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Post by Wheldale on Mar 14, 2011 15:47:35 GMT -5
Heard a expert on the radio today talking about the nuclear problem in Japan, he was supporting nuclear power in the UK by saying that the UK coal industry had 10 years left at the most. Is this right? Or is he talking rubbish?
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Post by andyexplorer on Mar 14, 2011 18:58:05 GMT -5
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Post by John on Mar 15, 2011 8:39:14 GMT -5
The consensus of opinion is seams dip under the North Sea and continue into mainland Europe. BUT, they will be very deep at that stage. Another major problem is that in the established mining areas where collieries were closed, the coal is sterilized due to the pits being full of water. There's some very good papers on the internet about how the NCB/BC were tackling the water problems when the Notts coalfield was still operational to protect Hucknall, Cotgrave, Annesley, Bentinck etc from closed pits to the west. Looking at the shaft logs for Cotgrave Colliery, many thicker seams were unworked in the upper levels of the shaft, and the seams worked were Deep Soft, Deep Hard, Piper and Black Shale, as these are premium steam raising coals, and Cotgrave was sunk to provide a power station. |
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Post by philford734 on Mar 15, 2011 13:52:50 GMT -5
In 1985 we burnt 42 million tonnes, last year we imported 50 million tonnes. If we still had an industry then we would have a good future but with the demand for coal growing worldwide then the price that we have to pay will probably result in the Nuclear option being taken up.
Up in North Wales there are massive reserves of coal under the sea North of Point of Ayrs workings. It would be easy to get to by driving drifts from the Prestatyn side of Point of Ayr avoiding the old workings. The coal in thick seams has been proved up past Blackpool by the gas rigs.
Lets hope that somebody starts to expand our industry again to help cut-back on the expensive imports.
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Post by shropshirebloke on Mar 15, 2011 15:36:20 GMT -5
The area between Telford, Stoke and Cannock was the subject of drilling in the 1930s and again in the 50s, which revealed massive reserves which have never been touched.
Instead of fannying around with wind power, which is nothing but a source of massive public subsidies to the operators (and, as the recent cold weather showed, isn't available when we need it - in the UK extreme cold is more often than not associated with very calm weather), why don't they concentrate on clean coal technology?
Thousands of jobs in the power industry, plant manufacture and of course in mining.....ah, just answered my own question - our ruling classes would love to get their hands on the coal, if only they could do it without....miners!
Perhaps they can persuade all the Nigels and Jeremys in the "financial sector" that there's a bright future for British Coal (they could always send their gardeners, au pairs and nannies to do the actual dirty work).
Or perhaps they could do what Unity (are supposed to) have done in South Wales and import Poles or whatever??
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Post by John on Mar 15, 2011 16:29:39 GMT -5
I often wonder if wind generators ever reach unity with the amount of energy required to manufacture them to the energy they produce in their lifetime, which is pretty short by the way!!
Now nuclear is the way to go!!! Pollute the earth instead of the atmosphere, well a tad in the air for a few months!! ;D
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Post by erichall on Mar 28, 2011 11:30:41 GMT -5
There are many milloions of tons of mineable coal left in the UK. Unfortunately, many of the more workable and therefore 'profitable' seams have already gone.
During the years when 'coal was king', however, several factors were brought to the fore. For any industry to survive it must now, more than at any time, be a viable option. In the years when coal was being mined, especially under nationalisation, coal was ham-strung by successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, by the restraints put upon it by the cost of producing electricity. Power had to be cheap, and as such, the cost of producing electricity from coal meant that the Coal Board was continuously being 'screwed' on the saleable value as a fuel by it's fellow industry, electrical generation. No consideration of the costs of production were given.
Now we have the situation where everything must be 'GREEN' energy, and unfortunately, if you burn coal, the off shoot is air pollution. It is seen by nations everywhere as a polutant. In the days of coal's prime, projects were set up and abandoned willy-nilly, and no super-efficient system of burning the coal was ever evolved. The so-called 'fluid-bed burning' was a good example of this.
Many of the old coal-mining areas were reduced to mining thinner seams, which proved very costly. In order for a coal mining industry to rise from the ashes (forgive the pun), means would have to be found to work the thicker seams available in this country, most of which are deep or far afield (under the sea). The initial start-up costs of a nuclear power station, whilst massive, would ,I'm sure, pale under the costs of, and the time taken, to sink new shafts which, unlike many of the older collieries which most of us know, would need to be of a much larger diameter. To this would have to be added the costs of fitting-out the faces. I remember that in the 1970's the cost of simply kitting out a 200 yard production face came to over £1 million, and this did not include the cost of development work.
It is a well-known fact that, however much you can produce from any mine, the one limiting factor in any coal mine's production rests on how much you can get up the shaft per hour. For this reason coal from drift mines and outcropping was much cheaper than deep mined coal.
I am convinced that all these factors would have to be taken very seriously for a coal industry as we knew it in Uk to be re-born, because that is what it would have to be. The 'old way' of UK mining cannot survive. It's costs would be too prohibitive.
This does not mean that the idea of a UK coal industry should just be given up, however. It seems rather ironic that the one thing that we need is power. We have squandered our oil and gas reserves, and are left sitting on, literally, the one thing that could produce that power - coal. Unfortunately, it is far cheaper to import coal from the far sides of the world, than to dig up our own.
Please don't ask me what the answer to the conundrum is. I do not know, and rather selfishly, can say that whilst coal gave me excellent work in my working years, old man time has made it no longer my worry. This doesn't mean that I care any the less.
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Post by John on Mar 28, 2011 11:58:51 GMT -5
One point you make Eric are drifts over shafts, some of the old coal owners also saw that point, the Lancasters who owned Bestwood Coal and Iron decided to sink a drift at Bestwood which served the NCB well until Bestwood ceased production in the early 60's. It was pressed into service for Hucknall and Linby though for a few more years in the late 60's and 70's.
Bentinck's production tripled after their drift was completed and put into service in the late 60's!
One of the collieries I worked at in NSW, Angus Place, when I started was producing coal for the local power station at $A13 delivered to the power station!!! That was in the early 1980's, higher production levels were hampered by the conveyor and coal handling system, which was designed around Bord and Pillar mining.
Our face could produce at levels of over 1000 tonnes per hour, but the conveyors were about 600 tonnes per hour, which used to frustrate us over the bonus, which could have been double what we were making.
Of course, that made the coal dearer to produce, but 13 dollars a tonne delivered is pretty cheap by anyone's books!
I now see that colliery has a new conveyor system and the mine produces 2.5 million tonnes per year and is scheduled to increase that to over 3 million tonnes per year. Not bad for one production longwall face!!!
Looking at the shaft details for Cotgrave colliery, which was closed in the early 1980's, they sunk the shafts down to the deep soft horizon, worked deep soft until geology beat them with floor lift, then deep hard while I was there, worked that out, tried the Piper seam, which was a failure, soft roof! Then they went for the much thicker Blackshale seam, after about three faces they faced Maggies axe.
Ironically, several of the upper seams were never exploited!! Top hard for one, High Hazles and several more, all totally workable!
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Post by John on Mar 28, 2011 12:01:34 GMT -5
One other point, regarding nuclear power, at the present rate of using uranium, the worlds reserves will last about another 40 years!!!
IF, the US, UK and other countries go flat out building nuclear generators, you could probably quarter that 40 years, so 10 years all known reserves of uranium will be depleted!!
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Post by dazbt on Mar 29, 2011 3:00:12 GMT -5
Quote;
"According to the Coal Authority, both the National Coal Board, in the late '70s, and later in 1990, British Coal, assessed Britain's recoverable coal resources at 45 billion tonnes – 300 years worth at present consumption rates. In that time, we have only mined just over one billion tonnes.
Our operating reserves at existing mines in 1990 amounted to four billion tonnes, with a further two billion identified at what were then described as new mines. In other words, a possible 100 years of reserves at present consumption rates."
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Post by erichall on Mar 29, 2011 5:47:45 GMT -5
Hi, dzbt,
I don't think for one moment that the amount of reserves already proven, and there are still unproven ones, are sufficient to last far beyond our lifetimes. The problem is simply one of ECONOMICS. Whether we like it or not, the cost of power is the principal factor in any society and cheap power is needed to stand still, let alone compete with other societies. A nation must be able to tap power supplies readily and relatively cheaply. There is no doubt we could become almost self reliant on coal-generated electricity, given the amounts we have on tap as it were. This is given that we have the resources. Tapping those resources would be a different matter. Even in the hey-day of coal in the late 50's the maximum we generated from coal was only in the low 80%. The demand in modern times for electricity is much higher now and the maximum amount of coal produced in a year was 290m tons, in the 1910's. In order to compete even moderately successfully, we would have to adopt completely different techniques, and the investment required in the colliery infrastructure would be prohibitive.
I well remember around 1980, whilst at High Moor in the N.Derbys.Area, we developed a new seam which very quickly became a money-maker. Unfortunately, the costs of developing the new seam were never taken into consideration as they would have to be nowadays, and I very much doubt if the seam, with the TOTAL development costs included, actually broke even.
Many of the old coalmining areas were similar to the North Derbyshire Area, in which the total amount of coal was of necessity of a finite amount, and over the years was eventually exhausted.
One thing I hadn't realised was that UK coal as used in power stations became 'inferior' to imported coal because of it's inherent sulpher content-the factor in production of acid rain.
As for 'Coal Mining', how many of use tend to look back through 'rose-tinted' spectacles. We tend to forget that it was a dirty job, undertaken in inhospitable conditions, and look back to the friendships that were formed. I never regretted my time in the Coal Industry, making life-long friends, and working with a comradeship unusual in any other industry. I think back, however, to a saying of my own father, who never worked under anything but privatisation and pre mechanisation. He said along with almost every other miner 'No lad of mine's ever goin' dahn't pit.', a sentiment that I eventually came to endorse.
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Post by John on Mar 29, 2011 8:58:22 GMT -5
What were the problems with Selby, seemed an awful waste sinking all those shafts and driving a drift down to the working horizon, and then closing it after just a few years.
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Post by philford734 on Mar 29, 2011 10:58:49 GMT -5
From what I understand is that the Selby Complex could only work one seam because of the risk to the surface flooding due to subsidence and the fact that the land in the area is only a few feet above sea level.
I would have thought that a system of pillar & stall working would have allowed them to be able to work all the seams rather than long walling just the one. It would then have had a long life.
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Post by John on Mar 29, 2011 11:22:44 GMT -5
From what I understand is that the Selby Complex could only work one seam because of the risk to the surface flooding due to subsidence and the fact that the land in the area is only a few feet above sea level. I would have thought that a system of pillar & stall working would have allowed them to be able to work all the seams rather than long walling just the one. It would then have had a long life. Sounds like extremely poor planning then. Just been reading a paper on the cablebelt design and installation at Selby, they were extremely expensive belts and long belts too. The rope splices were 60 metres long!!!!! Must have been a laborious splicing job! Timed at 10 hours. I can't imagine a rope splice 60 metres long, seen many haulage ropes spliced, longest was our manrider for obvious reasons was a long splice, BUT 60 metres!! |
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Post by erichall on Mar 30, 2011 4:09:08 GMT -5
Sorry, just re-read my last post, and realised that I had omitted two small letters which altered the whole meaning of the piece. The letters were i & n and should have prefixed the word 'sufficient'. Makes a lot more sense as in - 'don't think reserves are insufficient to last well beyond our lifetime.' meaning I know they are.
With regard to the Selby Coalfield, this was to be the future of British Coal Mining, and appeared to have been thoroughly proved. I believe , however, that the troubles lay in the large number of 'relatively' small faults in the area. This, coupled with the problems of water due to the relatively small overlay, proved to be a rather troublesome problem. The whole of the UK coalfield is plagued with many small faults, which make extracion mechanically very difficult. Add the problem of water, and this makes the problem even more acute. I always felt that pit water was like gas - no problem if encountered in sufficient quantities to warrant the expense of putting in pumping and gas extraction systems, but a swine if it was present in small amounts which did not necessitate or warrant the installation of the extraction systems - nuisanc water.
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Post by dazbt on Mar 30, 2011 5:02:07 GMT -5
As Mr Siemens stated almost a century and a half ago;
"Yer don't have ter dig it to use it" ......... or words to that effect.
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Post by erichall on Mar 31, 2011 3:52:35 GMT -5
Funnily enough, dazbt, on the site of the last pit I worked at, High Moor Colliery, an attempt had already been tried of what I believe was a Russian idea. This involved drilling a short way to the coal seam, then setting fire to the coal, collecting the by-products and using the same. I must admit that I know very little about the scheme or the technology behind it, only that it was an immense failure, and that the whole area was eventually to become a drift mine, where the available, mineable seams were extracted. After it's closure the whole area was then outcropped.
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