Corbynomics: A Dystopia

antrobus

martinsurrey wrote: »

In 2013 UK coal mining directly employed about 4,000 people for 13million tonnes of coal output....

3,715 people produced 12.77 MT in 2013
3,601 people produced 11.65 MT in 2014

But that would be total coal production. Most of the production came from open cast which Corbynism deems as "not acceptable"; it's deep mines all the way as far as he is concerned. The trouble is that we have only one deep mine left at Keighley, and that is scheduled for closure. The redundancy notices have already been issued. A state of affairs not unconnected with the fact that UK Coal is insolvent and in liquidation.

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

Not bad considering I studied economic history in 1994!....

I have an unfair advantage in that I have a copy of the DoE&CC's Excel spreadsheet of coal statistics since 1853.:)

ruggedtoast

antrobus wrote: »

That is a massive exaggeration.:)

On the other hand, you are absolutely right. Working in a deep coal mine is about the worst job you can have. Why, on God's earth, you would want to promote that kind of employment, when there are so many alternatives available, I do not know.

Seems like its what you make of it, like most things.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/dec/21/coal-miner-day-shift-pit

In diamond mines they check all your orifices on the way out. At least they don't do that with coal. Or they probably don't. You never know with the Welsh.

martinsurrey

antrobus wrote: »

3,715 people produced 12.77 MT in 2013
3,601 people produced 11.65 MT in 2014

But that would be total coal production. Most of the production came from open cast which Corbynism deems as "not acceptable"; it's deep mines all the way as far as he is concerned. The trouble is that we have only one deep mine left at Keighley, and that is scheduled for closure. The redundancy notices have already been issued. A state of affairs not unconnected with the fact that UK Coal is insolvent and in liquidation.

ahhh yes, sorry 4.1MT was deep mined in 2013.

(table 2.4 on page 56 for the interested)
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/447629/DUKES_2015_Chapter_2.pdf

The 3 deep mines in 2013 employed about 1,600 people, for 4.1MT of production, so 30MT would need about 12,000 employees. So still a £50,000 per year per job subsidy.

There are 3,200 secondary schools in the UK, on an average of £20k a year we could employ 10 TA's per secondary school for the same £600m per year, a total of 30,000 teachers assistants, and the lights would stay on.

Plus we would still have the coal in the ground if the Russians decided to stop selling 50 years time, which we wouldn't if we pull it out now, while the option of cheap coal is available.

Thrugelmir

ruggedtoast wrote: »

In diamond mines they check all your orifices on the way out. At least they don't do that with coal. Or they probably don't. You never know with the Welsh.

Someone built an entire Rover SD1 with parts smuggled out of the old Solihull plant.

ruggedtoast

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Someone built an entire Rover SD1 with parts smuggled out of the old Solihull plant.

Jeez. I hope they gave it a wipe down before they let anyone else drive it.

martinsurrey

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Jeez. I hope they gave it a wipe down before they let anyone else drive it.

I hope they painted it an appropriate colour

http://thumbsnap.com/s/Wyo2Y4Lv.jpg

Running_Horse

antrobus wrote: »

That is a massive exaggeration.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11008812
£4.1 billion paid out as of 2010.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ords/CoalMiningRelatedRespiratoryDiseases.html
Just a few of the ailments available for the average coal miner.

If it wasn't for the romantic historical image of the noble coal miner going down't pit, nobody would seriously be lamenting coal or calling for its reinstatement. If you proposed such a thing for any other similar new dangerous industry you would be laughed at.

cells

Misteriteaner wrote: »

Coal is old news, why on earth would you mine coal when cheaper cleaner and more useful alternatives are waiting for us to grab them.

Like shale

Cos you cant store gas in the way you can store coal

You cant use shale gas as a reducing agent in steel making (although you can do a little oil injection into blast furnaces like the one at teesside)

Also the coal industry was the precursor in many ways to the chemical industry itself. Coal is a mixture of zillions of chemicals and the coal bods figured out how to make everything from medicines to paints thanks to coal...lead by Germany at the time

cells

martinsurrey wrote: »

In 2013 UK coal mining directly employed about 4,000 people for 13million tonnes of coal output.

That means if we opened similar mines, we would need about 10,000 jobs to replace the 30m tonnes imported coal.

That's £600m for 10,000 jobs or £60,000 per job per year in subsidy...

Get real!

Even if we did open new mines, they wouldn't have 100'000's of men with pickaxes down them like the good old days (or not good days if you were down one, like my father), its an automated job.

I know all that.

lets forget the subsidy for a moment and just pretend a world class coal deposit 1 meter below the surface is found just outside of Drax. An extremely cheap to mine deposit right next door to 10GW of coal plants.

what would happen is

1. Our imports drop towards zero
2. Our electricity generated from coal jumps towards 50% and we burn a lot less nat gas for electricity (so our nat gas imports fall too)
3. We would probably start exporting thermal coal to Europe via nearby teesside docks


I dont actually think we should subsidise coal but I wouldn't be against DOE type subsidies into reserch for new ways to utilise the giant deposira of coal onshore and offshore in the UK


if the choice was to find economic coal deposits in the UK or economic shale gas deposits I would pick the gas as we can make use of a lot more of the stuff than coal. If the UK had a marcellus type formation we could cut coal imports towards nil without needing to mine any coal