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We Need Another Circular Debate.

muzzer said:
Mulls been on the red again:)
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Yep, and quite possibly the last bottle of french wine I'll ever buy. Only the French are arrogant enough to market shite that manages to taste 'corked', even from a screw to bottle.

Had a couple of superb bottles supplied direct from Italy in a Christmas Hamper. Very reasonably priced and free delivery. I'll be getting more.

Mull
 
darrenyeats said:
They mined for coal under people's homes?
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They certainly did. You need to understand the basic process. The coal face is constantly moving toward fresh coal, removing a cut at a time . Then the roof supports are moved forward into the newly created space and what's left behind, (variously known as the gob, or gubbins/gobbins etc.) is left to colapse. Depending on seam thickness this could mean the whole of the land above potentially sinking by say, 2' to 6' over a large area.

http://www.ukcoal.com/subsidence-and-mining.html

I went down Parsonage not long before it closed. One of the deepest in the country and as hot as hell on the coal face. The pressure from the rock above caused rock to be forced up in the floors of the roadways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsonage_Colliery

Mull
 
sean99 said:
I suppose there is an argument for importing fossil energy if it keeps one's own reserves in the ground as a strategic fallback.
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It's an argument. But the reality is that the likes of The US, India and China are using up fossil fuels in vastly bigger quantities than us.
Thatcher put us in hock to the Russians for gas and other non UK sources for coal.

We opened the World's first nuclear power station in the 1950s and now we are so crippled by the cumulative Thatcherite 'anti manufacturing', anti nationalisation, anti- Govt. Research Funding etc., that we have to go cap in hand to the French to build us new Nuke Power Stations.

It's pathetic.

Mull
 
Mullardman said:
It's an argument. But the reality is that the likes of The US, India and China are using up fossil fuels in vastly bigger quantities than us.
Thatcher put us in hock to the Russians for gas and other non UK sources for coal.

We opened the World's first nuclear power station in the 1950s and now we are so crippled by the cumulative Thatcherite 'anti manufacturing', anti nationalisation, anti- Govt. Research Funding etc., that we have to go cap in hand to the French to build us new Nuke Power Stations.

It's pathetic.

Mull
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If you take account of the energy used to mine, refine, build a nuclear plant, decommission it, reprocess the waste and store it, its debatable whether you get more energy out than you put in. Its unlikely nuclear fission is the answer to the energy problems we face, maybe a stopgap but no way long term. Fusion or solar is the best hope.
 
Mullardman said:
No Bushmills influenced my OP.

That was the night before. ;)

Mull
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Ah sure that how it works. Ye can drink a bottle one night and be sober as a judge an the next night not a drop touches your lips and your howling like a banshee.
 
russel said:
If you take account of the energy used to mine, refine, build a nuclear plant, decommission it, reprocess the waste and store it, its debatable whether you get more energy out than you put in. Its unlikely nuclear fission is the answer to the energy problems we face, maybe a stopgap but no way long term. Fusion or solar is the best hope.
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Can't disagree with that. Back in the 80s I read a couple of books 'Fuel's Paradise', and 'The Price of Nuclear Power', which made the point convincingly.

But we don't yet have fusion, or anything like enough solar, so we do need stopgaps. Also, I've said many, many times on here that coal, of which we have loads, doesn't have to be a dirty fuel. If we can design a nuclear power plant, we can 'scrub' the emissions from coal.

No.. wait....! We used to 'cook' coal to create coke ( for fuel), coal gas (for more fuel) and a side order of useful chamicals including tars, ammonia etc.

And that was 19th C technology. I guess we could do it better now.

Mull
 
Mullardman said:
Some Tory on Question Time has just tried to justify fracking on the basis that not doing it means importing energy at net loss to the country.

Oddly, the same argument didn't seem to count when the bastards were closing down our coal industry.

Mull
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1979, Tories come to power. UK deep mined output 108m tonnes.
1984, miners' strike, 35m tonnes.
1986 back up to 90m tonnes.
1990, John Major takes over as PM, 73m tonnes.
1997, Labour come to power, 30m tonnes.
2009, last full year of a Labour government, 8m tonnes. Note, coal imports at this stage 38m tonnes.

Who closed down the industry?

Source - https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...ion-availability-and-consumption-1853-to-2011
 
wyjsar said:
1979, Tories come to power. UK deep mined output 108m tonnes.
1984, miners' strike, 35m tonnes.
1986 back up to 90m tonnes.
1990, John Major takes over as PM, 73m tonnes.
1997, Labour come to power, 30m tonnes.
2009, last full year of a Labour government, 8m tonnes. Note, coal imports at this stage 38m tonnes.

Who closed down the industry?

Source - https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...ion-availability-and-consumption-1853-to-2011
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We've done this before, but that's ok, it wasn't about closing mines it was about deliberately decimating communities. Working class Labour ones as it happens - but we know Thatcher was altruistic by nature so that had to be pure coincidence.
 
Can you imagine the hooha it would generate now if someone suggested digging coal out of the ground and burning it?
 
R4's Saturday question time phone in has just finished and quite a few fracking misconceptions were debunked. Should be on iplay soonest.
 
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