate what would have happened had the coal mines remained in private hands as they would most likely have long ago gone out of business without the subsidies they received because they had been nationalised. But I do think that it is folly to burn natural gas to produce electricity.

 

[Highseat]

. Dennis Skinner said in Parliament that the hunting ban was nothing to do with cruelty, it was retaliation for the miners.

I know hundreds,yes hundreds of ex miners, many of them are anglers, rabbiters, foxers, rough shooters, wildfowlers,deer stalkers, hunters and followers and shooters of all disciplines. Many of us grew up ratting, rabbiting, beating and air gunning and progressed from there to our chosen sport. Many miners and ex miners went on the march. I once heard Dianne Abbot make the same statement on question time, they represent no one in those statements only themselves.

 

[eldon]

I've been in mine rescue, I've been half buried (as was my Uncle - Anderson Boyes) and gassed. High pay applies to any high risk job but we need to get the emotion out of the coal argument even though whole communities were built around it (coal). If we see a retention of some mining capacity in the UK as being in the national strategic interest then at least some of those communities might be protected even though largely speaking it is an uneconomic industry in the UK a the moment. The UK has depended on coal for it's very survival within living memory. If we can protect military capability by investing in a pool of technology skills to underpin it then we can do so with lifeblood industries like water, power and minerals etc. and I include nuclear with that. Without a resilient nation there is sweet FA for a military to protect.

+1 well put.

I have said for long enough that the "Green Energy" will prove too costly if somebody actually worked the figures out properly!

 

[rodp]

+1 well put.

I have said for long enough that the "Green Energy" will prove too costly if somebody actually worked the figures out properly!

They're not going to do that just yet, too many making fat profits from it.

 

[eldon]

Coal usage in the UK has been steadily declining since the 1950's, such that it is now at a level below that at the start of the Industrial Revolution. There are a whole host of reasons, not just the move to greener energy - the Clean Air Act, the Dash for Gas, the electrification of the railways, the decline of heavy industry and, yes, the Miner's Strike, all had an impact. That production would have to fall to match the reduction in usage was inevitable.

UK coal producers need a price of between £50 and £55 per tonne to be profitable, whereas the spot price of coal on the European open market is currently below $50 per tonne, or roughly £33 per tonne. Our total output in 2014 was 12 million tonnes, so to keep production going we would have had to spend nearly a quarter of a billion pounds per year. Prices have fallen again in recent months because of the slump in demand from China, so that cost would inevitably have increased.

The reality is that we live in a global market, and when it comes to commodity production we simply can't compete.

None of this is written to mitigate the tragedy of closing the coal mines, whether for the individuals, the communities they live in, or the country as a whole.

But we do need to recognise the realities of the world we live in.

+1 for this one too; A well put real world summary.

Maybe not what we all would like but that's reality. I remember going through Grimethorpe years ago and once the pit closed the village was like a ghost town.
A similar story with Micklefield; I remember as a kid, around mid 70's, going round the pit on an open day. The village had a general shop, butchers, hairdressers, fire station, police station/house, Post office, working mens club etc.
What has it got now?

 

[Feugh]

+1 well put.

I have said for long enough that the "Green Energy" will prove too costly if somebody actually worked the figures out properly!

If you want some information about what the figures actually say, dig into this site: http://euanmearns.com/. You'll have to dig quite deep for what you want, but it is there, along with a lot of other good information.
I have great sympathy for the miners that have lost their jobs, as I do for the steel workers who have recently lost theirs. I work in the oil business and have had to make some of my staff redundant in recent times, which is not at all pleasant. The Sunday Times estimate the 65,000 people in the north-east of Scotland have lost their jobs because of the downturn in oil price - 65,000! My own (finger in the air) guess is that around 15,000 directly employed oil workers are now not working compared with the number last year and that is a massive blow for the local economy. It won't be such a Merry Christmas for them.
Willie Gunn hits the nail on the head when he mentions global economic realities. For example, why is the new Forth Road Bridge using Chinese steel and not local steel? Because it's produced cheaper in China. In a global economy we are all under the influence of markets in all parts of the world. If the Saudis want to produce oil at a loss then all other oil producing countries feel the pinch.

 

[Feugh]

+1 well put.

I have said for long enough that the "Green Energy" will prove too costly if somebody actually worked the figures out properly!

Eldon, one example here: http://euanmearns.com/wood-pellets-drax-and-deforestation/#more-11386

 

[tikka_madras]

Coal usage in the UK has been steadily declining since the 1950's, such that it is now at a level below that at the start of the Industrial Revolution. There are a whole host of reasons, not just the move to greener energy - the Clean Air Act, the Dash for Gas, the electrification of the railways, the decline of heavy industry and, yes, the Miner's Strike, all had an impact. That production would have to fall to match the reduction in usage was inevitable.

UK coal producers need a price of between £50 and £55 per tonne to be profitable, whereas the spot price of coal on the European open market is currently below $50 per tonne, or roughly £33 per tonne. Our total output in 2014 was 12 million tonnes, so to keep production going we would have had to spend nearly a quarter of a billion pounds per year. Prices have fallen again in recent months because of the slump in demand from China, so that cost would inevitably have increased.

The reality is that we live in a global market, and when it comes to commodity production we simply can't compete.

None of this is written to mitigate the tragedy of closing the coal mines, whether for the individuals, the communities they live in, or the country as a whole.

But we do need to recognise the realities of the world we live in.

Good summary of the economics. But we don't live in a fully-market-driven world. The government spends nearly half the GDP of the country each year on various things, and almost everyone accepts that the government is there to fill in the voids left by a market-based economy (i.e. not everyone could afford full healthcare insurance, so we provide it out of central taxation).

Personally, I think the same should apply to large-scale reshaping of local economies - there should be central government planning and support to transition the economies of communities affected by pit closures (or any large-scale reduction in local jobs). It might not be an ideal process, and it might not be a particularly efficient process, but frankly I think it's better than nothing.

If government had offered massive tax breaks for local job creation and invested in infrastructure development in the pit communities most affected, I think the outcome would have been better for all concerned.

My own company (I work for it, not own it!) is investing in manufacturing in a couple of places which were hit heavily by pit closures. We have some small grants from local government, but they're a drop in the ocean and the reason we're actually going there is there's a large workforce readily available, decent road links and plenty of suitable new-ish factory buildings. If these had been in place earlier we or people like us might well have gone earlier and ameliorated some of the problems.

Denying economic reality for anything other than national security is like ****ing in the wind, but allowing your people to be victims of global markets when they don't have to be seems both cruel and stupid to me.

 

[eldon]

Interesting read Feugh and it echos my sentiments entirely.
Although, as I hopefully pointed out earlier, the COST isn't all about money and the environment but communities and human costs/hardships.

Ref your steel examples; Does the government not want us to be self sufficient?

The figures shoved out about employment really grind me as they actually show very little. i.e. say 1000 miners are made redundant with all the skills they possess and they go on to all get jobs in Tesco stacking shelves or a call centre then the numbers will still look ok............ however the skills base is lost and the input (taxes) to the economy will be significantly lower.

 

[Feugh]

Ref your steel examples; Does the government not want us to be self sufficient?

My example about steel was mentioned partly to highlight the hypocrisy of politicians. When the steelworks shut many politicians complained bitterly, but they are also not prepared to spend the extra money required to support a local industry when it is within their power to do so. Either they should spend the extra money or keep their mouths shut when industries go down the pan. I thoroughly dislike the faux outrage and political point scoring that some/most politicians go in for.

 

[mchughcb]

I thought call centers had been outsourced to India?

 

[eldon]

Ah not all mchughcb!

Had a recent hassle with Vodaphone; yes the general trend is for Indian call centres but ask to leave and surprisingly they somehow manage to find you an English one!!!!!
Due to the difficulties encountered and me repeatedly threatening to leave over about a month, this happened on more than one occasion.

Anyway we digress; the point is losing a good skills base to be replaced by a non-productive or lesser position and the statistics still look sound despite some obvious loss but its not evident.

 

[Highlandsjohn]

Sorry wrong terminology.

Sacked in dictionary Slang. to dismiss or discharge, as from a job.
Redundant in dictionary. deprived of one's job because it is no longer necessary for efficient operation: he has been made redundant.

So I was using slang, sorry about that.

The REDUNDANT people will appreciate you kind words The thick ones stayed, stop moaning, and you will not be pandered to.

Merry Christmas to you as well