All over social media, both unwashed and somewhat more presentably scrubbed up Green hippies are loudly celebrating the demise of Britain’s last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire.
"The UK has identified hard coal resources of 3 560 million tonnes, although total resources could be as large as 187 billion tonnes. About 80 million tonnes of the economically recoverable reserves are available in shallow deposits capable of being extracted by surface mining. There are also about 1 000 million tonnes of lignite resources, mainly in Northern Ireland, although no lignite is mined at present."
This is what I'm saying. Our oil and gas (North Sea and shale deposits) reserves would see us OK for maybe the next 50 years. Total coal deposits, if economically recoverable, could power industry for centuries - by which time we might have finally mastered the art of fusion!
Though I've moved islands, had been living on South Island, where coal is still legal for home use. We have 300 years of it, easily mined, and just as we are returning to our gas fields, so will we go back to coal...
I was born and raised in a coal mining area and my school was next to the most polluted river in Europe which contained 1,000x the safe level of dioxins. There was a great camaraderie and sense of community amongst the miners but 30 years on I don’t think you’d get many takers to go down t’pit again.
However, It’s incredible that ‘clean energy’ could be given a pass to carry on using these toxic PFAS chemicals. The EU is considering a ban in 2025 with a possible derogation for some sectors.
Alok Sharma pressed the button to do a grandstanding explosive demolition of coal-fired Ferrybridge and Nicola Sturgeon pressed the button to blow up coal-fired Longannet.
I wonder if the reason Miliband declined to blow up Radcliffe is because he secretly realises that destroying a perfectly good power station is a very stupid thing to do?
He and his fellow Net Zero zealots don’t seem to know (or care) that the biomass (imported wood pellets) burnt inefficiently at Drax produce far more life-cycle CO2 emissions than the locally-mined coal it replaced.
All because of an unsubstanciated theory that there is a greenhouse effect. There isn't and this can be easily proved. See www.independentclimatescience.co.uk
Actually I don’t mind leaving the coal in the ground, but knowing it’s there should it ever be needed, if we fulfil all our energy needs with nuclear power and gas until we have built the it.
By all means exploit our own gas, but I think our national gas reserves are considerably less than coal reserves. Nothing wrong with nuclear except we do have to import the uranium fuel.
totally agree with you re coal and the Industrial Revolution. It was, and is, a good thing. And it's completely nuts what we are doing regarding energy production. Wind energy is likely a net negative energy producer due to the amount of energy that goes into making the giant wind turbines and their relatively short lifespan of 11 years on average.
However, I do not agree regarding the UK dragging millions out of poverty. Britain kept millions in poverty doing the dirty work of mining coal and building machines to use it. But much worse than that, Britain sent billions into poverty and starved millions in India. India was a rich country prior to Britain "colonizing" it. Trillions of pounds of wealth were stolen from India by Britain, and Britain engineered several famines there, not to speak of completely shutting down India's textile industry, even cutting off the hands of those who refused to stop making textiles.
The point is that the Industrial Revolution, originally built on coal, and the modern capitalist economy that flowed from it, have lifted billions out of poverty and enabled all of us to lift lifestyles that couldn’t even be imagined by the nobility beforehand. That is the unarguable truth.
Yes, agreed, but in the case of India, I think you might be conflating the undeniable evils of empire with the spread of industrialisation worldwide, courtesy of British inventiveness and innovation.
Of course, many of the landed gentry who formerly lorded it over the rural peasantry swapped their agricultural fiefdoms for factories as the Industrial revolution got going and they treated their workers with much the same callous disdain and cruelty. But even so, the process of industrialisation itself lifted the masses out of extreme poverty and eventually granted them far greater wealth, freedom and independence.
their descendants, yes, I agree with you there. We, the descendants of those who did the dirty work, definitely benefitted. As you said, the landed gentry lorded over their factory workers much the same as they had lorded over their peasants, so the peasants hardly benefitted.
What we don't know is this: How much of the "lifting millions out of poverty" in the West was due to the Industrial Revolution and how much was due to theft of labor and natural resources of the people of Africa, Asia, and the Americas by "colonization". And even today, how much of the wealth that Americans and Europeans enjoy today is due to the Industrial Revolution and how much from colonization? And to point out the obvious, the UK was not the only colonizing power. Several other European countries also took part in "civilizing the natives" all over Africa, Asia, and the Americas
When I wrote lifted "billions" out of extreme poverty, I was thinking of people all around the world, including Chinese, Indians, and now potentially Africans (but Greens don't want them to exploit fossil fuels and industrialise), not just Europeans, Australians and North Americans.
yes, that's what I thought you were saying. But I'm saying that most of the lifting out of extreme poverty happened in the West and it wasn't until very recently that that reduction of poverty started to be seen in the previously colonized countries. Britain actually increased extreme poverty in India during its rule over that country, and no doubt the same can be said of what the Dutch and Portuguese and Belgians did to their colonies. Now, after several decades of those colonies having gained their independence, they too are seeing the reduction of extreme poverty in their own countries. But they have a lot of catching up to do.
Not hysterical, just extremely angry, as I am, at being oppressed so damagingly by these treasonous Labour/Uniparty politicians. I’ve been told that my recent debunking of the climate change hoax is “too angry”. I say it's high time a few more of us got really angry. Judge for yourself: https://metatron.substack.com/p/debunking-the-climate-change-hoax.
It's said that the victors get to write the history books, and indeed they do. But sometimes researchers go back and take a look at what really happened, and when they do, their research often tells a different story.
You are speaking real science, Jaime! Real science died many years back along with common sense and independent thinking. It’s a 24/7 clown world now.
All thrown away...
https://euracoal.eu/library/archive/united-kingdom-6/
"The UK has identified hard coal resources of 3 560 million tonnes, although total resources could be as large as 187 billion tonnes. About 80 million tonnes of the economically recoverable reserves are available in shallow deposits capable of being extracted by surface mining. There are also about 1 000 million tonnes of lignite resources, mainly in Northern Ireland, although no lignite is mined at present."
This is what I'm saying. Our oil and gas (North Sea and shale deposits) reserves would see us OK for maybe the next 50 years. Total coal deposits, if economically recoverable, could power industry for centuries - by which time we might have finally mastered the art of fusion!
Yup. So we throw it all away.
Though I've moved islands, had been living on South Island, where coal is still legal for home use. We have 300 years of it, easily mined, and just as we are returning to our gas fields, so will we go back to coal...
I was born and raised in a coal mining area and my school was next to the most polluted river in Europe which contained 1,000x the safe level of dioxins. There was a great camaraderie and sense of community amongst the miners but 30 years on I don’t think you’d get many takers to go down t’pit again.
However, It’s incredible that ‘clean energy’ could be given a pass to carry on using these toxic PFAS chemicals. The EU is considering a ban in 2025 with a possible derogation for some sectors.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-commission-eyeing-exemptions-forever-chemicals-ban-welt-reports-2024-05-08/
There would be no need to go down't pit.
Steerable drilling technology and in situ gasification producing Syngas would give access to trillions of tons of coal in the UK alone.
Do you have any references for that? I’d like to read up on it.
https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/underground
https://albertainnovates.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/CCPC-E28093-Insitu-Coal-Gasification-E28093-Phase-4-Appendix-C.pdf
https://www.flexis.wales/grc-engineering/the-seren-project/underground-coal-gasification/
With pleasure!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_coal_gasification
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360319912014607
https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/industry/energy-resources/geology-and-prospectivity/resource-and-coal-plays/in-situ-gasification-and-coal-conversion
Plenty more where they came from!
Many thanks
Alok Sharma pressed the button to do a grandstanding explosive demolition of coal-fired Ferrybridge and Nicola Sturgeon pressed the button to blow up coal-fired Longannet.
I wonder if the reason Miliband declined to blow up Radcliffe is because he secretly realises that destroying a perfectly good power station is a very stupid thing to do?
He and his fellow Net Zero zealots don’t seem to know (or care) that the biomass (imported wood pellets) burnt inefficiently at Drax produce far more life-cycle CO2 emissions than the locally-mined coal it replaced.
Too bad no one talks about upcoming technologies currently being implemented that can transmute the exhaust particles to O2....
All because of an unsubstanciated theory that there is a greenhouse effect. There isn't and this can be easily proved. See www.independentclimatescience.co.uk
Actually I don’t mind leaving the coal in the ground, but knowing it’s there should it ever be needed, if we fulfil all our energy needs with nuclear power and gas until we have built the it.
By all means exploit our own gas, but I think our national gas reserves are considerably less than coal reserves. Nothing wrong with nuclear except we do have to import the uranium fuel.
Plenty of uranium in sea water.
https://www.ansto.gov.au/news/promising-material-provides-a-simple-effective-method-capable-of-extracting-uranium-from
totally agree with you re coal and the Industrial Revolution. It was, and is, a good thing. And it's completely nuts what we are doing regarding energy production. Wind energy is likely a net negative energy producer due to the amount of energy that goes into making the giant wind turbines and their relatively short lifespan of 11 years on average.
However, I do not agree regarding the UK dragging millions out of poverty. Britain kept millions in poverty doing the dirty work of mining coal and building machines to use it. But much worse than that, Britain sent billions into poverty and starved millions in India. India was a rich country prior to Britain "colonizing" it. Trillions of pounds of wealth were stolen from India by Britain, and Britain engineered several famines there, not to speak of completely shutting down India's textile industry, even cutting off the hands of those who refused to stop making textiles.
The point is that the Industrial Revolution, originally built on coal, and the modern capitalist economy that flowed from it, have lifted billions out of poverty and enabled all of us to lift lifestyles that couldn’t even be imagined by the nobility beforehand. That is the unarguable truth.
Yes, agreed, but in the case of India, I think you might be conflating the undeniable evils of empire with the spread of industrialisation worldwide, courtesy of British inventiveness and innovation.
Of course, many of the landed gentry who formerly lorded it over the rural peasantry swapped their agricultural fiefdoms for factories as the Industrial revolution got going and they treated their workers with much the same callous disdain and cruelty. But even so, the process of industrialisation itself lifted the masses out of extreme poverty and eventually granted them far greater wealth, freedom and independence.
their descendants, yes, I agree with you there. We, the descendants of those who did the dirty work, definitely benefitted. As you said, the landed gentry lorded over their factory workers much the same as they had lorded over their peasants, so the peasants hardly benefitted.
What we don't know is this: How much of the "lifting millions out of poverty" in the West was due to the Industrial Revolution and how much was due to theft of labor and natural resources of the people of Africa, Asia, and the Americas by "colonization". And even today, how much of the wealth that Americans and Europeans enjoy today is due to the Industrial Revolution and how much from colonization? And to point out the obvious, the UK was not the only colonizing power. Several other European countries also took part in "civilizing the natives" all over Africa, Asia, and the Americas
When I wrote lifted "billions" out of extreme poverty, I was thinking of people all around the world, including Chinese, Indians, and now potentially Africans (but Greens don't want them to exploit fossil fuels and industrialise), not just Europeans, Australians and North Americans.
yes, that's what I thought you were saying. But I'm saying that most of the lifting out of extreme poverty happened in the West and it wasn't until very recently that that reduction of poverty started to be seen in the previously colonized countries. Britain actually increased extreme poverty in India during its rule over that country, and no doubt the same can be said of what the Dutch and Portuguese and Belgians did to their colonies. Now, after several decades of those colonies having gained their independence, they too are seeing the reduction of extreme poverty in their own countries. But they have a lot of catching up to do.
https://www.asian-dawn.com/2020/05/22/how-the-british-empire-destroyed-india-during-their-occupation/
You started off quite sanely then became increasing hysterical.
Not hysterical, just extremely angry, as I am, at being oppressed so damagingly by these treasonous Labour/Uniparty politicians. I’ve been told that my recent debunking of the climate change hoax is “too angry”. I say it's high time a few more of us got really angry. Judge for yourself: https://metatron.substack.com/p/debunking-the-climate-change-hoax.
https://www.asian-dawn.com/2020/05/22/how-the-british-empire-destroyed-india-during-their-occupation/
https://www.sgbgatelier.com/world/2019/11/21/5-ways-imperial-britain-crippled-indian-handlooms
It's said that the victors get to write the history books, and indeed they do. But sometimes researchers go back and take a look at what really happened, and when they do, their research often tells a different story.