Coal, Climate Change & The Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining industry

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Coal, Climate Change &

the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

David John Douglass

Acknowledgements To Will Podmore, without whose solidarity and financial assistance this book simply wouldn't be in print. Funders with thanks:

Stephen Lowes Alison Aiken Vin Wynne Ray Chadwick Mick Gallagher

Philippa Auton Paula Dauncey PatLatham David O Toole David Douglass

With thanks to Brian Knott who has spent many hours knocking this work into some form of

logical and English format and updating it over a number of years as events unfolded.

There is no ‘end’ to this work, the facts, the stats, the evidence, the issues and the arguments will go on, there is no definitive closure to this polemic.

New facts and

contradictions will emerge on either side but they will not invalidate this work which sets out the broad brush strokes of the argument in favour of clean coal and against climate hysteria and ‘new age medievalist aspects of environmentalism which, left to themselves, are harmless, but when enforced on society are deeply reactionary .

_

The author coming off shift in November 1987,

In what was still a large vibrant and efficient industry

with a still powerful miners’ union.

The author, David John Douglass, Coal Miner, NUM Official, Author and Historian, started

at Wardley Colliery, Pelaw near the River his NCB Apprenticeship in 1964, a face linesman

Elected as NUM Tyne, worked for the next 30 years as Tunneller and ‘Caunchman’. branch and the Area Delegate at Hatfield Main Colliery Doncaster in 1980 he served the

the South Yorkshire NUM Panel, until Executive Committee of the NUM and as Vice Chair of Branch. (The pit later reopened and was the 2006 closure of Hatfield Main Pit and the NUM coal still of Britain leaving 1000 years’ supply of the second last one to close in the whole underground.) a vegan since 1989, perhaps the only vegan He is, for the record, a lifelong vegetarian and

allege, is because the others ‘died oot.’ coal miner in the world, which, his mates

in College, ty, Glasgow, Keele University and Rusk ersi Univ yde thcl Stra from d uate grad Dave op. ent with the Oxford History Worksh Oxford where he was a research stud ng Industry of the Miners’ Union and the Mini the history He is the author of many books on

ols, colleges and Universities. and is a regular guest speaker at scho

al England Institute of Mining and Mechanic of h Nort the of ber mem a ntly curre He is within but this book is not their responsibility or Engineers, a Council Member and Trustee, lusions. that capacity and is entirely his own conc

Contents Chapter 1 The History, Pros and Cons of Coal ssteueiansnnsnevinavsereeccensxsxeessnsvensiissiésdarnerseceroereeeees,

1

4.1 History Of COal...........sessesssesseerersessseseeseesesssestssteneesuesness essessusssussnecsussussesessiessecsepeeseeescc., 1 T 1.2 Open Cast or Deep MINING?............sesseceeeeseeeeeneeteseenesessessesesssse sussnssaes sesseseseseec.., 10 4.3 The Last Days of Coal (for Britain) ............:cssseseecesesneesesessersteeesesesetessesusses tstseserstesssececes. 14 4:4 Exporting Death Abr0ad........cniseriensescssssesencaeadsenstasunnusvidsnetoonecee vannsecevesnensincassiotnndsshsies 18 onke skis Ay Suid sans ISTH CAIRN iar a tres BT Oa Fe ERASE oneexccexcatots cxxconsennrn

rtconnrneanmnnoneman Chapter 2 British Government EN@tGy POUCH scnssscxcapescsscoxsseeetvcusncaussencciscssieaiazecrceineeeentome 21 21 2 4 D018 .nncserasennnsvessecvsncesssnonssvioas scntwensisvnennecensevsuseesasanvonssonsnvonnnsensenenrenceunerennponsenswenst eensiesons 28 DD QON4 crressscossssssncsssssssosvensessnensessacssssessosssenssaseensnen enseueveensscerscsnssssosssnsasenersssssssscessesnseseees 29 2.32015 cevscsscsssscsscsessesssssesscesssnssessensesssseseeeeusseesesssns nsensnsssanensarenesssnssssssnsecensecenensesensesesaeseses 36 DA 2019/20 ..osessessessessesnecsesseescseeseeseenseneneensensenssssnsessasss enesssennesesessnsassncossnsnesasenssesucnseneesees 38 D5 2020/21 .aesessscsscseecsereerseresssseenenecsesnsneesenesnenesnsnsnsnessenseses essssnsssscnenssesnsseensasessecasssseseeesecs 39 2.5.1 Boris’s ‘Green New Deal!’ Plain...........sseesceseerenesesserenssesscecnersseseceresessenssessees cnensc ees 43 2.5.2 Could Boris’s Green New Deal actually WOrK? ...........s:scsssesessteeseseseseeeeeseeeeseeneneeees

47

9.6 The Miners’ Last Stand? .........c:ccscsssssessseseneseneneeeeersceneneceeesesesesssesssrenssensessssesesnee

eseeees

Chapter 3 Overseas Coal initiatives..............esscseecssereseeeeneeeneeneenteteenecnnennecn

57

eeensenesnesatenesnaes

3.1 EUPOPe.......scccesesessesesescssssseeeseseecsesnscsestassts

Sf

SS 3.4 2 Si

62 62 63

3.2

essnanescessenenecaesessesesessnesesseseesscenensteeneasnens

59

ensneay USA ..ccccccsscosscecscsssccssssessccesccccessecnsccsevensneeess snceceseesanaaedecsssecerseessMEN: nsecss esenes assses sssssn TE se sssecs 2nisSE NG seees IGETES EN S ncn CIA sssecaseexceveescocesaeaw yin csees vesaucxmviawmeenenson rne ennannznnnes TUPKCY ......sscccesecssesesessscenssscssnsssssecesesssnssessnneneccsersc sensneusecousessscsssnssenssassesesersesensenseeneanes OMG? COUPTOS ccscsaccsssczeaccoveccepcspsscesseteseennyerwosersvemorsvevmscsuen sscneawersnvcteaseassonesseeasepinnin

64

Chapter4 Energy Production niscsicceensisscccsssccvsssssssansienrennssnosssenssannvarcsscones

ossnnnancsensssenassnasageenes

sennamannvinbaetiiietamemias Nemisaamltee ansamabiounnanes xconmemunnnennnnnannnen cae ssUecesseswiennn easing eee BiSsS Ui GXOcish BAA ClO COAN ovsccceeunnecnvennursencici esbsu acexnneananss men nnnxienniith 4.1.2 Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)..........:ccecesesssseeessseeesseeeeeseeeeee seeseseeeeseseeeeeece 4.1.3 Fluidised Bed CombuStion................ccccccccseeesessesssssssssees sesssneeseeeeseeecececeucenereeecessuaee 4.1:4 Underground Coal ‘Gasification (UCG) wiississssssrisseccsessssscsssveussverenncosverreesssassuswa nasss 4.1,5 Electrio:Are: Steel PrOCOOS sssisssscesesssecccsencacacassncsasansssusonsoesseaaca ensssssscsasvescecesvenscesaecs 4.2 Coated Power StaGOnS vcssssscicsssiswssuococcosceseseccescersnopsmsusaussce scetossnandaiiusadsteseeaveouaeeors BAGO pccescesoccevasanmuianswasandumsictnaval

4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6

64 64 66 77 85 90 93

Wood-burning Power Stations................s.ssssscssssssssssssssesesssesecsesr sessssessssscseecscaccsacsesenenes 98 Nuclear Energy...........sscsessessesecsssesessssessssesessassesuene sssssessececssavsvsvsusesesasasasavarasececeasenes 101 Wind Energy............ssssssssssssssssessessesssssesseeneeaeeass 104 ssesnsavesee Tidal Energy ..........ssssssssesssesseessessesssessessessucsseasssscsuss rsssscssassusacsusasassacacarereaseveseeees 125 ussussusasuesusasassussessesssaseaserececesce..

Chapter 5 Climate Change ............ssssssessssssssssssesssssssssccssessssssss ssssttsstissssesss

tseseesteeeeeeeeeccccccee. 127

S.1 Global Warrinnttng-sccsssinicarsaasnsvessesonasissssnnnersnna neenra

vsennsesonccovsssussesssssssibicreitessoveseseeessecescc, 127

9.4.1 Meth ame siesvsrsnsncsesrasreaenaaneewascvennnstisvavoneinenrnn eeencsnanccouurviv

eepnpsinctesesiessasesessess;, 5.1.2 Forest Destruction ........:.sssecccsssseesssssse ssnneessssesssseesstutsstessssesesteeeeeeecc 9.1.3 Livestock Farming.........-sssesssesssnsessseessse sssesstessnessseesseeseeeeeeecc 5.1.4 Transport .......ssssecssssecsssesssneecsnsees ee ssessssetsnnestetestesstesseeeeeeecc 5.1.5 Cement ......ccscssssssssssessssecesssecsss cc eeenn nnes essssseesseeessressessseceseeeeseecc 9.4 Bi GOA sccssianassisrssnacacsrasataesee seosee nenses eseeua cars sseses eanseciisais tssvns sceses sssses rscr ceesss rmmm senese rees scscer eaac ecense..ce cecc ,...

9.2 Natural progression Or MAN-MAde?.......-sssssssssssssesssssseeeeeeeeeeccc.

5.3 Scaremongering by governments/scientists................

141 141

142 143 144 144

144

9.3.1) CUMABG ALO: cance neccnrnsvens casiscinnsnsnucauscecauatarssesuszacevaaseuscuasauduacaenaca tiensnevenencenesecssasasaice 5.3:2 THE: CODENNAGON FACS bwiscisssusscsccscscncsssscassovsninseracevesverevescincsadaaienedscnsscnpesooneasseress B35: THO HIMALAYAN SCONO: cnorerconecccnnaneexanexconeneniilt ibeatvesientgande toneseaseabinensa lepedpesmunnaaaniveds 5.3.4 “Prepare to’ MaSt thy GOO sicisssssccccsssnsscessvscsssansssmnanvasavenccuvcavcanavvsnmscanmneavcnenunses 5.3.5 “It's the Jet Stream, Stupld?........---osssserneensssereraneatansensdarestrseenecsseserensssaecesesesasess 5.3.6 PACHA 'S TOSDONEG sees csierinspasceccrccsncscsvansnunssnasvencateastivanccssesessiineieessedeepeseeszaunoe 53.7 More fake IPCC CIAUMS:.....osoneserenenscoanernanseesseeosewnivesbysenaieseastiandpstonedldvonagedeesnnenesiés 5:3:8 NGw TESGAICH OF GUI QASOS sicsicccceecesssvccciscsssssavensisnccsnscivesnastsessessceesansvaneseesseoeeter 5.3.9 New Australian reS@arch...........::cccssesssceessseeeceeeesteeeeeeeeeeeeseseseneceesseeeeeneeeeeeeceeeeeeers 5.3.10 Some final thoughts on climate Change.............:.cccccesecesssscsccsssssssscscecsrcsseseseseoes

147 148 148 149 151 153 153 155 156 156

5:4 Extinction | RSEDSUWION scscsccccsensessaneriisnsstscersrcssascaraccascrcsanccrsernavesravenivaneieergetiveneeasocedouseo 158 BS FEACIIING ) veovacexasecassvncannenzsvencrnesesvooneseunnrorensaronvunresoogavecsnnananenidstsbannadeSipousteerseesos yexeeempers® 167

5/6: Planet of the AUManSisscreccssccee ionacsnecnescsseescnresmmanersezeacvvacesrwessiwexsdaainseeantausanseceaconuoes 169 Chapter

6 Conclusions/suggestions for the future ......5.0:...sccssccsescccsesscsscesacsecocsesscnccececereseses 175

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Chapter 1 The History, Pros and Cons of Coal

coal production; as miners of No one needs to remind us about the dark side of coal and

many generations (which most us in the industry are) we know first-hand about the slave

we were first able to conditions which operated in the mid-1700s through to the 1860s when break ‘the bond’.

ed Miners in many places were bonded to the coal owner at first for life; this condition remain

in the Scottish coalfields until fifty years after the formal though elsewhere the bond was reduced to an annual children too. In Northumberland and Durham, the bond was applied was imposed from seven and eight years old; in other

abolition of black slavery in the USA, contract that applied to the miners’

to the boy children of the miners and coalfields it applied to all the miners’

children - boys and girls. Child miners often worked up to 18 hours each day, and their parents were forced to allow their binding as the wages for the adults were not enough to Spare the whole family starvation.

Conditions in these mines were death traps with explosions, cave-ins and inundations of water, but the miners became, over centuries, highly skilled, uniquely so, developing a knowledge and sense of underground work and science not easily matched and never by non-miners.

The early development of the miners’ unions from the end of the 1600s started to impose demands on wages and conditions, self-regulation by the Hewers, who were the most skilled working the dangerous work at the coalface, and an iron-clad discipline meant we could act collectively and set minimum terms. Miners often achieved high earnings although at other

times they dropped to dire poverty as the price of coal fluctuated. Living conditions in the 1920s and 1930s were appalling, as were conditions undergro und, and a heavy price was paid in flesh and blood and lung diseases. On the streets the

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry government deployed tanks and armoured cars and mounted machine gun posts at the pit heads. Strikes were stark and bitter, and the miners were often starved back to work. Nationalisation

in 1947

started

a dramatic

improvement

in health

and

safety,

wages

and

conditions, and especially after the great coal strikes of 1972 and 1974 which helped break the government's ‘incomes policy’ and turn out the government.

&y the late 1970s miners were regarded as well-paid and worked in the safest mines and the most technologically advanced mines in the world. The British Mines and Quarries Act was ‘he most stringent in the world and set an international benchmark for the world’s, miners’ inions

to aspire to.

“ne could see, with the coming of coal and other fossil fuels, the booster that threw society ‘orwers like a time machine, everywhere people's lives improved as industry developed and “vorsers Gemanded better standards of health and hygiene and better living conditions.

Third world countries like India and China developed their own coal industries, and coal power brought progress, laid an infrastructure for industry and development, and increased overall prosperity.

| had drafted this section when | came across a remarkable book, ‘The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels’, by Alex Epstein, published by the Penguin Group (USA). It not only makes the same points but does so from a strong scientific basis with a sheaf of graphs and statistics to back

it up. | have borrowed some diagrams from Alex's book. 50 >

o

3 Fossil fuel use

80

45

o © Qa

5

40

=

35

75

70

Qa

%>

a

. Life expectancy at birth

65

30

ww

2 9

25

2af

2

ro)

15

S s

10

©Uv

~ o

60

>

55 50

w

2

2 £

45

5 ° 1970

1980

1999

2000

2010

40 1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

The above diagram shows fossil fuel use and life expectancy in India and China (2013 data).

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry Coal

helped

to bring formerly impoverished

countries

into the light of day. Coal

is now

allowing countries like China, India and Vietnam to progress and lift the standards of living from subsistence peasant economies to modern industrial development. Ss.

3500

50

~

45

©

& 3000

SS

e

2

Oa

40

oO =

9 ¢

S x

a

e

©

2

©

os

yn

2500

2000

25

E +

20

a

1500

o&

=o

15

NS

1000

10

4

5

O

5 S

So

UD

Cc

©

3 S i

GDP per person

Fossil fuel use

rc Indi A WA J

c oO

6

J

Z

500

=

Oo

Oo

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

The above diagram shows fossil fuel use and income in India and China (2013 data).

That's not to say it is without social costs, but smog in China’s cities is not the simple result of using fossil fuels: it is the result of uncontrolled and unfettered emission. China’s safety record, once the worst in the world, is now dramatically better, and South African miners now

face the world’s worst mining conditions. (Although in recent years this too has dramatically improved.) Clean Coal and petrol and gas emission control technologies must soon be deployed in these countries if they are to continue their ascent in terms of standards of life. Having said that, the rise of coal drags with it a better standard of life overall, and people’s health improves with added

wealth,

hygiene,

clean water,

medicine,

benefits to longevity, child mortality, overall life expectancy etc.

and

health

care,

with

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

4)

90

Fossil fuel use =

Improved

water source

40

vo -

@

ic

3o

ca5

awo

39

3

© 38

s=

37

= 3

2 =

5

e

2

~ An Appetite for Energy, Coal. In depth feature article in National Geographic April 2014, pg. 28-61 66

Coal Mining Industry Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British oil, two or three barrels for each

ton of gas.

There

have

been

no leaks

under the closely

monitored system.”®

“Scientists consider the risk of a catastrophic The National Geographic in April 2014 said: leak to be extremely low.”

“It is

possible to store CO,

formations isaround 1km at underground site s onshore, while rock nce

British Scie the gas”, scientists told the ining conta for : ideal are Sea North beneath ; the Association festival in Guildford.

billion tonnesan of there is en ough room to store 150 in, Brita ing ound surr rs wate the ath Bene storage capacity is in giant salt -water aquifers. The and s, field oil and gas eted depl CO,, in

more than the rest of Europe combined, excluding Norway.

alin

eri

RGEC

100 years of emissions Irom "There is enough room beneath the North Sea to store professor of geology at Edinburgh

west Europe's

power

stations," said Stuart Heseltine,

bring £5bn a year alone. University. "Selling that capacity could

Engineers with the Norwegian oil company, Statoil, are testing the technology needed to pump CO, down to depths where it liquefies under pressure. The company has pumped a million tonnes a year into the Sleipner oilfield in the North Sea since 1996. ee

of the site has found no signs that the gas is leaking out and rising back up to the

surface.

7° Op.cit pg. 35 67

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Mike Stephenson, head of energy at the British Geological Survey, said: "If CCS is going to happen

in a big way, and it has to make an impact, then a lot of underground storage space

is going to be needed." "If we get it right, we could use our storage space to bury Europe's CO2 and we could charge for it," Stephenson added. The government, at the time Stephenson made this comment, was looking to industry to build four CCS demonstration plants but had not given a date by which they should be ready, “According to DOE similar ‘deep saline aquifers’ under the US could hold more than a

thousand years’ worth of emissions from American power plants.””” More

exciting yet are other forms of rock with the potential to lock away

CO 2. Experiments

have taken place in Iceland and in the Columbia River Basin of Washington State, where small amounts of CO, were injected into volcanic basalt. There the gas is expected to react with calcium and

magnesium

to form carbonate

rock - thus eliminating

any risk of the gas

ever escaping.” Heseltine said ministers must move faster to avoid losing out to competitors such as the US, which is racing ahead with a similar scheme in Texas. "I'm pushing for the government to get on with it and build five of these platforms by 2016," he said. We are in a world-beating position and must not lose the plot." Sadly, and despite all the facts ‘We’ or rather they have lost the plot.

Devastating news came with an article in the Spectator in November 2011, announcing that the plug was being pulled on Carbon Capture in Britain. The last surviving outposts of deep

coal mining in Britain, and the masses of abandoned coal communities, had been looking with great expectations to the development of CCS as an impulse toward the revival of the British Coal Mining industry. Britain sits on the edge of a self-induced energy catastrophe mainly due to ‘The Final Solution’ to the problem of the ‘bolshie’ coal miners, the final extermination of the last 55,000 coal miners’ jobs and all but six of the last 55 coal mines in the 1990s. This was John Major taking up where Thatcher's closures had left off. Thatcher aimed

to smash

the NUM

Major had concluded

and cut the industry back to a super profitable

non-union rump;

by 1992 he could never free the industry of its union culture and

potential resurgence of the NUM as a social political force and drove through with the help of the LibDems the decimation of what remained of the coal industry.

Blair and Brown, dedicated followers of Thatcher and the Free Market, and as much slaves

to the banks and money speculation as the Tories, did nothing in 13 years to stop the rot, let alone reverse it. This led to the lunatic position where 50 million tons of coal, all more costly

to produce, was shipped into Britain, through coal communities devastated by unemployment and now social deprivation of all sorts, to be burned in local power stations to be used to fuel our own power and steel production. At the same time the miners’ communities, now 77 National Geographic April 2014 Op.cit pg. 37 78 Ibid.

68

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry devastated by benefit dependency and hopelessness, are charged with having become a drain on the tax system! (Despite the government taking £4.6 billion from the miners’ pension

fund as ‘their share’ of investment profits, even though they never paid one penny piece into it.) ing of ‘the dash The exhaustion of native gas supplies was a direct result of Major's unleash

markets. Huge tracts of gas, for gas’ as part of his strategy to destroy coal’s power station

hundreds of years at low prices, which used for domestic consumption would have lasted sary gas power stations, until within twenty

were burned off wholesale in totally unneces s and thousands of miles gone, and now is replaced by sources, hundred all had it ears y the people. distant, at ever rising costs and prices to | | | l. coa ept exc Consider every option ces of domestic power Britain - the ever-escalating pri in sis cri rgy ng ene eni ors r-w The eve on the question of government into an apparent rethink the ed forc ly brief had ing heat and has

nsion. Central ie that demand, the NUM allowing the British coal industry to start expa . . technology, and in particular CCS. called for the development of clean coal gies, which ess linked to other Gean coal technolo Readers may know that CCS is a proc in empty oil captures it and stores it below ground takes CO; out of the coal burning process, years sealed in rock for hundreds of millions of and gas wells. The gas and oil having been unlikely to ever h had thrown up, would be highly and survived every convulsion the eart mber is than the original strata so the whole cha er hard hole drill the seal can We pe. esca the actual tube which is inserted into the with es com lem prob l ntia pote only The secured. rot, or this material is made of, the fear is it may hole to channel the gas, depending on what this hole and bypass the seal. The chances of rust, allowing gas to escape up the side of the

the amounts involved are tiny and nothing happening are extremely remote, and even then, rs, of CO, which is currently taking place. As mine

whatever compared to the free emission the reason for the tube in the first place though not engineers, we have never anyway seen its underground chamber, but such fears unless the fear is the gas will escape en route to tific or engineering obstacle to the are anyway so remote as to represent no real scien world, and the fears about ‘global process. Given the massive consumption of coal in the uction of CO>, a clean technology warming’ being caused by coal consumption and the prod

which would stop or greatly arguments are offered that having compressed air and highly proved technologies.

quite stupid Despite our century, with uses energy

reduce this process has been urgently sought. Some we would be unable to force the gas down the hole! gases of all sorts since at least the early nineteenth It is also offered that forcing the CO, down the hole

too, yep we know that, but with CCS there is no shortage of energy.

The miners were at the forefront of demanding clean coal technology since the days of Nationalisation. We and our families after all lived in the highest concentrations of smoke and gas and pollution. It was we who spear-headed the drive for coke and other smokeless fuels and drove the Clean

Air Acts.

We

urged

the

development

of ‘smoke-eating’

fireplaces,

central heating, insulation, combined heat and power systems. We argued along with the rail unions for electrification of the railways, in order to get private haulage off the roads and lower passenger road miles. We were in the forefront of supporting Clean Coal Technological research and a hundred

different schemes

were 69

in the pipeline,

all of them

feasible and

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry viable. We hoped to develop CO, capture and pump it into dead areas of the mines, or abandoned mines, which would have the dual effect of getting the CO, out of the atmosphere and also preventing spontaneous combustion underground. CO, is heavier than air and we had concluded it would not in normal situations ‘float’ back out of dead mine areas; this is a work in progress. Likewise, we were devising means of making bricks and breeze blocks infused

with

CO,

which

would

be

The

locked

into the fabric of the

fluid bed

combustion

brick,

system

was

making

house and

building

fires virtually unlikely.

scheme

which generated massive amounts of power from tiny amounts of coal combustion.

another futuristic

All of these were damned by Thatcher, who saw them as ways of ensuring that the NUM and

the miners would become even more socially and strategically powerful. The green lobby, one would have thought, would be active advocates of CCS, but they hate

it, because even though it prevents CO, going into the atmosphere it enables mining. As soon as we introduce the idea of carbon capture into any discussion of energy, they attempt

to shut it down as soon as possible usually by dismissing it with lies, saying that this is an unproven technology, or it doesn't exist anywhere in the world or it has been tried and doesn't work. None of those things is true as this work will demonstrate. Although still in its infancy

and

with

many

of the

projects

smothered

on

their drawing

boards

by ‘green’

lobbyists, about 22 major systems are operating worldwide.

Gas - 10 Industrial -.9

Under construction

9

ra

a

e+

Operational 13

bes les

—

oc. BRD im a BEE Be

a>

if i

Power plants - 3

Other carbon sources - 19

This illustration relates to North America including Canada Infographic by Rosamund Pearce for Carbon Brief (https://www.carbonbrief.org/author/rospearce)

70

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

The Hatfield Main / Don Valley CCS Clean Coal Project.

of the project Don Valley Power Project: this plan shows the headgear on the extreme right the site look picture with the head gear enclosed, an unnecessary feature aimed at making carbon reduction less like a colliery and more like a process industry. The most advanced and although scheme in the world, or so the EU thought. The Lib-Dems closed it down, t it, despite it Labour opposed the halting of the programme refused to pledge to resurrec being in Ed Miliband’s constituency and literally his back yard. the 2Co Energy Ltd., a Guildford-based company behind the proposed scheme, issued use following statement: “2Co is helping the UK cut its emissions by making carbon capture, (Otherwise and storage a reality through development of its Don Valley CCS Project.” referred to in this document as The Hatfield Project since it was linked to Hatfield Main Colliery and was to be constructed in the Hatfield Colliery surface curtilage).

2Co's Don Valley CCS Project was one of the most advanced full chain carbon capture and storage projects in Europe. The project currently leads the rankings for all European CCS projects,”? and ranks in Bloomberg New Energy Finance's top ten global CCS projects. (See https://about.bnef.com/ for more information.) The Don Valley project was awarded €180 million of EU funding in 2010 and planning permission was awarded in 2009. Grid granted permission for a pipeline to take the COz offshore to North Sea storage sites. The project was expected to be operational by the end of 2016 and at a total cost of up to £5 billion would represent a major investment in UK infrastructure.

As one of the first commercial-scale end-to-end CCS projects in the world, the Don Valley CCS Project would have positioned the UK at the forefront of the global CCS industry and create an international centre of expertise, with significant export opportunities. The 2Co project team had unparalleled commercial and technical experience

in carbon

capture, utilisation and storage technologies needed across the full project chain. Shell, BOC/Linde and GE were key technology suppliers to the Don Valley CCS Project. The technologies they will use have been tested and proven at scale around the world. Samsung va

oe

en

have both recently agreed to take significant equity stakes in 2Co's onshore

ccs Project in South Yorkshire would have used pre-combustion carbon

pture grid pipeline technology at a new-build Integrated Gasification Combined

Cycle (IGCC) power plant. 79

7

ee

. ; https://ec.europa.eu/clim a/sites/clima/files/

WWw.samsungent.com/eng/index.do www. boconline.co.uk/en/index.html

docs/2012071201 swd_ner300.pdf ——

81

71

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

plant design includes CO, capture from a coal gasification plant which will supply

The

hydrogen-rich gas for power generation from which the principal emission is water vapour. This will generate 920 MW (gross) - approximately 650MW (net) - of incremental base-load low carbon electricity from the end of 2016, just as the retirement of existing power plants makes the UK's electricity supply/demand balance a significant issue. The plant will generate enough low carbon electricity to power one million UK homes, making it the UK's largest CCS project. as CO, (up From the outset, the CCS plant will capture at least 90% of the carbon in the coal

to 5 million tonnes of CO, per year) and equivalent to taking over 2 million family cars off the

gas will road: a significant boost to the UK's 2020 emissions reduction targets. The captured the under 3km be compressed and transported via a 400km to permanent storage locations North Sea. plans to use 2Co is working with Talisman on two of its Central North Sea oil fields which it

g the for permanent CO, storage. The North Sea oil fields under consideration are approachin Treasury. end of their life and would otherwise be decommissioned at substantial cost to HM

2Co

Energy

proposes to inject the captured

CO

into these

oil fields where

valuable commodity for producing otherwise ‘hard to reach’ oil from

depleted

it will be a

oil fields and

increasing yields by up to 15 per cent of the oil originally in place. Naturally occurring CO, has been used to extract oil in North America for 40 years and today accounts for six per cent of domestic oil production - some 300,000 barrels a day. The availability of man-made in the UK too. CO, from carbon capture projects will enable this industry to develop

Not only are oil fields the best geological storage sites but using CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) boosted the economic viability of the Don Valley CCS Project and, importantly, reduced the amount of government support required. With the use of EOR, 2Co's projections estimated that Don Valley, and other heavy emitting industry, would have

been able to safely and permanently store their captured CO; at zero cost.828 Creating

a commercial

use for the captured

CO2,

rather than

treating

it as purely a waste

product, could generate billions of oil production taxation revenue for government. This game-changing EOR technology will significantly offset the high initial infrastructure and

storage costs that have hampered UK CCS development in the past and makes CCS cost-

competitive with other low carbon sources of electricity generation. lf EOR using CO, is widely deployed, experts believe that an additional 3-8 billion barrels of oil could be extracted from the UK North Sea, potentially doubling the UK’s remaining recoverable oil reserves, and extending the life of the North Sea oil industry by 20 years Or

more. 2Co is currently working with the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish CCS to assess the full potential for CO2-EOR in the North Sea. * Unique geographic and industrial assets make the Yorkshire-Humber region best-placed to become a world-leading CCS location. It is not only within easy reach of offshore CO storage sites in the North Sea, but the region also represents the heart of the UK's coal-fired

8? www.energy.gov/fe/science-innovation/oil-gas-research/enhanced-oil-recovery 83 www.iCO2n.com/

84 www.sccs.org.uk/ 72

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry power generation emitting 90mt CO, per year — almost one fifth of the UK's annual CO ; emissions. © Due to its strategic geographical location and the economies of scale derived from an infrastructure pipeline and 'no cost' storage, the Don Valley Power Project could have

sparked a major cluster of CCS projects in the Yorkshire / Humber region. A "plug and play" transport and storage infrastructure would have created one of Europe's

most dynamic low carbon industrial zones and seen the region become a magnet for heavy emitters looking to reduce their emissions at least cost.

2Co were optimistic that a sustainable UK CCS industry will result that can be exported around the world.

have been funded

Project construction would

by government grants, debt, and equity

investment from project owners.

Over £3 billion would have been invested at the CCS

plant site, £1 billion in offshore

in the facilities, and hundreds of millions of pounds into the 400km pipeline. Total investment Don Valley CCS project was expected to be £5 billion. (€180 The Don Valley CCS Project was the only UK CCS project to have won funding

million) under the European Energy Programme for Recovery.” It was competing for additional funding under the EU’s New Entrant Reserve programme

(NER300)® and was a bidder for the programme in 2012.

five The project represented up to £5 billion of capital investment into UK infrastructure. Over UK that years, the project would have created up to 3,800 construction jobs in parts of the needed them most, such as Yorkshire and Scotland. 3,000 jobs at The onshore part of the project in South Yorkshire could have created around operational. peak construction, and directly created around 300 new jobs once the plant was construction The offshore part of the project could have created 800 North Sea jobs during and sustained 300 highly skilled and well-paid jobs once in operation. The leadership the UK is showing

combined

in CCS

with the need to see the technology

that could be deployed globally could have helped create a UK centre of expertise and skills

exported

revenues

around

that

the

world.

it would

HM

otherwise

Treasury

not

would

have

have

received

received

and

substantial

its share

oil

of the

taxation

costs

of

for 25 years or so. decommissioning the oil platforms concerned could have been deferred

critical Early development of commercial scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects is and to the UK's ability to meet its climate change and energy security objectives by 2030 CCS beyond. 2Co welcomed the UK government's proclaimed commitment to a

commercialisation programme.” The UK's Independent Change said CCS technologies are essential and urgently needed to decarbonise the UK's coal-fired power sector and carbon-intensive industrial sectors like cement and steel. Over the next few decades, CCS will be vital to achieving the UK's carbon emissions reduction targets with minimal economic impact by allowing fossil fuels like coal and natural

gas to remain part of the future energy mix. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates widespread deployment of CCS technology can contribute 20 per cent of the global carbon ® www.globalccsinstitute.com/news-media/insights/ - ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/ Network_booklet%20_2015_final.pdf

*” ec.europa.eu/clima/funding/ner300_en *8 www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/emissions/ccs/ukccscomm_prog/ukccscomm_prog.aspx 73

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

dioxide emission reductions that are needed by 2050 and argues that this would cost 70 per

cent more without CCS. °° © The Don Valley CCS Project could have made a

significant contribution to meeting the UK's

need for 'base-load' low-carbon electricity to support development of more renewable energy and at a cost that was competitive with established renewable sources of energy.”

ee

eee

f nes eum plant

each

OR Ue

ee eS Orme year.

over

OS Gg

Pete ee eel SCU ae ele See LM ear) ¢ Teme M Mb see lesks r * Et billion investment in the North Sea

Rumi lol 90%

a

of emissions

infrastructure

emit

2020

z

Poems rene fy Gratton 8 wlll Sty

emty amd fat te make

Then, on 30th October 2012 it was announced that the EU's leading carbon capture project

failed to win UK government backing. 2Co Energy's Don Valley CCS project failed in its bid to win UK government backing to build Europe's first industrial-scale carbon capture and storage project. Lewis Gillies, CEO of 2Co Energy Limited said: “This is truly disappointing news for the Doncaster area where we would have built this plant and for our world-class project team working to deliver it. We will complete the current phase of the project and meet the knowledge-share obligations of our existing EEPR funding from the EU, but we cannot take

8° www.iea.org/search?q=ccs 9° www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/carbon-capture-utilisation-and-storage °1 This is from the publicity put out by the company and shows the rough specification of the project, full of optimism as it might be, it actually won everything, including meeting all the criteria for the government's own £1Billion prize for the most efficient carbon reduction project only to be told despite winning the European award and private funding the government would NOT now honour its pledge and award the money. They hadn’t considered that the plan might work or be ready to go NOW, they had in fact ‘done a runner’ with the

prize money in the belief that by the time it was ready to go they would have put the money back. Without the British side of the bargain the plant was then on hold and meantime the Colliery was again on the knife’s edge of closure partially as a result of having this secure lifeline withdrawn. O2energy had agreed to give the colliery

Priority in supplying coal. In fact, after closing the colliery in July 2015 the plan for the project is back on course, but as an imported gas user, minus coal and miners, British or otherwise. reason for the otherwise inexplicable decision all along. 74

It seems this was the long-term

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

this project further without funding from the UK government. In the meantime, we are trying selected by to come to terms with how the UK's most advanced project that has twice been

the EU for funding and is currently sitting as Europe's top ranked project has not even made it to the UK’s shortlist.”

ire topped the list of European In July, the 650MW (net) Don Valley project in South Yorksh

share of the €1.3 billion funding pot CCS projects competing for an estimated €337 million had four projects on the list but each available in the EU's NER300 programme. The UK n

Falling carbon prices since the competitio required co-funding commitments from the UK. d the number of CCS projects the launched reduced the overall funds available and reduce EU can support.

this same government to the plant ai the What a sorry contrast to the earlier commitment of 2010) Energy Minister Charles Hendry (December 17” programme. | had written to the then behind this project. about the vital importance of the government getting They replied as follows: part of the energy mix. The “The government wants coal to provide an important re and Storage (CCS) is commercial-scale demonstration of Carbon Captu ically and economically recognized as the next step in providing that it is techn s to develop CCS. In viable and that is why the UK is leading international effort rcial scale CCS 2007 we were one of the first countries to launch a comme commitment to demonstration project, and the Coalition Agreement stated our ired stations. continue public sector investment in CCS technology for four coal-f diture to the The announcement of the allocation of up to £1bn in capital expen largest first CCS project announced in the Spending Review last October is the confirmed commitment to a single commercial scale CCS project in the world and will ensure that the UK continues to lead the way on commercial scale 's demonstration. This level of commitment is an indication of the government commitment, particularly so as this is being made at a time of extreme pressure

on public expenditure.” %* We shall return to this apparently short-sighted decision later when the reasons for it become clear. Returning to CCS. The Hatfield system, which was poised to be a major clean coal export to China, India, Australia and North America on the other hand, was due to be established within two years of development. It could have been on-stream worldwide between two and five years, with the potential of cutting world energy CO, emissions by over 70% and in effect ‘solve’ the problem, at least until workable renewables could be established and developed. That the government has walked away from its commitment to cut world global emissions in the name of cutting UK global emissions is something they cannot be allowed to get away with. But they do, because they are protected by a picket line of middle-class green liberal environmentalists who, contrary to their claims of science and logic, want no such thing as

* Letter to author, 3rd Feb 2011, Andrew Morrissy. Dept. of Energy and Climate Change. 75

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry facts to get in the way of the agenda. What is perhaps astounding is that the story of ‘The

King's New Clothes’ still works, no longer a truthful child who sees a naked king being hailed

by people blinded by informed opinion, but cursed as a ‘climate denier’. How does the decision affect energy supply and prices here? Had Hatfield's project been funded and had it started generating clean power, there would be no excuse for the fossil fuel — CO, emission tax. Meaning that power generated from this project could be up to 50% cheaper than any other fossil fuel source and more than 100% cheaper than nuclear or wind turbines. Passed on to the consumers, this would produce a ‘dash to coal’ as consumers

switch to clean coal power. It would spark a new prospect for long term investment in the deep-mined coal industry with everything that that means for jobs and manufacture, not to mention the miners’ union riding back from the jaws of hell into strategic strength again. Against all of this, why on earth would even this coal-hating mining-phobic government NOT award the grant to the clear winner? At first, | came up with a thousand and one conspiracy theories along predictable lines to explain the action. But the truth is simpler.

The Hatfield Project was ready right then; it required the funding right then, unlike any of the other projects. What now comes to light is that the Treasury did a smash and grab raid on the prize and simply stole the £billion from the fund. The £billion had gone, disappeared like fairy gold in the night. The project then fell flat from want of funding. The same sum, from the same promised and expected pot under this scheme, then gets paid to the purely speculative and

anyway

massively wasteful

UCG

scheme.

So the decision

is even

more

deeply anti-

social and irresponsible than we thought. In the ten-year period until the fund reflates, British deep coal mines all closed because of the dead weight of fossil fuel taxes and ongoing coal power station closures. Worse for us and Hatfield, the EU only promised the half billion of funding if the British government came up to the plate too. A refusal by the British government to meet this commitment killed the plan flat.

The chance to make a serious, scientific impact on global CO, emissions has been missed right at the moment when it is needed most. Once this ‘market’ and demand for clean coal generation is lost to far less efficient versions, and nations across the world commit to heavy

infrastructure investment in them, the window of opportunity will have been lost. It is one of the most shameful episodes in a whole catalogue of catastrophic decisions. More on this emerged later and | will return to the issue. The NUM and coalfield MPs, especially lan Lavery, the former President of the NUM, have put up a tremendous

rear-guard action with questions in the house

and

meetings

with the

Energy Secretary, the Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband (whose constituency this is), as well as Caroline Flint, the shadow Energy Minister whose coalfield constituency is next door.

Although Shadow Energy Secretary, Caroline Flint gives a generic “support for coal-fired power generation on the condition that it can prove it can reduce its carbon emissions and as

a part of an affordable, balanced, low carbon mix."** They say this already with the knowledge of the Hatfield / Don Valley Scheme and its fate. They already know we had a copper-bottomed cast-iron case for clean coal power production - what we needed from them

*° Letter to Author, 12 Aug 2013. 76

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry is a similar copper-bottomed commitment to re-launch and fund the scheme and others like it

- @ plan to renationalise the remaining three coal mines and stop the total extinction of the British deep-mined coal industry. We didn't get it, and Labour's new Green Deal for its 2019 election bid buys wholesale into the green panic, with further massive extensions of offshore wind, a phasing out of all gas including domestic appliances, an end to petrol vehicles within ten years, and a mass application of solar panels. If we don't, warned John McDonnell on the Vine Programme

in-depth interview, “we won't be here”.

Nowhere

did John

point out the

huge increase all of this will mean for steel production, or of course coke and coal. We have a sneaky feeling he intends to carry on importing it, with all the added social and environmental costs which go with it.

Against the background of further open-ended price rise warnings in February 2013 to pay

for declining amounts

of gas and rising imports, people's energy bills are reaching

exhaustion point and the demand for some alternative energy policy is starting to kick their doors down. But time and opportunity do not stand still as we see from this feature in a New Zealand

The Hew Zealand Herald Carbon capture plant opened in central Queensland 6:33 PM Saturday Dec 15, 2012

A $250 million carbon capture plant has opened in central Queensland near Bitola. The facility, opened by Australian Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, is the first in the world to be retro-fitted on to an existing power station.

The Callide OxyFuel Project is a joint venture between the Japanese and Australian governments and several industry groups. It uses a process called oxyfuel, which burns coal with pure oxygen instead of air, which contains 78 per cent nitrogen. The Australian Coal Association says the technology can reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired electricity plants by up to 90 per cent. The project is expected to run well into 2014.

4.1.3 Fluidised Bed Combustion The Fluidised Bed Combustion Process was a visionary new method of combustion which could be applied to power generation, steel production, district heating schemes and waste disposal, Engineering firms and power plants were queuing up to adapt the scheme to their particular processes and were bringing forward designs and prototypes. Across the world big business was looking to this “British Combustion Process’.

77

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

The original stimulus seems to have come from the unfettered coal power stations of the UK who set free all kinds of emissions without much restriction. The resultant ‘acid rain’ tended to fall on the forests of Scandinavia with devastating effect, principal cause Sulphur Dioxide. | recall from memory that the Scandinavian countries were dual funders of the research programme that elaborated as the Grimethorpe Plant. There were others, although the research material on the plant mentions only joint funding from GFR and NCB. The

following plans are taken from the complete

collection of design

and

research papers

held at North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers and occupy five large shelves. The project was researched available.

The

plan

on

its own

and refined to within an inch of its life. All the data is

warrants

a complete

book.

It would

be

inappropriate

to

overload a book of this sort with a mountain of facts and figures on this one theme. The scheme employs a bed of limestone rock, and a combustion

bed, which produces lava-

like waves of molten material. Small quantities of coal are injected into the tempest of heat under pressure, producing massive heat with exceedingly small quantities of fuel. The lime bed absorbs Sulphur Dioxide and Carbon Dioxide from the coal, with consequential mass reduction of greenhouse gases and toxins. | have chosen not to give up the six months of my life tracking down a more detailed and refined analysis of just how much emissions are reduced by - it's all there in the research paper but depending on the system there is a 95% elimination of sulphur dioxide and ash, and 80% of COz, with similar reductions of nitrogen dioxins. Controlled Sulphur Emissions Limestone or Dolomite can be introduced into the bed to absorb up to 95 percent of Re Sulphur In the fuel. Very high emission standards can be achieved when burning highSulphur fuels in a fluidised-bed combustor without the need for supplementary desulphurisation equipment. This technology has been successfully used by CSL licensees.

78

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry The use of FBC means that many fuels previously unusable because of their high pollution potential can now be bumed efficiently and without contravening local regulations. High Heat Release rate

The high rate at which

heat can be released from the bed for steam

raising, or other

purposes, allows smaller boilers and furnaces to be used. CLS has accumulated a wealth of design experience which with the aid of a computer programme can be used to optimise the design of in-bed heat transfer surfaces.

Low Combustion Temperature

ash in fuels For satisfactory operations, the bed is kept below the temperature at which

the range of 750-950 begins to fuse or sinter. The usual operating bed temperature is within degrees C. Caught in the stream.

at which the individual if the velocity of the gas is steadily increased a point will be reached gas stream particles will be forced upward by the flow so as to be suspended in the The bed becomes If the gas velocity is increased further an important change takes place.

well highly turbulent and rapid mixing of the particles occurs. The surface is no longer

liquid rise defined but appears diffuse and bubbles of ‘gas’ similar to those formed in a boiling liquid, through the bed. A bed in this state is said to be fluidised. In general, it behaves as a finding its own level and possessing hydrostatic head. Still further increases in gas velocity cause progressively large particles to become entrained and carried off by the gas stream. In fluidised combustion the particles forming the bed are composed of suitable inert mineral matter. For coal burning these would probably be the residual ash from previously burned coal, and graded limestone and dolomite, the latter to absorb sulphur dioxide during combustion. Solid, liquid or gaseous fuel is fed continuously into the bed in the quantity required to maintain the required thermal output: the quantity of carbon in the bed rarely exceeds 0.5% by the weight of the bed. The fluidising gas will be the air required to enable

the fuel to burn. Its velocity - the fluidising velocity - is calculated simply from the plan area of the bed and the volume of gases per unit time leaving the bed at its operating temperature. For a particular bed with a given particle size range there will be an upper and lower limit of fluidising velocity within which satisfactory fluidisation will be established.

79

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Chimney

Limestone Fabric F liter Partioutate Control

Fluidized Bed Furnace

[

Air

Diy Flue Gas

[an

Desulfurization

Removal

System

Ash Removal

The above diagram shows a circulating fluidised bed combustion boiler. =

*4 From ‘www.circulatingfluidizedbedboiler.com’ 80

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

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ee

areas

Cee ~ ee *

CNTY ST

ete,

Re

ke LR Oe Nee ee ee ee Fe RE ere a

8

Pee ee

em -mee

wt Renfrew

nthe

TS

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81

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=

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

PRESSURISE

FLUIDISED B GENERATIEDO ONF ELE GAS CUR AN ING

The Encomech Coal-Fired Clean Hot Air Producer. This is based on Encomech’s proved design ceramic tube recuperators which developed

for high and low temperature

corrosive waste

gas environments

have been

and the NCB's

expertise in Fluidised Bed Combustion. The heart of the unit is the combustor which incorporates a ceramic tube heat exchanger immersed in the coal-fired fluid bed. Heat is transferred quickly and efficiently from the burning coal directly to clean air passed through the ceramic tubes. A start up bumer is provided to initiate combustion.

Off gasses from combustion are cooled in above bed and after bed heat exchangers giving overall operating efficiencies of 85%. Glass tube heat exchangers may be added to increase the net efficiency to 100%. Large quantities of process air at temperatures of up to 250C can be produced by arranging fresh air to pass through all the ceramic recuperators in parallel (as shown). Considerably higher air temperatures bed

air supplies

can

in series.

be obtained The

by connecting

all-ceramic

the ceramic recuperators and fluid construction uses heightened quality materials

which are selected to be resistant to attack from salts and sulphur compounds produced by low-cost fuels. The

combustion

system

allows

for the

clean

consumption

of most

waste

which

would

normally be confined to landfill while absorbing emissions from that combustion into the lime 82

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

bed. The lime does periodically have to be changed and disposed of, but the volume of this waste is minuscule compared to the original mass, it also saves the atmosphere from greenhouse gasses trapped in the lime. The lime itself could then safely be disposed of, it occurs to me at least in the mines which are mining our coal into pack areas or goafs

(abandoned area of the mine). The bricks having now been gorged on C02 would have the added advantage of acting to minimise the dangers of ‘gob’ or ‘goaf fires and ‘heatings’.

systems, which feed Combined heat and power systems allow for locally based fluid bed homes, and domestic whole town or village complexes, heating schools, hospitals, care

wasted power and dwellings as well as industrial processes from a central boiler, eliminating duplicated emissions, taking overall emissions to a minimum.

s and Grimethorpe are Full facts plans and reports on the Fluidised Bed Combustion Proces tle Upon Tyne (opposite available at NEIMME Library, Neville House, Westgate Hill, Newcas The Revolution pub).

Grimethorpe Coal Preparation Plant

83

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Grimethorpe Colliery Fluidised Bed, Barnsley.

This was the first internationally financed, designed, and constructed clean coal pore ane It began life at Barnsley. £20 million had been raised with a futuristic vision of massive powe production using tiny amounts of powdered coal. In November of 1980, the plant was completed and operating.

—

Funding had been raised equally between United States, the German Federal Republic, Britain, all brought together by the International Energy Agency. The plant, other than | ; great efficiency and low environmental impact, could also burn high ash and Sp vane coals otherwise rejected by conventional power stations as too polluting. On 14 ae 1994 the Star announced that British Coal was to demolish the plant and abandon the project. A year later it was blown up. ee

Despite the plant's universal ground-breaking operation, the John Major governme withdrawn its funding without reason, following the decision to abandon all but a si

,

collieries and switch the power market from coal to gas, deregulating and national grid and its public service requirements.

tne

ABB

Carbon,

based

in Sweden,

who

had

overseen

the

plant,

went

on

breaking up — to

build

full-sca

plants across Europe America and Japan. le Ironically, the great clamour for low carbon energy, which distorted all sensible decisions power

2000s,

generation and drove prices beyond the reach

of millions of consumers

could comfortably and at a fraction of the cost have

been

met

In

the

by this and

systems which the Lib-Dem Coalition Government also pulled the plug on, leaving the w country with an intractable energy crisis.

84

an } me

C hole

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry The

decision

to close

this plant

(and

later the

Don

Valley

plant) were

entirely politically

motivated and aimed at preventing the re-emergence of a modern low carbon coal industry

and coal power system.°° In the same year that the Barnsley pits, the massive coal preparation plant and the Fluid Bed

unit were closed, Barnsley was declared the most deprived town in Britain.

4.1.4 Underground Coal Gasification (UCG)

Britain's remaining coal Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) is the biggest threat ever to reserves. Waste CO, separation Air Injection

er ti)

What is UCG? - down a first borehole measuring six inches across they would send oxidants - airloxygen or steam, triggering the coal to partially oxidate. Because this is partial combustion, a gas called Syngas would be produced which maintains much of its original

energy (the gas’s energy not the partially combusted coal, an important difference as we shall see later). Due to the pressure’s differences, the trapped gasses are released from the seam and the area around the seam. All of these gases - hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and carbon dioxide - would then

be extracted through a second borehole back to the surface and shore. We have no problem with the science or technology of the process or its environmental impact (other than the dual standards applied to coal powered CO, emissions and those of Methane and CO, from this process). Our only concern is that this is being wheeled out to

replace and displace and block the development of Britain's vast remaining coal reserves. In fact, nothing is extracted from this process which cannot equally be extracted on the surface once the coal is conventionally mined. *° These photos and information are from South Yorkshire People and Coal, Peter Tuffrey, pg. 24 Fonthill, ISBN 978-1-78155-060-1, 2013. 85

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

The Tories have long danced on the grave of the coal communities and the memories of the

once powerful NUM, but at the back of their minds they have retained the fear that this corpse might not stay down and might one day rise again. Their fears were grounded in: e the fact of 1000 years of untapped coal reserves in vast coalfields which remain. that the existing mining workforce and army of unemployed miners are still just young enough to fuel the redevelopment of the coal fields. e that our sons and grandsons might follow on in our traditions in the conscious memory of our collective history. Now they have the stake to drive through the corpse of the coal industry to make sure it never rises from the dead. It is called Underground Coal Gasification. “Research projects on underground coal gasification, coal bed methane and enhanced coal bed methane are underway. Each of these projects is intimately linked with our carbon capture and storage research, so ensuring the impact on the environment is minimised. err Pua

Yrpe

tt te

~

:

os -¢.

4 “a-

;

¢ se

‘ 8

"

nn oo “ee

arto

Thermal Pwlormer

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Long after its gas and oil reserves have been exhausted, the UK will still have large onshore and offshore coal reserves, though most of these are beyond the reach of conventional

mining techniques. e¢

UCG can be directly coupled to carbon capture and storage to unlock these vast energy reserves without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Directionally drilled boreholes can be installed in a target coal seam. Seams of coal are gasified and syngas produced from the burn zone is collected by the production wells.

Use of Syngas: Syngas can directly feed a gas turbine power plant. The syngas can be reacted with steam and a catalyst to produce CO, which can be stored and H2 for power generation. Syngas could be converted to diesel using the Fischer-Tropsch process. UCG derived syngas could replace petroleum derived syngas in a wide variety of

processes in the chemical industry“®” Underground Coal Gasification is the neutron bomb of coal mining. It destroys the coal seam as a mining prospect and leaves hundreds of miles of thick seams raped and abandoned. The calorific utility of the fuel by this method is tiny; it represents 96 Mining technology is an ever-evolving science, and few coal reserves would be beyond reach indefinitely. 37 Next Generation Coal Conference, 12-13 July 2012, Newcastle upon Tyne. 86

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry something

in the

order

of 4%

of the

real value

of the reserve

which

would

then

be

left

wrecked and unusable. The process doesn't need miners, doesn't offer jobs, and will make sure we never ever come back to haunt them. The Coal Authority had already granted 18 licences to carry out this plunder and destruction. | believe the process has sadly already been

operating

for some

time

by

the

winter

of 2019,

something

which

is almost

totally

unknown and certainly had been to me.

Were this simply a plan to exploit coal reserves that traditional mining methods cannot reach, we wouldn't be too concerned,

but this is not the case; all of the licenses which have been

granted are in offshore seams where our best hopes of a revival of the industry lie.

In January of 2014, the local press announced to banner headlines “£1bn key to unlock coal gas

bonanza”.

The

£1

billion which

the government

withdrew from

the Clean

Coal

CCS

programme for Don Valley is now being handed over to Underground Coal Gasification on three the North East coast. The CCS, which was so vital to the survival of the remaining “green lifesaving deep mines and was withheld from that scheme, is now wheeled out as the

energy” applied to UCG. You wouldn't have to be a grand conspiracy theorist to see the hand of bitter political interference and bias here. As Chris Kitchen the General Secretary of the NUM said in response to the news: - “This government knows it has an energy crisis coming but for what | believe is a continuation of the Thatcher vendetta refuses to admit that coal is the answer ... Cameron would rather allow fracking which no one wants except the energy firms that will make a fortune from it then walk away from the devastation that fracking and

UGC will cause.” °° coalfield is an immense area of coal reserves, untapped and virgin from Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire and barely touched from the Durham Northumberland

The

Northern

coastal

coalfields to the Firth of Forth. Hopes for the redevelopment of eight new coal mines along the north east coast had centred on plans for new drift mines from south of the Wear to Berwick. The area of some 23 trillion tonnes of coal had been mapped out and expert mining engineers had given the seal of approval as to the viability of the redeveloped Northumberland-Durham coalfield. Even if each mine produced a massive 2 million tonnes per year, and employed 1500 men per mine, we were looking with great confidence at 16 million of tonnes of coal per year, and a minimal workforce of 12,000 for centuries. The announcement that Five Quarter has been awarded a license from the UK Coal Authority to frack the entire reserve is nothing short of devastating. No consideration whatever has been given to the permanent damage done to the seams, and the fact that they will be destroyed as a workable resource. Only 4% of the calorific value of the seams will be exploited leaving the residue, 96%, wrecked and unworkable, in the ground. Fracking is a low labour-intensive process industry which after the initial drilling and infrastructure employment falls to just 500 jobs rather than thousands.

., whe Northern Echo, January 31st 2014. Front Page, Comment & pages 4/5 Letter to author, 31st Jan 2014. 87

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Japanese coal miners fight against the closure of their industry.

e The Underground coalfield plan shown opposite from The Echo shows the reserves Oe Durham and Northumberland coalfield, the oblong shapes are worked out coal srvart dee from the Northumberland

coalfield. The green unworked

virgin seams

are prime

[or

r

mining. The reserve continues south past Shields to Sunderland and beyond to Whitby but isn’t shown on this plan.

88

ray

as

an)

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

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1

oe

yar

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SE

rs

Five Quarter has also obtained licenses for The Firth of Forth, the Solway Firth, and Liverpool Bay in an area of untapped coal probably equally as large on the Western coast as

the Eastern. '° We could be conservatively looking at 50 trillion tonnes of coal north east and west of Liverpool and Whitby. A potential to redevelop the Cumberland and Lancashire coalfield alongside the Northern and southern Scottish coalfields with secure mining jobs for 30,000 miners, their sons, grandsons’ great-grandsons etc for centuries. Coal reserves in abandoned former coalfields, virgin unworked coalfields and right round the coasts of southern England, Wales and Scotland ensure that we are still an island built on coal, and since the days mining first began to the present day, we have scarcely exhausted half of it, the other half plus remains. Instead of unplugging this great coalfield revival they will rape and pillage the nation’s energy treasury, destroy its long life potential, and walk away with megabucks leaving the population robbed of its heritage. We must make everyone aware of what is going on here and demand that licenses are never

allowed in any area of coal which can be mined from conventional methods now or in the future and that of course includes all the reserves up to 100 miles offshore.

*® Northern Echo, January 31st 2014, pages 4 & 5. 89

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

4.1.5 Electric Arc Steel Process it must be said (because the anti-coal lobby will seize on anything they think knocks or replaces coal) that there is of course the Electric Arc Steel Process which accounts for

around a third of steel coming into new production, BUT it's not ‘steel per se’. This is recycled

steel, and the process is used in recycling old steel. That steel is not used in the manufacture 2019 was of wind turbines. Likewise, a small batch production of steel in German

it manufactured using hydrogen but this is purely an experimental ‘see if it works’ production;

the coke blast is not intended to be the start of some innovative roll-out aimed at replacing Were that furnaces and becoming the centre of German steel manufacture and production.

far cheaper steel or to be the case, China, India, Japan and the USA would swamp them with manufacture.

The major charge material of electric-arc steelmaking is scrap steel, and its availability at low cost and proper quality is essential. The importance of scrap quality becomes apparent when making steels of high ductility, which must have a total maximum content of residuals (i.e. copper, chromium, nickel, molybdenum, and tin) of 0.2 percent. Most of these residuals are present in scrap and, instead of oxidizing during steelmaking, they accumulate and increase in recycled scrap. In such cases some shops augment their scrap reduced iron or cold blast-furnace iron, which do not contain residuals.

charges

with

direct-

Generally, the higher contents of carbon, nitrogen, and residuals make the electric-arc process less attractive for producing low-carbon, ductile steels and this is important to this argument, is it not? It is also the case that the arc reacts with the furnace gases and vapours and releases large quantities of H2 and N2. Most scrap yards keep various grades of scrap separated. High-alloy shops, such as stainless-steel producers, accumulate, purchase, and charge scrap of similar composition to

the steel they make in order to minimize expensive alloying additions.’ The electric-arc furnace (EAF) is a squat, cylindrical vessel made of heavy steel plates. It has a dish-shaped refractory hearth and three vertical electrodes that reach down through 4 dome-shaped, removable roof. The shell diameter of a 10-ton, 100-ton, and 300-ton EAF is = ' ei 1 https://www.britannica.com/technology/steel/Electric-arc-steelmaking 90

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry approximately 2.5, 6, and 9 meters. The shell sits on a hydraulically operated rocker that tilts the furnace forward for tapping and backward for slag removal. The bottom (called ‘the

hearth’) is lined with tar-bonded magnesite bricks and has on one side a slightly inclined taphole and a spout or, as shown in the figure, an oval hearth and a vertical taphole. With this latter arrangement, a furnace needs be tilted only 10° for tapping, producing a tight and

short tap stream that decreases

heat loss and

re-oxidation of the liquid steel. Before

charging, the vertical taphole is closed from the outside by a movable bottom plate and is

filled with refractory sand. Most furnace walls are made of replaceable, water-cooled panels; these are covered inside by sprayed-on refractories and slag for protection and to keep heat loss down. The roof is also made of water-cooled panels and has three circular openings, equally spaced, for insertion of the cylindrical electrodes. Another large roof opening, the so-called fourth hole, is used for off-gas removal. Additional openings in the furnace wall, with water-cooled doors, are used for lance injection, sampling, testing, inspection, and repair. The roof and electrodes can be lifted and moved away for charging scrap and for hearth maintenance. EAF plants are smaller and less expensive to build than integrated steelmaking plants, which have much lower economies of scale and can recycle and produce low-run amounts of steel whereas this would not be possible for conventional blast furnace steel. Carbon and slag formers are sometimes added to the charge to prevent over-oxidation of the steel and to quicken slag formation. After charging one bucket, the roof is moved back to the furnace, and the electrodes are lowered. Meltdown begins with a low power setting until the electrodes have burned themselves into the light scrap on top of the charge, protecting the sidewalls from overheating during higher-power meltdown. Leaving some scrap unmelted at the furnace wall for its protection, a second bucket is charged, and the same meltdown

procedure is followed. Melting very light scrap sometimes requires the charging of a third or even fourth bucket. After meltdown, the carbon level in the steel is about 0.25 percent above the final tap level,

which prevents over-oxidation of the melt. By this time a basic slag has formed, typically consisting of 55 percent lime, 15 percent silica, and 15 to 20 percent iron oxide. Slag foaming

is often generated by injecting carbon or a lime-carbon mixture, which reacts with the iron oxide in the slag to produce permits a higher power

carbon

setting.

As

monoxide required,

gas. This foam shields the sidewall and the carbon content of the steel is either

decreased by oxygen blowing or increased by carbon injection. 1° It is also true of course that the process uses large volumes of electricity of which in Britain coal now is only a few percent of the total supply, but at least a third from gas, neither of which is carbon-free and both produce CO).

The process will not replace blast furnace new steel production.

a Should add in the interests of total truth an experimental steel plant in Germany in late a Produced steel without coal using a system of hydro-generation in something like the Process we outlined for the Don Valley clean coal power plant. It is highly experimental and 12 Ibid. 91

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry costly and Western

with steel prices falling through the floor following the European and generally is very unlikely to be a sharp turn from industry and against manufacture

commercial operation.

The typically dishonest way the greens field their facts was seen during the Cumberland County Council enquiry on whether to allow the new Woodhouse

mining to go ahead. We

had pointed out that the alternative was to allow coal to be shipped from among other places Appalachia and quite aside we had also the added responded that this added is only 1 or 2% of British

from the grossly anti-social strip mine operation used shipping and transport pollution from CO. The only 1% to the CO, production from steelmaking, but CO2 total emissions anyway, but clearly enough for

to extract it, greens had steelmaking the Climate

Committee to recommend stopping its manufacture.

542.3 tons

O

(3)

iron + steel

Natural gas

Coal

Wind

The above diagram shows the amount of steel and coal required per megawatt for Wind,

Coal and Natural Gas (2011 data)"

Remember that it takes 770 kg Coal to make 1 tonne of steel, so 770kg X 542.3 tonnes of steel = 417494 tonnes of coal! | mention this because at the merest sniff of pro-coal exhibitions or talks or discussions the windmill lobby is telling us wind power must displace coal production. Then they refer US to “the science”. In the final weeks

of the autumn

of 2019,

we

steam

toward

a bitterly

contested

general

election, and Labour, once the political voice of the miners, has now found new friends in the

anti-coal green lobby. A central part of their strategy is a green jobs revolution, a green plan for industry. We of course have no objection to this - turbines mean coal for coke for steel, solar power frames mean the same, as do electric cars and much else. Indeed, a massive revival of coal and steel potentially.

*°? from ‘The Moral Case for Fossil Use’ by Alex Epstein. 92

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry When

| confront them at their big green meetings, conferences and rallies and | tell them that

British coal has to be central to this green revolution, they are without exception shocked and struggle to find a method or explanation as to how this green revolution will happen without coal.

Days

after

confronting

the

industry-opposing

green

spokesperson,

the

MP

for

Newcastle West who had told me they had no plans for coal in relation to the programme but would look into it, Labour announces plans for three recycled steel plants which of course can operate the arc system and not require new blast furnace steel and coal/coke. We do not know if they think this recycled steel can meet the needs of their massive wind turbine construction plan, or even if they plan to make the turbines here, which we don't at the moment,

but given

the intense stresses

of offshore steel wind

structures one

would

have

thought the integrity of the steel was crucial and highly unlikely to be satisfied by the ad-hoc mix in faults and consistency in second-hand recycled steel. | get the impression that, confronted by the industrial facts of life regarding the relationship of steel and coal, someone sought out any alternative to avoid the obvious conclusion, and recycled steel was the Mickey-mouse answer. Like many of these questions ‘out of sight out of mind’ seems to be the way to avoid the bogey man with one’s head under the cover. Someone else mined the coal and made the coke and let loose the CO, and global warming

gasses to make the steel, we are not doing it, we’re just reusing the steel! It puts me in mind of fellow vegans who happily consumed real ale despite the use of fish finings in the process, ‘aye well it's not in the beer I’m drinking’ - true, they had it taken out before you drank it, but they still used it. As it turned out Labour had the worst election of its lifetime, with working class voters rejecting their candidates almost exclusively on their position on the EU and remain. Many ex-miners, in anger at being ignored, and treated with contempt, actually voted for their Tory class enemies in large numbers. That however is another if not unrelated subject outside the scope of this document.

4.2 Coal-fired Power Stations Other countries even in the EU are building more coal-fired power stations. Britain is systematically exterminating them. (In September of 2013 the government, seeing the impending disaster dead ahead, decided to pay £120 million to energy companies not to

demolish the gas-powered stations they had been ordered to take offline, and instead to mothball them, just in case, of course, the alternative green

energy left us bereft of any

energy at all.)'™ Ofgem'®,

the

energy

regulator,

warned

that

risks

of an

all-out

power

cut and

power

blackouts would be one in four by 2015." In another ‘do anything but use the coal under our feet’ plan, they are constructing emergency diesel-powered mini power stations as last ditch back-up for the wind turbines

7 Sunday Telegraph. Sept 22nd, 2013 front page The Office of Gas

and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) regulates the monopoly companies which run the gas and

electricity networks.

28 Ibid 93

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

which they already know are unreliable.’ The cost of burning vast quantities of diesel will probably rival the record cost of wind power in the first place. This coupled with plans to pay industry not to produce anything in order to save the power they would otherwise use. A further three coal power plants were due to be closed by 2015.

Meantime in the outside world:- '8 Number of new Coal-Powered Stations Planned

(from 2013) India China Germany

455 363 23

“German coal-fired power rises above 50% in first-half 2013 generation mix.”

“Coal-fired power plants contributed 52% of Germany's first-half electricity demand as output from natural gas-fired power plants and wind turbines fell”, research organization Fraunhofer Institute (ISE) said.

“Coal plants increased production by about 5% to 130.3 TeraWatt hours (TWh) in the first six months of 2013 as output from gas-fired power plants fell 17% to 21.9 TWh”, said ISE, which collated data from Germany's statistical office and the EEX transparency platform.

Wind turbine output fell 10% to 22.4 TWh, while solar output was unchanged Hydro output rose 3% to 9.2 TWh, with nuclear output up 1.8% to 46 TWh. “Demand data for H1 2013 is not yet available but has been estimated to have around 254 TWh in the 2012 period. First-quarter power demand dropped 1% energy industry group BDEW said in April. Overall, the share of coal-fired power in the first half rose 3 percentage points on available data and assuming a 1% decline in demand.

at 14.3 TWh. dropped from year-on-year’, to 52%, based

Germany's nine nuclear power plants contributed 18% to total demand, while combined wind, solar and hydro output added 18%.

Gas-fired

power's share dropped to 9% with even the most modern

CCGT

plants now

seriously under-utilised. The plants are needed for security of supply during winter months. In 2012, coal-fired power plants generated 45% of total electricity, followed by renewables with a 22% share, nuclear at 16%, and gas at 11%.

CHEAP CARBON EXTENDS COAL'S DOMINANCE IN GERMAN POWER MIX. The crash in EUA carbon allowances, cheaper coal and firmer gas prices are the key reasons for the trend, making coal-fired power generation more profitable than gas. The gap between the clean dark and clean spark spreads, the general measure of

profitability for coal and gas plants, had widened to Eur23/MWh by the end of June, based on year-ahead contracts for power, coal, gas and carbon emissions, Platt’s data showed. _ Sunday Telegraph Op.cit page 4

i No Coal, Alice Thomson, Op.cit The Times March 27, 2013

London (Platts)—10" July 2013/755 am EDT/1155 GMT 94

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry 5

TS

I

industry sources have said EVA carbon on allowance al abou Buran san s would need torae. to rise 7

:

=

a

allow a profitable switch to gas from coal.

ee

eee

Sse

Coal prices have dropped by around a third over the past two years, hitting a three-year-low

at $85/mt on June 24, according to Platt's data.

Carbon prices, which set a record low earlier this year, continue to trade just above Eur4/mt, compared with levels around Eur20/mt in 2011.

Gas prices have remained firm with TTF year-ahead gas at around Euro 27/MWh, little changed from July 2011, Platt's data showed. Germany uses domestic lignite coal and hard coal (anthracite), mainly imported, for power generation.

Lignite-fired power plants, which generated more than a quarter of the nation's electricity in 2012, have benefited most from the lower carbon prices, with lignite plants more carbonintensive than coal plants, industry sources said. Lignite capacity is 20 GW with at least 3 GW of more efficient plants added since 2011, running like nuclear as base load plants around the clock.

Older coal-fired power plants are increasingly becoming the price-setting "marginal" plants, market sources said. Germany is adding more efficient coal-fired power plants in 2013 as a number of legacy fossil fuel projects finally come online.

Trianel's 750 MW coal-fired plant commissioned in the third quarter. EnBW's 912 MW RDK 8, are on weeks. Overall, power generators plan to this year, data from the federal grid

at Luenen is already in operation and on track to be Two more projects, Steag's 725 MW Walsum 10 unit and track to start generating power during testing in coming add 5.3 GW of new built coal-fired power plant capacity agency showed.

Britain, however, despite the clear and looming signs of disaster, is committed to a further 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. That of course is not incompatible with coal power, with the application of CCS such as the scheme at Hatfield. But that is the self-same scheme they

walked away from on the verge of completion. ""° More than 2,425 coal fired power stations operate in the world and more are being built every

week, together they produce 15B tons of COz, and still the greens do not grasp the necessity for CCS. Unforeseen consequences.

Something which has escaped the attention of the anti-coal power generato r faction is the

utility of power station ash. This is essential in all forms of industrial grouting (iron ically for

filling mine shafts and deep potholes), for sinkhole s and in building materials for construction . all forms. 75% of grout utilises power station waste ash for this purpose. There is no nancial equivalent at this time. Substitute minerals are likely to be highly expensive and will

fc lio

A

ndreas Franke, andreas. [email protected] by Dan Lalor, [email protected] 95

Coal Mining Industry truction of the British Des al Tot the & ge an Ch Coal, Climate to th e cost of housing

“0 greatly ash

station

and other construction.

Competition

for imported

tly in crease the cost. is likely to grea

i but Japan one Most: people don't know it

once

had

vi ant but vibr a small Il but

d radical. as our own, militant an old as st mo al ing min l tradition of coa

coal

: stry with indu

'

se alll j 5 Japan was on the brink of a decision to closcusseq di During the great miners’ strike of 1984/8 and eld lfi r Doncaste coa| ons of Japanese miners visited the

| coal mines. Delegati our industries. of te sta the rs ne mi h always been, 5 with striking Britis fuels such as oil and this has sil fos in h ric not is n pa Ja t USA may have You may know tha prior to World War II by n pa Ja to ss ce ac oil of wn | vulnerability. The closing do | . war the into those precipitated Japan re being few other sources of the n, tio rac ext oil and gas the Japanese mines Coal had become crucial for ing the Thatcher model,

. Still, and follow y country in the vital extracts on the island wer, and being the onl po r ea cl nu h wit y tor en its his closed. Remarkably, giv lear. Recent apons, the big idea was to go nucvery very bad. we ic om at h wit ed ack att n bee e world to hav r goes bad it goes trated that when nuclea ns mo de nts eve g in go on tragic and ion rebuilding on old opposition to this

-nuclear opin This has caused a groundswell of anti

form of energy. r, so where to turn? ing industrial country, it needs powe Japan is a large and still expand osen to reinstall coal power e panic community, they have ch

spread Despite outrage by the climat s may be the biggest wide thi d an e ag or St and e ur pt but utilising Carbon Ca add that ccess will be ground-breaking. | hasten to experiment of the system worldwide. Its su orts. own coal reserves - they depend on imp there appears to be no move to mine their

anti-coal. | am gratefully using some of Hiroko Tabuchi '"’ is a journalist who is passionately

e conclusions and opinions. the facts she brings to light, but | decline to use her hostil

2020 she explains that build-up of in the New York Times of 3° February and 5" February 4

shima nuclear disaster almost coal power is one unintended consequence of the Fuku program. Japan now plans decade ago, which forced Japan to all but close its nuclear power ent sites in the next five to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants at 17 differ

years. coal Japan relies on coal for more than a third of its power generation needs. And while older plants will start retiring, eventually reducing overall coal dependency, the country still expects & meet more than a quarter of its electricity needs from coal in 2030.

Japan is an anomaly among developed economies,” said Yukari Takamura, an expert In

climate policy at the Institute for Future Initiatives at the University of Tokyo. “The era of coal

einacae

that it has it's proving very difficult to give up an energy source solely come down to Fukushima.

eke

Coal consumption ee

imporstsof for N wale is reliant oilon shock of its energy needs, raced to wea tetas SS the Ite19 = ; Together with natural gas and — from foreign oil following the il, fossil fuels account for about four-fifths of Japan Sloctiiciiy needs, while-can

make UP about 16 ewable sources of energy, led by hydropower,

111

www.nytimes.com/by/hiroko-tabuchi 96

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry percent. Reliance on nuclear energy, which once provided up to a third of Japan's power generation, plummeted to 3 percent in 2017.

_k

Ss

The Japanese government shares a policy of financing coal power in developing nations, alongside China and South Korea. The country is second only to China in the financing of coal plants overseas. for Yokosuka is the site for two of the coal-burning units, and this has special significance port city, an Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan's new environment minister, who hails from the at the site industrial hub and the site of an American naval base. The coal units are planned

in 2009. of an oil-powered power station, operated by Tokyo Electric Power that shuttered lies, listing of Outraged anti-coal activists have, since the announcement, unleashed a torrent that it is linked to an all of coal’s crimes, how dirty it is, how polluting it is, without mentioning with this fact they fall extensive Clean Coal Carbon Capture programme. When confronted We know from this work back on the old myth that Carbon Capture isn't viable or operable. that that is far from the truth. Ministry of Trade, which pulls Coal’s fate in Japan may reside with the country's considerable weight in Tokyo's halls of power. a concrete path that allows for “The most responsible policy,” the ministry said, “is to forge

like oriental wisdom to both energy security, and a battle against climate change”"" - sounds me. section - a whole book This book cannot be an ongoing world-wide review of every energy

today and would have to be devoted to where we are with coal power generation in the world that would be out of date before the first run was sold.

So this is a snapshot of where things were. Suffice it to say that Climate Alarmists, with their anti-coal pressure, and opportunist green multinational corporations and their political mouthpieces, are engaged in all-out war on the Coal consuming nations.

Germany has pledged to end coal power generation by 2035.

elt

China is the biggest per capita renewable energy producer in the world. India is being pushed hard against coal but neither China, which consumes about half the world's coal, nor India, whose modernisation and development programme is built on it, are going to drop their march into the 21% Century by killing the goose which lays the golden

eggs. The fate of Africa is at the time of writing in the balance, the people need the development

and the sort of boost which coal and other fossil fuel generates, as shown in our earlier graphs, and exemplified by the West's own historic trajectory, and that of China and India.

Voices of economic pragmatism do not play out well on a world scale dominated by liberal agendas and NGOs and by well-heeled pressure groups and Corporate lobbyists.

The future for coal power in the USA is one of decline but not in favour of renewables, it is other fossil fuels such as shale gas and self-supporting oil which will take its place.

112

2

ta ianan-new-coale

www.independent.co.uk uk/news/world/asia/japan-new-coal-power-plant-climate-change-tokyohtml 29316271 97

stry ruction of the British Coal Mining Indu Coal, Climate Change & the Total Dest

ng join the in-crowd anti-coal team, are findi their Other countries such as New Zealand, keen to to ng findi are and bath before they finished bathing they have pulled the plug from the s’ are. cost how unreliable ‘renewable ges at the same ng demand for power char likely to make are The advent of the electric car with ever burgeoni s, down lethal shut and cuts r powe ad spre time, and the danger of wide coal power error of ripping out vital and reliable the see s, ician polit not if s, population systems.

Stations 4.3 Wood-burning Power

supplies the bulk of Britain's power Drax, Europe's biggest coal power station, which at times It has responded by to lower its emissions or face closure. at peak times, is now forced across the Atlantic from the USA instead burning hugely expensive wood chippings imported gas

of Europe than cheaper across Britain and the rest of coal, despite the fact that coal is either. wood chippings are more expensive than

from Europe or anywhere in the world. The

ped up as cuddly ‘green’, love the earth, This is the fuel economy of the mad house; all wrap essarily cruel, and often lethal policy. unnec , harsh a ise disgu which es, polici hippy alternative to the White Rose scheme The wood chip ‘green solution’ is now posed as the completion, which would have greatly which had seen a clean coal burning system near then withdraws subsidies to clean coal reduced CO, and other emissions. The Government the penny (!) drops. Burning the wood and tax relief, killing the scheme dead. By Feb 2017, CO, than coal per unit of chips because of its lower heat efficiency emits 12% MORE

dy to the clean coal system electricity produced.'’* While refusing to continue a ‘green’ subsi

to burn the biofuel, despite it the Government instead pays £450M or £1.23 M every day l coal power station. being 12% MORE polluting than coal burned through their norma mostly from 7.5 million tonnes of wood pellets were imported into Britain for heat and power, EU as a the US and Canada, making Britain alone a bigger importer of the fuel than the whole.

Drax consumed one third of all globally traded wood pellets and more than all the wood ‘produced’ in Britain in a year. It is done at the expense of traditional hard wood forests,

cleared to grow wood

to burn. Wood

pellets no longer come

from

off-cuts and wood

remnants or recycled wood as originally envisaged but directly from trees burned for the purpose at the expense of wild woodland. The trees they are burning take 100 years to grow, forests are being decimated to burn in coal power stations because coal is seen as ‘dirty’.' For Drax the logic is easy - converting half of its generators to burn the new fuel would avoid the ever-rising carbon tax, despite the production of MORE carbon. The Government

analy

agreed to pay 150% more for the power supplied by wood

coal.

“3 Daily Mail, Friday, Feb24th 2017

. Op.cit full page feature by Christopher Booker. Pg. 17 Feature Article, Daily Mail, Fri Feb 24th, 2017 pg. 17

98

chips than from

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry The major flaw in the whole concept, apart from the ever-increasing cost to the taxpayer and energy consumer, is the idea that because you burn wood producing CO, and you plant another tree which will at length absorb the CO, and convert it to Oxygen, this is in fact making a neutral contribution to climate change, global warming etc. Truth is the tree would

take hundreds of years to grow to a point where it would start to consume the amount of CO, which had been already sent skyward by the burning of its ancestor. The production of the CO, is immediate, and the growth of the tree is centuries long, too long to render the burning

of wood ‘carbon neutral’.

Transportation of wood pellets 3500 miles across the Atlantic to

Yorkshire also adds significantly to the emissions in the process. While you're using land to grow trees to burn you are not growing crops to eat - how is this

anything to do with being green?

70

180 World

biofuels production

Food

price index

|

60 |

160 =

2© 2 3

oOo

50

40

140

5

@

© 30 ®Cc

120

=

2— 20} io

=

=

100

wo; O 1990

1995

2000

2005

80 1990

2010

1995

2000

2005

2010

The above diagram shows world biofuels production compared to Food Price Index

changes." The process of converting all the generators at Drax to wood is only part-way through. When

complete the direct subsidy will be £900 million a year while increasing the carbon emissions substantially over those of the former coal process. Electricity bills must rise exponentially. The final fantasy in the whole comic opera came with the collapse of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly because of a huge economic disaster centred on burning wood chips - The Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme. Companies converting to use power from the ‘green’

source

were

given

a government

hand-out

of £160

for every £100

spent on

buying wood chips. Just build a boiler and make power and get £160 back for every £100 you spend; you didn’t actually need to use the power for anything or make anything or heat anything. It wasn’t free; it came from hard-pressed taxpayers struggling to meet their own

“ from ’The Moral Case for Fossil Use’ by Alex Epstein. 99

~~.

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry energy

domestic

bills.

Pay-outs

reached

£1

billion

before

Sinn

brought

Fein

down

the

Assembly after the ministers responsible refused to resign and submit to a public enquiry. The end of 2020 demonstrated the extent to which Drax's wood pellets were devastating the Baltic forests.

Caitlin Tilley's'’” Bio Fuel Watch campaign comments on the report compiled by NGOs in Estonia and Latvia; the report'® reveals that together the two countries exported more than

three million tonnes of wood pellets last year — equivalent to at least 200 square kilometres of clear-cut forest. The authors argue that the intensification of logging is reinforced by biomass demand from foreign bio energy companies such as Orsted, RWE and Drax.

Kelsey

Perlman,

a climate campaigner for forests

NGO

Fern,

said

the

report exposed

“a

glaring paradox at the heart of the EU's environmental policies”. “This report reveals the intolerable pressure facing some of the most valuable habitats in Estonia and Latvia,” she told DeSmog. “The EU's Renewable Energy Directive, which allows Member States to subsidise burning woody biomass under the banner of ‘green energy’, has a clear role in the destruction of forests and wildlife, which are meant to be protected under the EU's Natura 2000 policy.” Almuth Ermnsting, a campaigner from NGO Biofuelwatch, said the report showed how forests in the Baltic States are being “harmed by Drax's insatiable demand for wood”. “Stopping

and

redirecting

subsidies

for burning

wood

in power

stations

will

help

protect

forests in each of those regions,” he added. report reveals that intensive logging, which includes an increasing share of logging for wood pellets, has led to Latvian forests releasing more carbon than they absorb and store. The

An Estonian Government report’? demonstrates that under the current policy, the country's Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry Sector (LULUCF) would turn into a net source of greenhouse gas emissions by 2034 and that the current forest carbon sink would decrease by almost 50 percent over the next five years. Estonia and Latvia are vital exporters of wood biomass for energy to European countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK. They are heavily forested and in 2016-18 they recorded 85 percent more logging than between 2004 and 2015. ‘Clear cutting’, extracting every tree from an area, is the main industry procedure for removing wood.

Dr. Viesturs Kerus from the Latvian Ornithological Society, which

analysed

report, said: “The absurd idea that more intensive logging of forests and somehow good for the climate is still widely promoted in Latvia.”

burning wood is

117 https://www.desmog.co.uk/user/caitlin-tilley 18 https://media.voog.com/0000/0037/1265/files/Biomass_report_2020.pdf

U9https://www.envir.ee/sites/default/files/contenteditors/Kliima/kasvuhoonegaaside_poliitikaid_meetmeid_ja_prognoose_kasitiev_aruanne.pdf 100

data for the

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry “The hard numbers show the opposite: the increasing logging Intensity in Latvia and Estonia

is not only reducing the ability of forests to absorb carbon, but also destroying precious

habitats and threatening forest-dwelling species.” This increase in logging intensity has serious consequences for biodiversity in both countries. Over the past decade, 14 percent of Estonia's old-growth forests have been degraded to the point that they can no longer be considered old-growth. The number of breeding forest birds is also decreasing by 50,000 pairs each year and habitat destruction by logging is a key contributing factor. Devastating logging, including ‘clear cuts’, is also taking place in Natura 2000 network forests, the pan-European conservation network upheld by EU directives. In the past five years, many logging restrictions that previously protected Estonia's Natura 2000 sites have been eased, meaning ‘clear cuts’ are now allowed.

Drax previously claimed'”° that 12 percent of UK renewable energy was delivered by its biomass plants. Research'' by Biofuelwatch suggests that Drax power plants in the UK are operating on somewhere near £1 billion in subsidies.

4.4 Nuclear Energy Nuclear Power, at the time of great miners’ strike of 1984, was 180 times more expensive than coal power and hundreds of times more dangerous and socially unacceptable. It has however, since the strategic plan of Nicholas Ridley MP in 1979, always been seen as a key player in blocking any strong power play in the class war by coal miners. Nuclear is still seen as a major replacement for British coal despite the mass objections of the population as a whole. Sadly, some sections of the Green (and even the socialist and communist) movement now advocate nuclear over coal, ironically having swallowed whole the anti-coal, anti-CO, horror stories and forgotten the real and potentially disastrous social legacy of nuclear power. Uranium is not a limitless resource however, in fact it is becoming rather a rare mineral, with deep mines now universally abandoned,

and a move to massive open cast uranium mining.

This is due to the need to find large quantities of small deposits at deeper and deeper depths to replace the richer ores from underground mines. One of the principal suppliers of Russian uranium used in keeping the many Russian Nuclear plants operating was phased to stop producing in the early months of 2013. World demand

will take a sharp rise just as supply is heading sharply downward. '* The modern uraniummining process uses astronomical amounts of water, in many parts of the world where the water itself is more valuable than the uranium. This aspect of the nuclear process is scarcely even mentioned. Uranium will run out long long before coal. Thousands of abandoned uranium mines stand just as they were left, exposed as highly dangerous with little attempts to seal them or make them environmentally safe, a stark contrast to British open cast coal

am https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/07/04/creative-carbon-accounting-how-industry-and-government-makeburning-wood-look-climate-solution

a https://www. biofuelwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/AxeDrax-briefing-2019.pdf Daily Express Jan 7th 2013, pg. 42

101

questions to ask on Nuclear are: nuclear power safe? nuclear power clean? nuclear power economical?

- =x, ~~

The three 4. Is 2. \Is 3. Is

* an

whole process. The radioactive waste stacked in their concrete coffins will stand as monuments to human folly for a half million years before they are no longer lethal. Nuclear is probably second only to wind turbines in its cost inefficiency.

By ‘safe’ we mean safe for consumers, residents of the region in which it is produced and safe for the workers in the process and its fuel extraction. Is it safe in terms of the environment and the health of the planet? A brief look at the history and current operation of the nuclear industry will sharply inform even

the most anti-coal zealots that nuclear is NOT an alternative to coal on any of those

grounds. Despite all the recent monumental disasters around the world, and disgusting amounts of money on research and the total commitment of governments, nuclear power is still not under control and its processes cannot be said to be secure, there is no such thing

as a ‘safe’ nuclear power plant. The question of waste disposal, and spent rods is question without sight of an answer and one which becomes as the waste builds up.

still a

more problematic year on year

Nuclear power has never ever been a viable proposition economically or commercially; it has only ever operated by an open government cheque paid directly from our taxes. This is true on a world scale too, and especially in the USA. “Loan guarantees for new nuclear plants may run to $8 billion; cost recovery and return on investment are also assured for decades,

and some operators are able to collect costs from ratepayers (and pay dividends to shareholders) years before plants come online — even if they never come on online.”'*? US subsidies to the nuclear industry are double the expense of the power generation itself, in Britain the cost is many times that figure. In October 2013 the British Lib-Dem/Tory government announced

that it was to go ahead

with a new nuclear programme for Britain. The new nuclear station at Hinkley Point would be built by French Energy Giant EDF with Chinese technical and commercial input. But flying in the face of all previous government commitments that Nuclear must stand on its own feet

without subsidy, this was scrapped, and massive subsidies introduced. As Npower joined the rest of the ‘Big Six’ in announcing higher than inflation price rises for fuel and power, an average

Ra

up, it will not be the

nuclear companies who pay for it, but the tax payer who has already heavily subsidised the

a

If and when any of these sites are cleaned

“a

operations for example.

ec a Se

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

bill was to rise to £1,500 and more. The increase

in gas and

electric charges add

10.4 % to already groaning consumer bills for heating, light and cooking. £140 on top of the

existing bill.'*4

23 New York Times, Sat Aug 24th 2013, pg. A19 Op-Ed. 124 The Times, Tuesday Oct 22, 2013 102

= a aw ge

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry All notions of ‘a free market’ and ‘customer choice’ and ‘shopping around’ were finally laid to

rest as the government agreed subsidies to Nuclear amounting to Tens of Billions of Pounds. The deal struck between the Government, without any approval from Joe soap In the public or public consultation, will be quiet about the announced price rises, and the yearly

escalating bills will add a further £8 per year on everyone's household bill for the next 35

years! 175 Apart from the sheer greed of the energy companies, undoubtedly is the burden of ‘green’ taxes levied on those power supplies that are deemed ‘non-green’. These have risen by 30% in the last year and account for 10% of everyone's bill, plus a strong percentage of the

‘standing charge’ which everyone pays regardless of how little power they use, on top of the Fossil fuel levy charged to burden down coal and gas prices to artificially keep them high,

while using that tax as a subsidy to wholly inefficient non-cost effective ‘green power’ such as Turbines and nuclear.

The new deal for nuclear signed with the French and Chinese ensures a guaranteed price double the wholesale price of electricity.2‘ This guarantee will extend for 35 years. Perhaps

one of the great free marketers would care to explain to us how this a ‘free market’? The laws of supply and demand are not allowed to apply here, and you will burn the fuel we tell you, at a price we fix, paid for by you both on your bills and general taxation. The whole adds up to an even greater mess than its parts. The nuclear plant, like all such schemes, will see the cost of decommissioning and disposal and storage of its waste for the next half million years met by the taxpayer not from profits. These charges are additional to those mentioned above. To compound it all the vast amount of infrastructure and manufacture of the plant would be done abroad by foreign companies employing their own workers. We should keep reminding ourselves that this whole process started when Mrs. Thatcher thought the British coal industry was “unprofitable” and despite producing the cheapest deepmined coal in the world with the lowest state subsidy in the world (£1-10p per tonne), it had to be made profitable in every unit, and every pit had to stand alone in profit and loss terms. In the ten years from 1983 to 1993, 210 coal mines and adjacent coal power stations were closed, leaving us with an energy crisis caused by trying to run the system without coal, vastly more inefficiently and vastly more expensively.

Cost of power generation per Megawatt Hour compared to Nuclear and ‘renewables’: Coal (Including almost 50% fossil fuel levy which offsets some | £46.5 of the costs of the other two in a cross subsidy) Nuclear (using the Hinkley Point price) Wind Turbine power (on land) Tidal Lagoon turbine (Swansea Bay Scheme)

5 Front page story. 103

£98.5 £150.0 £150.0

Mining Industry l Destruction of the British Coal Tota the & nge Cha ate Clim Coal,

IES IN THE FACE OF ALL DOMES TIC A FL IN OCT 20 44 THE GOVERNMENT S$ NOT TO SUBSIDISE NUCLEAR ENERGY AND AGREE 7 EDGE EAN PL R SAD THE NEW NUCLEA

st OF NKLEY POINT AT THE Co STATION FOR EDF AT HI

£16 BILLION!

WHO WILL FUND TH IS PROJECT gyr

;

IT IS NOT ‘THE GOVERNMENT OF COURSE ATION,

OTHER AT A TIME WHEN EVERY TAX L ERA GEN M FRO , THE TAX-PAYER NG POINT. RTMENT IS SQUEEZED TO BREAKI SERVICE AND GOVERNMENT DEPA

4.5 Wind Energy 2019 the press

provide 30% of power was full of stories of wind being able to

meet around 7% of our power needs.”'#° they ntly rre “Cu 0. 203 by n generatio

By March

to £158 per MWh, with onshore Claiming in March of 2019 offshore wind ranges from £133

and waste disposal). Gas js £101, with nuclear at £92 (excluding decommissioning costs ed by added carbon taxes. The table drawn cited at £80 MWh but it is uncertain if this is inflat doesn't give the full facts as it doesn’t from the pro wind source team at fullfact.org, in fact penalties) would (minus the carbon taxes and even list coal-fired generation which we know energy. easily be the cheapest source of

hysterias have come to light. | have updated this work as new statistics and information and that they are now the By the beginning of 2020 the offshore wind industry was forecasting see how this sudden cheapest source of energy! | have tried without success to now all but driven technological ‘Lourdes cure’ has been achieved. Obviously, they have by mines, stopped in the coal power off the face of the island, closed all deep coal power all clean coal process ongoing efficiencies and lowering prices, blocked and destroyed costs, technologies and crucified remaining coal power generation with penalty carbon rendering any truthful coal generation costs impossible to assess.

almost certainly with a They currently suggest gas power generation at £80 Mwh, but this is

has been murdered in its bed 50% carbon tax included. Shale gas (fracking) generation price. Nuclear is indisputable, despite its potentially rock-bottom (no pun intended) power since the government signed a pre-arranged price regardless of market levels of £92 Mwh

written off, ie. born by all construction and decommissioning and waste storage costs

with power users. Predicted offshore wind costs by the industry are spun faster than the future

blades, but seem to exclude construction and installation costs, and be posited on a bet panne formula which concludes that the higher the tower the cheaper the cost. They

to a cost per MWH then calculate the height of the forthcoming tower

attain this niurribieh Bing

tae

.

My calculations

put

these

towers

at over

230

metres.

The

sheer

environmentally destructive intrusion and

their visually of, apart talkedg bibirds g migrating damage ge to To migratin (no, from they can't' see them and simply fly round them as has been a Sug gested by some windmi mill enthusiasts) , must at some stage start to pose i a hazard t0 er ° Daily Express March 7th 2019 pg 36 104

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry “Generating electricity from windmills has contributed to electricity prices increasing by twice the level of inflation over the last decade, with further huge rises to fund renewable energy to "127 come. Not sufficient with charging all customers for the forced switch to turbines via their ‘standing charges’, which are paid no matter how little energy you actually use, and even if you use a

company which uses minimal ‘green’ energy, the government in 2019 forced energy companies who don't have any turbine investment and utility to pay for it anyway. This is additional to their standing charge. On Wednesday 2” October 2019 The Mail reported that four energy companies are being forced to pay £14 million to the turbine generators or be closed down. They will pay towards solar and wind generation and investment or have their licences revoked. We are informed that several energy firms have gone out of existence

under the burden of the extra taxes.'8 Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary presiding over this suicidal game of ‘principle’, insists in the long run it will all be cheaper. Needless to say in the long run we will all be dead, and indeed if what remains of British industry is closed and forced into economic exile abroad where governments do not strangle them to death, there will be less pollution produced here, because there will be even less industry and more skilled wellpaid workers unemployed .His argument that gas prices are rising, and although turbines are more expensive now, that the price of gas importation

will rise to meet

and pass them

over the next decades,

misses a

central fundamental point. Gas prices are rising in Britain because his Tory predecessor presided over ‘the dash for gas’ which stole Britain’s coal power energy market and allowed vast tracts of native domestic gas to be burned off wholesale up the chimneys of new gas power stations. Native gas supplies, conserved for domestic consumption in households, would have lasted for centuries in secure supply and fixed prices. But burned off and all but exhausted, the price of world gas rises as demand increased - greatly boosted by Britain becoming a mass importer - one, because it had wasted its own supplies and two, because it now had closed down all but 15 (at that time) of its coal mines and the majority of its coalpowered energy stations. His follow-on argument that Nuclear energy will somehow financially balance out via rising gas prices will however never be true short in supply and big in demand though world gas is, it will never be as scarce as uranium is becoming or as costly as the unlimited price of decommissioning and waste storage from the nuclear industry.

The way in which Davey (and indeed H.M. loyal opposition) is able to ‘disappear’ Britain's huge coal stocks and cheap indigenous power source in the coalfields would do credit to the

Stalinist press."?° The word ‘coal’ has been effectively purged from the English language, and certainly

from

the

vocabularies

of

Energy

spokespersons from Parliament and the generators. The whole process he declares is to stop Britain's reliance on imported gas! So, between 1985 and 1993 Thatcher and Major closed down 185 coalmines which produced the cheapest deep mined coal in the world and took out 185 million tonnes of coal production,

= The Mail ‘comment’ by Prof Michael Kelly, Fellow of The Royal Society, Op.cit march 15th 2015. ss Daily Mail Wed Oct 2 2019 pg 33

When Trotsky and other leftist leaders became politically unwelcome Stalin had the papers and museu ms Paint them out of photos with Lenin and Stalin thus ‘uninventing’ them. Coal is currently going through the Same process of removal from popular memory . 105

Coal,

British Coal Mining Industry Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the

but his aim

is to “insulate our economy

from

excessive

reliance on

imported

gas”.

Can

and objectives are? Like the nobody else see how absurdly contradictory these two aims ded by the forces he has released, Davey sorcerer's apprentice, confused and dumbfoun n will, it is a force unto itself: “They announces that all of this energy problem is beyond nunna s are likely to continue are beyond any government's control and by all serious prediction

rising.”

the truth. My view is that nothing is further from

son wrote: “Last Friday at 2pm in The Times, on March 27, 2013, on page 24, Alice Thom 3°C gas set in and temperatures plummeted to minus

Didcot A closed - just as the snow

It didn’t shut prices hit a record high and Britain realized it was running rw on power. rid of coalget to drive nment's because it was old or obsolete but as part of the Gover ns. last coal-fired power station in East Lothian, Scotland, which also closed ee ge Electricity week, and Didcot A used to supply Britain with up to 10 per cent of its avera city demands. About a dozen coal stations produce more than a third of our daily electri Many needs at the moment. But four more stations are to close in the next couple of years.

ve are becoming unviable through a combination of taxes and the new EU emissions directi

ment.”**" that will cost at least £200 million for each plant to imple

It is clear the government sees the giant iceberg ahead (no pun intended), and instead of changing course sets about smashing up the lifeboats. In the March 2013 Budget, the Chancellor made it clear that the so-called

‘carbon tax’ charged

on every tonne of CO,

emitted by coal and gas-powered stations will escalate to £30 per tonne by 2020 and £70 per tonne by 2030. We should have no doubt whatever that the purpose of this tax is to stop us

using energy by making it as a huge subsidy to wind price as other generators. turbines close, burdened especially since they can’t

so expensive we can't afford to buy it, and by passing on the tax turbines make them look like they produce energy at the same But what happens as the geese that lay the golden eggs for the down with tax, and die? Who will then pay for the turbines, in fact supply the energy we are paying them for? In 2013 the net

supply of wind turbines to Britain's energy consumption was less than 5%, despite accounting for nearly 50% of our bills. As the coal stations close and the gas stations are

crippled by tax and steadily rising prices, so the proportion of our bills going to turbines will increase while the % of power available for our consumption will decrease: we will be forced to pay more and more for less and less. In 2019 the CEGB boasted that we had had our first week generating the nation’s energy without any use of coal - the wind was in this case in the right direction! The cost for this work of art and perhaps chance wasn't in the equation.

“Last week as blizzards swept the moors,

the windmill didn't move.”"%

3° The Times, Op.cit *32 ‘No Coal but the UK’ ; ‘ 2013, pg. 24. S energy cauldron is empty’, feature article by Alice Thomson, The Times, March 27 *82 Alice Thompson —The Times

106

> aa

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

As If all that wasn't bad enough, on April 19", 2013 we discovered that the giant energy firms are not paying corporation tax and have not done so for three years, ' lan Lavery, the MP for Wansbeck,

told the Journal that RWE

Npower which Is buying the

former Alcan power station at Lynemouth wasn't paying taxes and hadn't done so for at least three years. The firm claimed to be keeping Britain's lights on. My view Is that destroying coal power

generation,

and

taxing

it out of existence

to subsidise wind

power

is doing just the

opposite. The

company's

chief executive

Paul

Massara

told MPs

on the Energy

Change

Select

Committee this week that it “paid no corporation tax In 2009, 2010 and 2011." He made this

admission in response to lan Lavery's question. In what he obviously assumed was some sort of mitigation, he explained that they were building wind turbines. Among the wind estates planned to decimate the Northumbrian countryside in the teeth of almost total local opposition is the 18-turbine estate north of Alnwick. It operates another at Kiln Pit Hill near the borders of Northumberland and Durham and had planned many more. It

was clear Mr. Massara had made a corporate target of wild and unspoiled Northumbria and notch up profits from Government subsidies, despite wholesale opposition by residents and people from the large Northern cities who love Northumbria’s unspoiled moorland and crag. With some irony, Viscount Ridley - the man who drew up Thatcher's war plan against the miners in 1979 which outlined the decimation of coal mining because of union power, the

need to transfer power freight from union rail to non-union individual driver operators on the roads, and the long-term replacement of coal by nuclear - suddenly finds himself surrounded by an encroaching wall of wind turbines now in the pay of the anti-coal final solution. He correctly on this occasion complains that Northumberland was being decimated by giant wind turbines and that they “have destroyed the county’s sensational views while killing thousands

of animals.” Ridley of course is the owner of the Blagdon Estates: “in my native Northumberland my view

of Simonside is now affected by wind farms as are the Cheviots and Wannies. Above all the sensational

view of the Northumberland

skyline from Lindisfarne has been turned

into a

Golgotha.” "°° Wind Turbines, his noble Laird discovered responsible for large scale death of wild life, from eagles to bats, and for pouring millions of gallons of concrete into wild peat land, are apparently

exempt

from

the normal

rules. All true, but also true of his weapon

of choice -

Nuclear power - which is only marginally less obnoxious. Npower increased gas prices by 8.8% and electricity by 9.1% in November of 2012 and reported a rise of 34% in profits to £413 million in that year. Which added to the three-year non-payment of Corporation tax, illustrates the nature of the so-called ‘green’ and

renewables’ energy operators. '%

*83 The Journal Friday 19th April 2013, front page. ‘34 The Journal Nov 11th 2013 *85 The hillside on which Jesus was said to be crucified, blighted by the crosses on the skyline.

*88 Journal, April 19th 2013, Op.cit pg. 5. 107

=—

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

As stated elsewhere in this work, each and every part of this technology requires coal to produce coke to make the steel and other metals involved in the process, and large quantities of it. Many greens work off the proposition of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and are from somewhere else, or quite prepared to have either the coke or the coal or both imported else (anywhere better still have the turbines themselves built and imported from somewhere else).

Meantime every part of a Wind Turbine is made from steel, made with coal: e e e e

ONE

The The The The

Generator is 65% Steel and 35% Copper. Blades need steel to hold them in place. Tower is 90% steel (tubular steel towers). ete. Foundations are made from steel-reinforced concr

in the onshore wind turbine requires 220 tonnes of coal - equivalent to that used

manufacture of 220 cars.

to that in 44 buses. ONE offshore wind turbine requires 440 tonnes of coal - equivalent 770 KG coal is used for ONE tonne of crude steel.

Building Wind Turbines uses steel How do we make most of our steel globally? There are two methods: recycle old steel or make steel from iron ore. Most of the steel is made using the latter method for the simple reason that there is nowhere near enough old steel lying around to be re-melted to meet global demand. Here then is a quick summary of how we make steel. First, we take iron ore out of the ground (sorry but we're talking to greens here who rarely understand such things).

This is done using powerful machines that need high energy density fuels, i.e., diesel: the machines that do all of this work are almost made entirely of steel. After mining, the iron ore will need to be transported to a steel mill. If the iron ore comes from Australia or Brazil then it most likely will have to be put on a large bulk carrier and transported to another country. What powers these ships? A diesel engine. And they are big: As the energy collective states: “Simple engineering realities mean that shipping requires high energy dense fuels, universally diesel. Because of wind and solar energy's intrinsic low power

density putting solar panels, or perhaps a kite, on to one of these ships will not come close to meeting their energy requi : di ith diesel quirements. We ar e likely stuck with ‘ engines for generations.""2”

We then convert this iron ore into steel.

Blows

te Ht , ow Is this done? ” There are only two widely used methods:

reduction

routes ’ and

both

these

processes

f und

137 Energy & Sustainability Network. 108

the blast furnace or direct rovision of isi

a

ge

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Minin

tad

g Industry

: : is used for the majority of steel production route e furnac ast bl is unusable, largely because it is mostly iron oxide globally. Here coal is key. ne This must b fied by ing | the oxygen, and we do this by reacti;ng the iron ore with vats puri | ronrovore on monoxide

p

roduced using coke:

Fe203 + 3CO — 2Fe +3 CO,

of nts not simply a result of the energy requireme production of carbon dioxide therefore is sl smelting. n, but of the chemical requirements of iron ore teel productio

tower for a wind turbine, but as you can see This steel can then be used to produce the endent on fossil duction chain for what we call primary steel is dep

each major step of the pro fuels.

el = Coal. wind Turbines = Ste collective heads of Extinction Rebellion | am rather weary of trying to bash sense into the and wee Greta

Climate Action and a thous Climate Hysteria), The Green Party, Lakeside turbines. coal while waving their images of wind

nce wannabes when they turn up to denou t coal. steel and we do not make steel withou You really don't make turbines without gen not coal hydro of steel using

experimental production Recently they have seized on the plant, to say you ‘CAN’ make steel which was purely an experiment, and not a commercial for experimental reasons, make coal in a laboratory too, purely

without coal, true, you can surface are 500-foot coal seams virtually on the but nobody is going to do either when there makes steel cheap steel. The fact remains nobody in Australia, and the world is awash with hout coal. for commercial purposes wit

of Energy central Energy Collective Group | have fact checked my own work against that

owed here. some of their explanations | have borr

but there is not enough old steel in the world Old steel can be used to make a wind turbine, from fossil fuels, apart from the fact that to meet the demand from pressure to move away a structure subject to high tension and recycled steel is hardly the method of choice for structure subject to ttemendous stress pressure over two decades. Constructing a giant steel nally negligent, so they don't. of inconsistent metal purities would border on the crimi machines that will deliver 100% But can you build a wind turbine without fossil fuels? If the

then quite obviously we cannot get renewable energy cannot be made without fossil fuels,

100% renewable energy. Turbines

steel,

require

concrete

modern wind turbine have

been

and

advanced

reviewed

plastic.

by the United

The

material

States

requirements

Geological

Survey.

of a

On

tonnes of average 1 MW of wind capacity requires 103 tonnes of stainless steel, 402

concrete, 6.8 tonnes of fibreglass, 3 tonnes of copper and 20 tonnes of cast iron. The blades are made of fibreglass, the skyscraper-sized tower of steel, and the base of concrete.

aa electricity

ae

we can be placed in context by considering how much we would need if

transition to

Average global 100% wind electricity over a 20-year period.

we need a total of around 10 TW of Wind capacity = eS approximately 26 TW; therefore, this electricity. So we would need about 50 million tonnes of steel, 00 million tonseh of concrete and 1.5 million tonnes of copper each year. 109

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry Can

be made

this steel be produced without fossil fuels, and can the concrete

without the

production of carbon dioxide? In addition, the requirement for fibreglass means that a wind turbine made without the extraction of oil and natural gas, because fibreglass

cannot currently be is without exception

produced from petrochemicals. Building Wind Turbines uses Rare Earth Metals So much of the modern world hangs on the very precarious peg which comes under the title ‘Rare Earth Metals’. The relevance to this book and discussion is that the massively mushrooming wind turbine industry depends upon these minerals for its current manufacture, in particular Holmium and Dysprosium used for the high strength magnets used in the rotary system. (The other four of the earth metals here don’t concern us except that they are used in mobile phones, sonar, lasers, catalytic converters, x-rays and the control rods for nuclear reactors,

everything

from light bulbs

to TV

screens

and

advanced

weapon

systems

from

tanks to Tomahawk missiles.) put a huge

if you are to build massive investment into wind turbines and

proportion of your

energy eggs into this particular basket, you had better be sure there is a plentiful supply of rare earth metals in general and Holmium in particular at prices which don't become the final straw on the already much financially laboured camel's back of wind turbines. Cobalt is the key feature of lithium-ion which is a fundamental of wind turbines.

These metals sit at the apex of $1trillion high tech industry globally.

The fact is rare earth metals aren't actually rare, they are quite common in the earth's crust, the problem is that mining them is massively labour intensive. Additionally, it is complex and environmentally hazardous to extract them. America, which led the world in mining this resource until 1980, was shackled by tight environmental regulation and unprofitable prices. Only China now has the kind of labour system,

conditions,

and

lack of workers’

strength which allows their extraction at a price the world will pay. Elsewhere they are grubbing in make-shift mines without the

most

minimal

bargaining

of safety

measures, or restrictions. Agents from China and spot market speculators will offer ‘take it or leave it’ prices to miners, regardless of age and infirmity, digging by hand and carrying sacks of the metallic rock up from the mine on their backs or with makeshift ropes made of knotted polythene bags.

In many parts of the third world this is the vision of the green economy which we will not see

and most will not know about.‘8 The Democratic Republic of Congo has 150,000 miners working in Cobalt mines, not all as bad as the primitive mines described here but the majority unregulated. Mines are subject to sudden collapse, as in the case of Lualaba where 43 miners died in

June 2019 working for the Swiss conglomerate

Glencore.

The

miners themselves work

without any safety equipment or even lights. They live in mud shacks without electricity, and

toil to ensure ‘the green revolution’ keeps coal mines closed in Britain which are light-yea’s ahead in technology, safety and incomes.

: 7 A welcome exception to this was the double inside page expose in Daily Mail by Sebastian Meyer, Saturday November 21st on the Cobalt miners of the Democratic Republic of Congo, pg. 30/31 138

110

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry Switching from coal worldwide to electric does not free the miners from danger or disease, just the

reverse,

especially

when

comparing

third

world

cobalt

miners

with

western

coal

miners. In China the ‘walk away’ culture of raping the land then leaving it a toxic wasteland is something they have in common

with their American rivals. The areas of rich deposits soon

become the centres of cancer and other associated diseases. The west

isn't bothered

about

that of course,

but a twin

process

is putting the supply

in

serious jeopardy. One is the fact that China is eating up most of what it produces itself, and industrial and

social

advance

is affecting all levels of industrial society to the point where

subsistence wages are not enough to hold the workers in place. In fact, Chinese workers’ wages are rising dramatically in relation to their level in recent years. Once the base mark for low wages, the monthly salary as of October 2013 for the average factory worker was $466 per month against Vietnam which is currently $145 for a Hanoi factory worker. With higher paid work on offer, mining rare earth metals will invariably either run out of miners or else their wages will rise radically pushing up the price of rare earth metals and accordingly all of

the components they are used in. ‘°°

sf

My fellow

ar

While everywhere the climate fundamentalists chant the cry for renewables and imagine this is a self-operating everlasting source of power and energy, they have no idea that the vital ingredients for their ‘renewables’ are not themselves renewable and are, like fossil fuels, finite. As they endlessly tell us, ‘they will run out anyway’, but they rarely imagine this also applies to uranium and cobalt and other rare metals. NEIMME

Council

member

Dr F.W.

Smith

‘Renewables’ In the Spring edition of the NEIMME

brought to the fore the realities of

newsletter. While most ‘green’ activists

demand an end to fossil fuel and the replacement of them by ‘renewables,’ commonly they have no idea where the vital components of such technologies come from, or that they demand increasingly more and more mining. Rare earth metals are not grown, they are mined! Mining carries with it inevitable earth-moving and environment-changing activities. The realities of mining for renewables are a million miles from the imagined benign activities to secure them.

| quote here from Dr Smith :“Some aspects of the rapid expansion of green power are well known, such as the huge demand for lithium, for lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, that has made this unusual alkali metal the sweetheart of explorationists in recent years. Demand for such batteries is forecast to more than quadruple over the next decade. The principal source of Li until now has been

Salt lakes, or salars, high in the Andes of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile where it has been Criticised for depleting local ground water resources (that are scarce enough in the Atacama Desert anyway), destroying fragile ecosystems and converting meadows and lagoons into Salt flats.

*° Time November 11th 2013, pg. 33, Michael Schuman/ Shanghai 111

Coal Mining Industry Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British

c car usage may depend more Less well known is the fact that the rate of increase in electri

cobalt is used to make on another key ingredient, cobalt. About half of all mined

batteries and it has been estimated that global demand

tonnes

- an amount

by 2030

that is nearly double

will rise to as much

the world’s

current

lithium ion

as 430,000

capacity

to refine.

of Congo, where mining is largely Furthermore 60% of all mined cobalt comes from the DR y linked to child labour. unregulated, has an extremely poor safety record, and is strongl

will come under stress. A report by it is not just these relatively exotic minerals, though, that for steel, aluminum, copper, and the World Bank in 2017 identified the likely increased needs ts, vanadium, molybdenum and a host of ‘minor’ metals such as the rare earth elemen

2 degree Celsius climate change target indium. It concluded that decarbonisation to meet the

of 3 billion tonnes. by 2050 would entail an increased overall metals production

detail how the process of breaking And a new book by Guillaume Pitron describes in more free of fossil fuels carries its own consequences.

for turbines will need another He estimates that simply keeping up with projected demand

and 40 million tonnes of copper 3200 million tonnes of steel, 310 million tonnes of aluminium,

als needed to construct a by 2050. He says if you consider and add up all the raw materi billion new electric cars, the solar arrays, and wind turbines,

humanity has “by 2050 we will have to extract more metals from the subsoil than b more mineral extracted since its origin. Our 7.5 billion contemporaries will absor resources than the 108 billion humans who have walked the earth to date.”

A frightening prospect, one might reflect; and even worse if we industrial minerals, the aggregates, and concrete, needed to service them - and the (mostly still non-renewable) energy process. So, it is not just rare metals that will be in critical industry

will

be

under

stress

as

the

revolution’

‘green

take account of the water, the build these new facilities and that will be consumed in the supply, but the entire mining

gathers

pace.

An

unexpected

consequence, if ever there was one! And given that ore grades are falling as deposits are depleted, larger and larger scale mining operations will be needed simply to stand still.

Reserves of Rare Earth Metals China produces 95% of the entire world's Rare Metals, and has by far the world’s greatest source, followed by the US, then India and Australia. But production of the metal is a oneteam game really: Production ‘4° China

95,000 metric tons

USA

7,000 metric tons

Japan

NIL

140 2012, source Time Magazine Feb 18th, 2013 112

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

eS But it is when we look at Consumption that the West is starting to panic:

Consumption China

75,000 metric tons

USA

15,000 metric tons

Japan

25,000 metric tons

China recently cut off all supplies to Japan and threw their economy into a state of panic and

decline which at the time of writing it hasn't recovered from nor bottomed out of. On the export front in general China is unable or unwilling to meet its export quota. With the new cold war and trade war hotting-up between the USA and its allies and China this could get a whole lot worse. The irony for the greens around the world and particularly in Britain, who in their war against coal mining have hung their collective hats on wind turbines, is that environmental awareness in China is now calling a halt to unrestrained mining of the rare earth metals needed in the manufacture of the turbines. This is especially so given that the rest of the world pays them washers for producing the stuff. Starting in 2006 the Chinese government began to slowly decrease the amount of the elements domestic miners were allowed to export. In 2010 they slashed export quotas by 40% which dropped supply far below world

demand."*' The total shutoff of supplies to Japan was probably a politically motivated trade war, in response to territorial disputes in the South China Sea, but the two-month shutdown caused widespread panic across Japanese industry, the world’s biggest importer of the material and the cornerstone of its economy. The knock-on effect was shock waves around the world, and here is the point for this debate, it drove world prices up by 300-1000% depending on the element in demand. The wind turbine industry already is the least cost-effective of all energy supply: it survives because of a massive cross subsidy from coal-fired and gas-fired stations to wind turbine energy - so-called ‘green energy’. A slowdown of supply of rare earth metals, to the point of driving up the cost of production and installation, would be added on to this cost. At some point even the most docile energy consumers are going to start to shout ‘enough’. Of course, this process could have a different effect insofar as mining companies around the world, and particularly in the USA, start to chase deposits of the metals nearer home, or Kazakhstan and India, with an explosion of environmentally damaging rare earth mining.

Wind turbines — a £200 billion bag of wind? “Energy firm bosses have admitted they are at a loss as to how efficient their wind turbines really are. RWE Npower, sister company of RWE Npower renewables - the firm behind 18 125m engines near Alnwick - said there is “no answer as to how efficient wind power is”

when asked by a customer in Northumberland to justify part of his bill subsidizing renewable

energy.”"42

*41 Time, Feb 18th, 2013 ‘Business’ page 34

42 The Journal Wed 20th November 2013. front page Brian Daniel 113

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry While the financial plug is pulled on Clean Coal Technology, much sighted delight of the ‘greens’ who want coal power ended

circumstances. ecologically

this means

As outlined in our argument,

damaging

fashion

instead.

It WILL

to the foolish and shorttotally and under any

in the most

coal will be burned

however

be

burned.

government

This

meantime sinking all its research and development energy funding into the mass wind estates. The offshore plan will take no less than £200

billion. These

huge

is

industrial towers will

have to be drilled to the sea floor and obviously deep enough to take the undersea weight and movement, plus the surface above water weight and movement and their potentially turbulent pressures and movements.

The total cost of the switch to wind turbines and other smaller renewable energy sources is

now estimated at £4,600 per person per year.'*° That is, to make it clear, every man, women and child. A huge increased tax on everyone, but the poorer you are, the greater your burden and that of your family.

“Reducing dependence on fossil fuels and moving to renewable and nuclear energy would cost an additional £60 billion every

their energy in the USA where states (at least until now, it may soon change) can choose

power bills. In Britain, source, states without coal power generation pay 70% higher fuel and

if the the government ensures you cannot choose your energy source, because they know Coal power. To vast majority of the population could, they would go to the cheapest source that tax to the avoid this, they impose a carbon tax on all fossil fuel and give the proceeds of incapable of far more costly ‘green’ energy systems, which apart from being technically The tax is a meeting demand, would be prohibitively expensive if they were not subsidised.

constant drain on all energy bills and is driving the cheapest fuels out of the equation. Despite

wholesale

attacks

on

all other

forms

of

public

expenditure,

it is

clear

that

the

‘green’ government will stump up the money to fund the giant power corporations’ investment, but recover the expenditure directly in taxes on the population, while the energy g companies will recover their costs and massively increase their profits from ever-escalatin energy bills. “The government estimates that household bills will probably increase by around £200 a year

over the next decade, with about half of this rise caused by Britain's climate change policies.” 145

“3 000 will die this winter as a direct result of fuel poverty — more than the number killed in traffic accidents each year. The Hills Fuel Poverty Review, commissioned by the

government, base their findings on figures from the Office for National Statistics that states there are 27,000 extra deaths on average in the UK each winter compared to other times of year, most due to the cold weather. A death rate that is one of the highest in Europe, worse than Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and France. 143

H ~" The Daily Telegraph, Thurs Dec 29th, 2011. Front page story by Rowena Mason and David Millward Professor David MacKay, Government adviser on climate change, quoted above based upon a 40% wind turbine input a third from nuclear and a further third from gas. There is no input whatever for coal in this plan.

Daily Telegraph, op cit. (my emphasis). 114

__—

year until 2050.” '**

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry The

Hills Review

concluded that living in cold homes

has a series

of effects on illness and

mental health, but the most serious is its contribution to Britain's unusually high rates of “excess winter deaths". In contrast, the big six energy companies, British Gas, EDF, Eon, Npower, Scottish Power and Scottish and Southern, who have a monopoly on supplying domestic properties,

continue

to make

massive

profits from

ordinary

customers.

According

to the energy

regulators Ofgem, profits per customer rose an astonishing 733% over the past six months, rising from £15 in June to £125 in October. On top of this the average electricity tariff is set to increase by £300 a year to £800, with gas prices rising from £845 to more than £1,300. To put that into some

perspective it is estimated that “for every one per cent rise in energy

prices, an extra 40,000 people will be thrown into fuel poverty.”"° If money was no object - and it seems to the Government with both its hands in our pockets it isn’t, you could, if you were rich enough, leave that question aside, but the truth is whatever

is spent on them they just don’t work. Let us repeat, the energy company and the landowner get paid for having the structure standing there for not having it working. In 2013 their cost is £4000 per turbine (any electricity they do manage to produce is paid separately) so they get paid, through our bills, even when they are not providing energy. So rather than “build it and they will come", it is a case of “build it and it doesn’t matter if they come, because we still get paid.” All bar one of the energy firms keep the performance figures of the turbines a tight secret. This is despite the fact that when seeking planning permission, they project performance figures and statistics on how much energy the turbines

will generate. They can of course project any figure they care to invent because they are never taken to task about never achieving them. Once built and the money is rolling in, it might never turn a blade because the contract is signed. The ‘sale of goods act’ and ‘Trade Descriptions’ acts don’t apply here. At the end of August 2013 RWE Npower renewables became the only company to produce the figures on performances in response to campaigns by local people frustrated by the presence of idle towers blocking out the moorlands and crags of Northumbria. The firm’s website now presents information on each turbine estate and what energy it’s producing. The firm's Tow Law site in County Durham demonstrates

that it rarely reaches 25% of its projected capacity.'*” The regional newspaper The Journal checked on two different days with the wind blowing at 4 mph and 14 mph respectively. On the Tuesday it produced nothing. Five checks on the Friday showed it operated providing a peak of 577kw — around 25% of its expected capacity.

Typically, the energy firm will let the turbine stand until the end of the contract rather than have

to replace

it and

seek

renewed

planning

permission.

The

massive

turbine

in Blyth

harbour, the biggest blot on the beautiful Northumbrian coastline, is a case in point; it was

revealed that it had stood totally motionless for two years.'*® Latest government figures demonstrate that less than 20% of Britain's electricity comes from wind turbines, despite its being 50% of everyone's electricity bill.

“6 Freedom, Dec 2011 **7 The Journal, Sat Aug 31st 2013 front page and page 5. M4 Ibid 115

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

But with solar energy added,

and

nuclear conscripted

as a ‘renewable’,

it is easy

to now

boast of the death of fossil fuels and the rise of 'renewables'. We shall leave aside the fossil fuel needed to make solar panels and frames and the wind turbines themselves,

argument

that

they

have

in fact

killed

power

coal

generation;

it didn’t

there is no

‘die’,

it was

assassinated. '° Despite the massive financial and social consequences

of the mad

rush to wind

power, it is

quite foreseeable that high pressure could draw in arctic conditions to Britain at the same time as we could have a virtual dearth of wind, or more likely such high wind the turbines would be closed down. This would expose the whole population to no power at a time when power demand is at its highest, with the resultant catastrophic effects in terms of deaths, while the coal seams beneath the idle feet of the wind towers will be either decimated and rendered useless or else will be stillborn and unused.

The Curse of the Industrial Turbine Estates. One

would

putting

have thought that given the lessons

Britain's economy

finance, whilst shutting and manufacture, they with energy. But they turbine developments

in the single basket

learned

of banking

from and

down all other forms of production, wealth would not make the same mistake again have. £200 billion is planned for wind mainly in the sea and offshore, but also

strategically and devastatingly across our last vestiges of open space, moorland, mountain and fell.

We know we are well up the creek, but throwing away the paddies just when we need them most verges on criminal negligence.

It is difficult to keep pace with the driven expansion ‘money no object’ of wind turbines. The

latest figures | could get in August 2020 from the wind power industry (The Switch- selectra) is 8936 giant wind turbines operating around the main British Isles. They (when they are working) produce 20% of the country's demand”, and they only operate at 20% efficiency. In order to have a shot at providing the entire nation’s required energy you would need 33,344 turbines, but that is in itself problematic. 33,344 wind turbines wouldn't be spread evenly around the country but would be crowded into all our moors and hills and mountains and coasts, in all the places we used to call ‘unspoiled natural beauty’. The 33,344 however couldn't ever produce all of the nation’s power, since they operate only sporadically, not just when there is no wind, but worse is the fact that when the wind is howling arctic gales and

we need them most, they won't operate. Many close down at 20 mph, though some can take a maximum of 56 mph before they are shut off. In December 2011 during arctic cold and high winds the equivalent of one million homes’ worth of power was lost in Scotland due to their reliance on the turbine and their inability to

come up with the goods when in desperate need for warmth.'*' **° Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. 150 wikipedia *5? Sunday Express Dec 11 2011, pg. 13 116

There is a turbine for every

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry 3,750 Scots; in Fintry the ratio is one for every 32 persons.'®? Who wouldn't have given a gold pig to have a nice roaring coal fire in the hearth and heating the bath water, rather than the frozen giant windmills standing in the heather? How many cursed at having their chimneys blocked off or, having moved to nice modern houses, are totally reliant on an energy source which can give neither heat nor supply hot water nor electricity? And all for twice the cost of traditional power sources.

Also in December 2011 we saw in the national press the dramatic image of a blazing wind turbine flying fire and burning mineral like a giant Catherine wheel. The £2 million Ardrossan turbine was actually the fourth to explode. The second had been at Coldingham, one of the

hated giants which have blighted the previously unspoiled Eyemouth, St Abbs coastline, it came crashing down

causing homes

and the roads closed. The

to be quickly evacuated

week before, the first of the giants (so far as we know) came

down

in high winds at

Scapegoat Hill in Huddersfield. We had been told that apart from visually despoiling the countryside wildlife, farm animals and walkers and picnickers could all travel beneath the benign legs of the towers. Not so now.

The Nissan turbine which seeks to power some of the car plant was the fourth that exploded (and the second one of theirs, the first having been in 2005) and showered burning debris within yards of the busy A19, threatening death and injury to hundreds. Luck, in this case, was on our side. The turbines will soon come with ‘no entry’ human and animal exclusion zones, which, given their locations, is sure to greatly curtail the enjoyment of walkers,

climbers and the livelihood of farmers. The machines are huge ramshackle affairs given to high instances of structural failure. This we should recall is on-land turbines; the pressures

and velocities on offshore sea turbines will be infinitely more testing.

But it

is the monstrous effect on land and seascapes which most impacts upon us. For every wind turbine it is estimated that hundreds upon hundreds of pylons will be required transport the energy across the country, so 33,344 could be times 500 =16,672,000 pylons.to

In addition, reliance on the times the wind blows at the right speed means damping down the Coal fire statio

ns they relied upon, and then blasting them up again when the wind drops (or

blows too hard). This is the most inefficient way of operating the coal stations and produces

the most CO, rather than when running at a constant tick-over, pre-planne d high and low

demand ratio as they do at present. It is doubtful in any case that the government has now left

sufficient back-up mothballed coal power stations to take up the strain. There is also the

tricky little fact that the amount of energy which goes into the construction and placement of the wind turbine equals or surpasses the amount of energy it is likely to produce in its 25year plann ed lifetime.

Wind

energy

is vastly

more

expensive

than

any

other

form

of energy

and

given

the

democratic choice to choose energy forms, only the very rich greens would buy it, and no one else.

Electricity customers

all currently pay

Power bills in direct subsidies to wind turbines.

an average

of half their annual

heat and

For this reason wind energy is forced into the

Supply chain and all other energy providers have to pay for it with neither consent nor opt-out ee

152

Daily Express, May 3rd 2013 pg. 21 117

Coal Mining Industry Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British supplement the cost of the turbine ang bribe option. 50p in every £1 on an energy bill is to

e on the landowners to sell our land to construct them. Farmers are paid to have the turbin more far is s tower of forest a g their land even if it never turns or turns very little. Havin and only selling out your neighbours profitable than sheep or cattle or crops and requires

are owneg their children to a ruined land and seascape. The bulk of wind turbines (2/3rds) in Our and operated by foreign energy companies who take an average of £500 million a year

rtionately the most. taxes as subsidies. It is the poorest of course who pay propo

the above facts it ig Up to press we don't even build them, that too is done abroad. Given

wind power is the cheapest source surprising to hear the green exponents now claiming that

of power in the country. The economies of scale, the entrenched infrastructure already established, and the destruction of its main rival, coal, will doubtless have had an effect. The time will tell. prediction is that energy prices will now fall - only

We are constantly told the cost of wind generated power is falling and is now cheaper than coal or gas. What are the unvarnished facts?

said: Dr. John Constable of The Renewable Energy Foundation 183

“By 2020 the subsidies for the renewable electricity (mainly turbines) will be adding £8 billion

a year to consumer bills.”

it may be fine for affluent middle class self-styled one-eyed environmentalists to argue ‘never mind the cost, feel the clear conscience’. Working people must count on an energy system

which serves them and doesn't uselessly rob them in the name of dogma and little else. Professor Gordon Hughes and Dr John Constable take on the entire green energy movement in arguing that the widespread view about the falling costs of renewable energy is wrong. They view official government projections of energy costs and hence prices as disgracefully inaccurate. Energy costs will be an important element in the UK's future economic rises.

competitiveness

and,

if the authors

are

correct,

energy

prices

are

in for huge

“The dramatically falling costs of renewables are now a political, a media, and conversational cliché. However, the claim is demonstrably false. Audited accounts show that far from getting cheaper, wind power is actually becoming more expensive. The failure of the British civil service

to detect this fact and,

hence,

to protect the

consumer and taxpayer from the consequences of the looming failure of the renewables sector raises important questions about the analytic competence of the Whitehall machine.

If we asked a random sample of broadsheet newspaper readers about the economics of oe wind, it is practically certain that a majority of those interviewed would say they

eae i

eae

a. a courts,

-

A similar survey of investment analysts and advisors might return

oliticians and journalists would be certain about the matter. However, if nce none of these groups could do much more than point to secondaly

some might remember that the Greenpeace sponsored an extensive advertising

*53 ref.org.uk *54 Daily Express Op cit. 118

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

campaign

in 2017, with full page adverts in the press. Others might point out that official

ies present offshore wind as the cheapest source of electricity. Those in financial circles

might also indicate that almost every report or lengthy article on the future role of offshore wind power is accompanied by a chart which claims to show the rapid decline of costs over the last one or two decades, perhaps with forward projections to 2030 or 2040.

incredible though it may seem, none of this is true. Neither offshore nor onshore wind has become cheaper, indeed, both have become more expensive over the last two decades. How do we know this? Because one of us, Gordon Hughes, has compiled data from audited accounts on the capital and operating costs of 350 onshore and offshore wind farms in the

United Kingdom, @ set which covers the majority of the larger wind farms (> 10 MW capacity) built and commissioned between 2002 and 2019. It is the largest study of its kind to date and will be published shortly by the charity Renewable Energy Foundation, which John Constable directs.

In summary, analysis of the data reveals unequivocal findings:

4.

The actual costs

of onshore

and offshore

wind generation

have not fallen

significantly over the last two decades and there is little prospect that they will fall in the next five or even ten years.

2.

While some of the components which feed into the calculation of costs have fallen,

3.

the overall costs have not. For example, the weighted return for investors and lenders has declined sharply, especially for offshore wind. In addition, the average output per MW of new capacity may have increased, particularly for offshore turbines. However, these gains have been offset by higher operating and maintenance costs (O&M). Far from falling, the actual capital costs per MW of capacity to build new wind farms

increased

substantially

from

2002

to

about

2015

and

have,

at best,

remained constant since then. Reports of the costs of building new offshore wind farms in the early 2020s imply that their costs may fall by 2025, but such reports are consistently unreliable as well as being incomplete. Final costs tend to be significantly higher, so little weight can be attached to forecasts of future costs.

4.

Far from falling, the operating costs per MW of new capacity have increased significantly for both onshore and offshore wind farms over the last two decades. In addition, operating costs for existing wind farms tend to grow even more rapidly as they age. The increase for new capacity seems to be due to the shift to sites that are more remote or difficult to service. Much of the increase with age is due to the frequency of equipment failures and the need for preventative maintenance, both of which are strongly associated with the adoption of new generations of larger turbines — both onshore and offshore. 5. Turbine manufacturers and wind operators appear to be relying on an increase in load factors (a measure of the generator’s energy productivity) via (i) an increase in hub heights to take advantage of higher wind speeds, and (ii) changes in the engineering balance between blade area and generator capacity. However, the inferior reliability of new turbine generations leads to a more rapid decline in performance with age, so that the ultimate effect on average performance over the lifetime of new turbines is not clear. 6. The combination of increasing operating and maintenance costs with the decline in yields due to ageing means that at current market prices the 119

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

expected revenues from electricity generation will be less than expected operating costs after the expiry of contracts guaranteeing above-market prices,

The length of these contracts has been reduced, implying a need to recover capital

costs over a shorter economic life which pushes up the effective capital charge.

There is an important Corollary to these findings. The current set of offshore projects being constructed and planned in North Western Europe are closely akin to speculative property

development. They are high risk projects that will only be able to repay lenders and offer a

return to equity investors if the average wholesale market prices of power rise to at least three to four times their current level throughout North West Europe. Such a price surge would require either a large and permanent increase in the market price of gas, which experience suggests is very unlikely, or carbon taxation at 8 to 10 times current levels,

rising to at least €200 per tonne of carbon dioxide at 2018 prices in 2030. Such a tax would place a heavy burden on the rest of the economy. This has consequences for financial regulation.

To discharge their responsibilities financial

regulators ought to impose a heavy risk weighting on loans to offshore wind farm operators,

while also advising that green equity investments are too risky for pension funds and small investors. Instead, the chiefs of the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England and other regulators have urged more investment in green assets without acknowledging the risks involved”. Taking as an example the 280-foot wind generator overlooking the M4 near Reading, in 2010-2011 it operated at 15% of its capacity. It generated electricity worth £100,000 but was subsidized by the population to the tune of £130,000. Since it was turned on in 2005 (and we don’t have the cost of its construction or how much coal-fired power went into its construction), it has had £600,000 in public subsidies while working at an average overall

efficiency of 17%. © Which takes us to the second major democratic deficit - public opinion - the opinion of the folk who have to live within sight and sound of these towers, do they not have the right to have their objections taken into consideration? The Tories, aware that councils responding to democratic demands of their residents rejected them, passed a law saying public opinion could NOT be a legal objection to their construction. The greens who think this attack on basic democracy is fine because ‘sod everyone else it suits me’, might like to reflect that this law will apply to Nuclear power plants and fracking too, but that is hardly the point for libertarians. These would be deemed Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects. Voting to end popular democracy didn't even require a vote on the floor from them never mind us. There was no debate, and voting took place by filling in a form, presumably so the

MPs voting to end democratic checks and balances wouldn't be seen on live TV or from the galleries. They voted by 277 votes to 33 to kick public objections not so much into the long grass as off the cliff.

*55 Daily Express Op cit. 120

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

5 normal rules of planning, public debate, Public enquiries, local lobbies, will in the case of

eadly nuclear waste not now apply. Cumbria has been chosen as THE place to dump the ste, simply because they think geologically it's the safest place. Time will tell, and there will Be jots and lots and lots of time, about quarter of a million years. ironic isn't it, that when a new coal INS ks popularly approved by big majorities in public consultations of the locals, and the Council votes three times by overwhelming majorities to rmission, the greens turn up to stamp and scream and ultimately assist in blocking nt pe

eo essential this

development.

The power concern we have is the power of the people over the power of the state. Does the forced occupation of our natural heritage by energy companies and wind turbine 9roducers and community enjoyment favour us or them?

Does it empower US OF them? The whole anti-coal propaganda war, which was started by Thatcher in 1981, is witnessing its final shots in this debate. It has always been a debate about class power, and control. Somehow in the translation a lot of people, who one would have thought would have seen

through all this and stood again with the miners, have ended up on the wrong side. The windy side, anti-coal side is also the nuclear side, it is for sure still the side of big energy and big energy corporations. Don't believe the myth that this is something to do with small people

against big coal

companies,

it is equally

big renewable

industry and

big power

corporations versus farmers, communities and coal miners. By June of 2013 the Government had decided that local authorities should now have greater powers to veto mass developments of Industrial Turbine Estates, although releasing permission for the Energy Agency to double the number of bribes paid to landowners and local residents to get them to accept such schemes. This sudden conversion on the road to Damascus came largely on the back of the phenomenal rise in support for the UK Independence Party which campaigned on two broad issues: getting out of the EU and stopping the forced spread of turbines. Two thirds of new UKIP voters are former Tory voters. Better late than never, although too late to stop the locust-like swarms of new turbine

estates set to descend on our rarest landscapes over the next decade.'° This is old news now, with the redundancy of UKIP and a new green Tory leadership, both government and party are now lead exponents of ‘The New Green Deal’ turbines, electric cars etc. “.. $0 more people are plunged into fuel poverty and have to choose between food and heating in winter ... millionaire landowner ... Samantha Cameron's father Sir Reginald Sheffield is reportedly creaming off £1000 a week in subsidies for windmills on his estates... richer, the opposite of fairness. the rich even The poor are taxed to make

You couldn’t make it up” wrote Neil Hamilton. 1°”

In January 2015 Greenpeace, on the wind turbine industry (or ‘scam’ according to your point

Of View), reported on its Energy Desk:Be 156

That was the case in that edition, by March 2015 most northern UKIP voters, for reasons outlined in this ‘ k former Labour and blue-collar workers, following the vote to leave the EU UKIP is largely seen as a loots rce, 7

N ell Hamilton. ; inconvenienced by the truth. Sunday Express Comment, Dec 18 2011, pg. 36 121

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry “The year's first bit of energy news involved some

pointing and laughing at the wind energy

sector following the collapse of a 200ft turbine in Northern Ireland— it was blown over by gusts that were classed as ‘medium’.”'® And,

just days

earlier,

it was

reported

that turbines

were

sometimes

than

late last year having

reader wrote to the paper

generating energy when a Telegraph

rather

using

observed offshore wind turbines along North Wales coast using grid energy to spin slightly in

a bid to resist encroaching ice.'*° On

14th January

2015

a wind

farm

in the

Scottish

Borders

was

shut

down

after it was

thought that a part had fallen off (turns out that didn’t happen). 1 in tandem, these events made for a pretty bad fortnight for UK wind turbines.

These sorts of things happen most years, inspiring blogs about the unreliability of Britain's

biggest source of renewable energy."*' They are right that sometimes wind turbines fall over,

and sometimes (more often) there are mechanical malfunctions that pause the generation operations. So, it's worth asking how, how often, why, and is anything being done about it?

Fires and fallings over. The how and why of the fallen turbine at County Tyrone — one of eight at the Screggagh wind

farm — is being formally investigated it's suspected that there was a fault fast that the head became unhinged, A UK turbine of comparable size fell

by German manufacturer Nordex. with the machine's brakes causing the blades to spin so and ultimately the whole thing came crashing down. down in November 2007 - a 660kw turbine of more than

200ft based in Argyll and Bute, Scotland “bent in half during heavy winds."® Smaller turbines — like those owned by farmers and installed in fields — fall over more frequently, though not all too often either. There was only one occurrence last year, and five others since the start of 2011 (plus a “controlled collapse” following wind damage).

In that time three small turbines also lost blades.

And then there's the big one, the blaze in 2011 in Ayrshire’®* when, in the midst of hurricaneforce winds that also brought offline a nearby nuclear power station, a turbine’s gear box was

ignited. On average 11.7 wind turbine fires are being reported each year, but in July 2014 a team of researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh did a global assessment of wind farms (an estimated 200,000 turbines) and estimated that ten times more fires were happening than are being reported.

They think the true figure is over 117 fires annually. '™

However, its authors later said that their findings were ‘misleading’.'® *58 www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/04/wind-turbine-collapses-northern-ireland

= www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/windpower/11319763/Offshore-wind-farms-drawing-electricityfrom-grid-to-keep-turning-in-icy-conditions.html

*6° www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-30811998 *6 whenwindturbinesgobad.blogspot.com *©2 www.windaction.org/posts/11859-alert-after-turbine-collapses-in-high-winds#.Xmol53Kny70

ce www.theguardian.com/ environment/2012/feb/28/wind-power-ayrshire-turbine-caught-fire

163

4 www.imperial.ac.uk/news/153886/fires-major-cause-wind-farm-failure/ 122

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Why isn’t that windmill spinning? So, how often are these turbines idle?

Either when there's a maintenance issue to be resolved, when there's no wind or when winds are too strong - the machine's brakes stop the spinning to prevent accidents like the one in Northern Ireland. According to RWE,

which runs the infamous grid-draining idle offshore farm in North Wales,

there is a sophisticated computer that switches turbines on and off to make the most of what's there - taking into consideration wind speed, angle and a host of other algorithmically determined variables. Renewable UK says that, on average, wind turbines are generating electricity 70-80% of the time.

Old age turbines You

might

also

ask

if deteriorating

over time

wind

turbines

produce

less energy

less

efficiently.

The answer is yes. Wind turbines usually have a lifespan of 20-25 years and, according to research by lain Staffell and Richard Green from Imperial College London, lose 12% of their

load factor (aka how much energy they generate) over those two decades. “The analysis of 282 UK wind farms between 2002 and 2012 found load factors decline from 28.5% when new to 21% at 19 years old - which would increase the levelised cost of

electricity.” ‘©

Bird deaths. Given the apparent concern for nature and wildlife expressed on all sorts of militant eco green platforms, the apparent lack of concern for the annual massacre of wild birds in the

blades of wind turbines would seem to be hypocritical to say the least. The American Bird Conservatory website BirdCalls records the following estimates of annual bird mortality from collisions with wind turbines in the U.S.:dy Year \Average Bird Fatalities/Year Minimum — Maximum/Year Loss and others 2013 (234,000 140,000 — 328,000 Smallwood Erickson and others

2013 |573,093 [2014 /291,000

467,097 — 679,089 214,000 — 368,000

IF

ih

Photo by F-Focus by MatiKose/Shutterstock

7 www.businessgreen.com/analysis/2356658/top-university-backtracks-over-wind-turbine-fire-claims Greenpeace Energy Desk (on-line) Jan 2015 123

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Given the mass explosion of wind turbines since these studies it is possible to extrapolate

later data by increasing the ratio of deaths by the increased numbers of turbines, to arrive at

a death rate of 538,000 per annum. The death rate world-wide is unknown but likely to be astronomical. Many otherwise tender-hearted ecowarriors tend to shrug this massacre off

saying millions more are killed by cats, ignoring the fact the excess death from the turbines are on top of the deaths overall by predators not instead of.

What about democracy? Plans

are afoot, despite the much-vaunted

decision

of the Tory

government

previously to

cancel any NEW onshore turbine schemes, to build 32,000 wind turbine estates, 6000 in our most precious inland and coastal sites. If and when that happens it will be in the teeth of firm local community objections, it will be in support of big business and the state, it will be aimed at keeping class power and energy firmly in the hands of the ruling class. It will have nothing to do with environmental interests, science, or God help us, ‘the planet’. Of course, these open

seascapes,

moorland

and mountains

are not ‘natural’ states either; they have come

about largely as the result of our presence changing the lands around us. We want them to stay like this, because we like them like this, this is the environment we wish to continue to live in. The imposition of devastating turbine estates which will destroy this land and our free heritage will be taken from us by force, against our expressed consent. Our erstwhile comrades in the green movement ought to take a good long look at whose line they are standing in, and who they are actually standing against. Those who rage against coal power have to look very carefully at what energy source they propose

as an alternative - none of them

come

without a price tag and

an environmental

impact, there is no ‘green energy’ per se. The myopic vision of the rabidly anti-coal greens is such that they see steam belching from the remaining coal power stations and see pollution which must be stopped, but the mobile phone in their pocket, the plasma screen on their TV or the operation of their laptop doesn't strike them as requiring mining and environmentally damaging mining to boot. What the eye doesn't see.... And it will pose them with a new contradiction: big reserves of rare earth metals have just been discovered (April 2017) as part of an underwater mountain off the Canary Islands. International mining companies and mine supply firms now have the technology to adapt underground mining cutting machines to perform the same tasks underwater by remote control. So, will the clamour to ‘leave it in the

ground’ and oppose all things mining now be set aside to save the technology the greens seem to enjoy so much? The greens believe that Turbines are some sort of antithesis to mining; in fact Wind Oe necessitate mining. The energy used in their construction and transportation are fossil fuels.

Lastly as stated, they can't in fact operate without coal or nuclear power to back them up. So, can we put the “close coal mines and build wind turbine” nonsense to bed now?

No coal mines = no wind turbines, no solar power panels, no electric cars, no cement, no breeze blocks, no grouting, but they now chant ‘leave the oil beneath the soil’! Clearly indicating they come from a world in which oil and petrol along with coal will not be used. 124

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

4.6 Tidal Energy In March of 2015 we can now add to the above list Ed Davey's commitment to the world’s first tidal lagoon

commits turbines taxpayer whatever fuels like

power

scheme.

Obsessed

with

‘renewable’

alternatives to coal power

he

£1 billion to the absurdly expensive scheme. The scheme will develop water in Swansea Bay, South Wales. The company, quite apart from having a £1 billion input, will be given the same guarantee as the nuclear generators to guarantee price is demanded for the fuel regardless of far lower average energy prices from coal and gas. They will be guaranteed £150 per megawatt hour outstripping the £98

per megawatt hour for the Hinkley Nuclear station and in line with subsidies paid out to wind turbines. It should be clear as a bell that determination to close down all the cheap sources

of power while installing only the most expensive ones into the grid can only lead to ever escalating power prices regardless of the fact that the rest of the world is swimming in cheap energy. We were assured that this is only the tip of a much bigger project which will extend

round the coast and be part of a £12 billion subsidy. '°” Bay tidal lagoon Swanse a Will funnel enough water to fill 100,000 Olympic swimming pools daily through the turbines

(FRY

Lek

The tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay will

| _ Asthesea outside the breakwater

by the

is reached, sluice gates open and water

look like a giant harbour. An area rises and is held back, a difference of 11.5sq kin will be closed off by a in water levels is created, known as breakwater, with electricity generated | “head”. Once a sufficient head height

ulb

yand outgoing tides

turbines.

turbines have been used for are

only the

80

be visible.

flows into the lagoon through the

turbines. This process then occurs in times daily. Jala Kellewe

Image from the Guardian 18th March 2015. 1

*’ The Guardian Wed 18/3/2015 front page 125

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

As it turned out and very soon afterwards, the tidal energy scheme stopped

£18m

work

almost

before

it began.

The

solar-operated

after an initial cost of

‘stop start’ system

which

responded to the presence of dolphins and seals (as a safety device to shut down the system to protect the animals from being chopped up in the rotors) stopped working. Soon afterwards the company went into administration. The EU had stumped up £8m to the scheme and the Welsh government £500,000 but it never ever generated any actual power. At time of writing, it was still up for sale and currently inoperable due to undiagnosed faults. The Welsh government suggested it was still good value and was never intended to supply

'®® power, it being simply an experiment! When we turn to actual working (or rather projected working) of such schemes we are transported back to the age of mad Victorian inventions. Not content with enormous windmills marching across the countryside and miles out to sea we now have a barrage 4.5 square miles cordoned off by a breakwater, projected only to generate 320 MW a year. £1 billion up front and £150 per MW hour for 320 MW of power! A 9.5KM sea wall will have to be built 20 m high to supplement the project. This would be a massive construction for relatively

tiny amounts of power. ‘©?

Be. 780,083,

PATENTED MAT 16, 1905, E. LANGE. DOUSLE BIOYCLE FOR LOOPING THE LOOP.

et peed

View det Ne

aiche

Fieopah fos Lorene

|

RE

co

ATTLIEATION FILED KAR 34, Le

LC

fh I Prusdrsarres

ar

fy dil L. (gutaesG (

“a

Fic. 343. — Calotte réfrigérante ‘{Natton).

168 Tom Payne ([email protected]) 169 Ibid. 126

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industr y —

Chapter 5 Climate Change 5.1 Global Warming Let's be quite clear, we do not deny that climate change exists - it is as natural as the earth turning and has always occurred since the earth was born. The earth is 4.5 billion years old, and during every second of its long life there has been climate change, from temperatures of 930° C to a totally frozen planet miles deep in ice. Despite the hippy clamour to ‘stop climate change’ you can't stop climate change, any more than you can stop time, or evolution -

it is hard-wired into the planet and every other planet

and star. The earth had already reached middle age before humankind had been born onto it, with more than 4 billion years of climate change and a maelstrom of birth and rebirth. Climate is a result of interaction of atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere and our interaction with the moon, the sun and the solar system. Climate change created us, and the mammals, millions of species have died out and developed on the back of climate change, land mass has bonded and broken up, continents disappeared and others developed. From a single lump of land floating in an endless ocean, with landscapes like the moon and climates like Mars, to breaking in two and then five, and where we are now. The land masses are currently moving back toward each other again and will at some point millions of years from now become one vast continent again. From a gigantic frozen snowball to volcanic ridden hell, the planet's climate changes constantly and did so long before we ever got here. Without change there is no evolution - that much ought to be obvious. The fatal dinosaur asteroid hit the earth with the force of ten million atomic bombs. Nothing in our destructive tendencies and technologies could get anything like recreating that devastation. Planets are being hit by asteroids - also perfectly natural and normal — indeed in a space filled with explosive projectiles it is a mathematical certainty. Not only that but were it not for this feature the earth itself would not have become fit for all life as we know it, since the oceans and seas almost certainly came in the form of massive frozen asteroids and comets. Had the perfectly adapted dinosaurs not been wiped out in the climate change of fallout from a giant meteor strike, the gap which opened up for the development of mammals as their successor would not have occurred and we could not have occurred. More than that, had dramatic climate change not wiped out the global species which preceded them, they would not have developed either. The earth has experienced five global mass extinctions when life was all but snuffed out and started again. One

could say extinction, like climate change,

hard-wired into the earth and its evolution, along with space as a whole. Temperatures tended downwards through successive Geological periods.

Taking 1960-80 CE temperatures as a benchmark: ¢

The Cambrian (600-500 million years ago) was 140° C hotter.

The Silurian (425-405 million years ago) was 12° C hotter. The Permian (280-230 million years ago) was 2° C The Triassic was 10° C hotter. The Jurassic was 8° C hotter. 127

colder.

is

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

The Cretaceous was 4° C hotter.

The Palaeocene (66-55 million years ago) was 10° C hotter. '”°

Parts per million

400

Ambient CO,

375 350 325 300

Degrees Celsius

275

10 o8 06 04 02 0.0 02 04

Temperature Anomaly

=

-06 -0.8 1.0 1850

1910

1930

1950

1970

1990

2010

The above diagram shows global warming since 1850 (from’ The Moral Case for Fossil Use’ by Alex Epstein) lf | walk along the cliffs from my flat in South Shields towards Marsden, | come to a bay called locally ‘the Frenchman’s cove’ and_ looking back toward to the cliff face | can see a band of bright yellow sand high up in the strata. But this sand isn't from the beach below, nor from this ocean crashing on the beach. This is the remnant of a vast landlocked

desert

229

million

years old before this sea was here or this continent was here. It is itself the residue of a huge ocean which evaporated 350 million years ago depositing its minerals into the vast desert of an ancient long-gone continent. That was most assuredly due to climate change, global warming no doubt before the cycle returned to colder climates, ice ages, shelf movements, land mass repositioning and a recycle of change and development.

17 Jack Conrad, Climate Change and System Change, Weekly Worker Sept 2019. 128

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

if the age of the earth is measured in terms of a 24-hour clock, humankind didn't arrive until 1 minute and 20 seconds to midnight. Over four billion years of intense climate change

the current occurred before we arrived. It takes a special sort of arrogance to imagine that to be happen we phase of climate change, mild in historic terms, is caused by us because change doesn't suit us it here this time, or to think that because this current minor phase of must be unnatural. 99%

of all species which

have ever existed on the planet are extinct. Owing

in the main to

were extinct before and, in most cases, climate change, the vast majority of such species profound exceptions to this rule of long before humanity ever came to existence. Some probably the Mammoth, to name but three. course exist, the sabre-tooth tiger and the Dodo, became extinct while we have been here It may be that the vast majority of species which mankind is currently pushing many remaining were pushed to that end by our presence, and

s, but with us or without us this is a natural proces species to extinction before our very eyes, of the and, sensitivities aside, extinction is part nature is not soft-hearted in the least our

e right now, if In our case it is one we could stop and revers evolutionary process. more than 6.6 million children die before their politicians had the will. But in a world where report from the World Health Organization, in fifth birthday (nearly half of whom, says a new Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of the just five countries: India, Nigeria, China,

Congo’

rition), such a demand can and nearly half of these deaths were linked to malnut

only seem pious.

bubble of air encased round a highly volatile Apart from the fact that we live in a tight little d explosive reservoir of gas, oil, and planet filled with moving plates sitting on an undergroun molten

magma,

we

are

also

in

a

vast

shooting

gallery

of space

through

which

pass

thousands of hurtling rocks, comets, and meteors. te back and forth, quite apart from There are so many variable factors which push the clima e cannot be stopped when it internal and external perfectly natural interventions. The climat , and remain that way, just gets to the point we happen to like the combination of forces because this is what best suits our species.

it has always Green campaigners are everywhere bemoaning the loss of Antarctic ice, as if been there, as if this is the way God made it and we've spoiled it. In fact, the ice wasn’t always

there, when

it arrived had there been

any people

around

it

would have been seen as the greatest ecological disaster of all time. Antarctica once waved green with palm trees.

The Arctic Ocean was a tropical paradise 50 million years ago, with temperatures of 68°F (20°C). The continent was divided into two regions - Mountain

Forest and hot rain forest

dominated by tree ferns, palms and trees.'” ia

question of the shrinking quantity of sea ice, which is another of the excuses for wild ic and

speculation,

is also not a consistent trend either. Time

Magazine

in September

171

aun http://www.childmortali ty.org/files_v14/download/UNICEF%202013%20IGME%20child%20mortality%20Repor 172

Dr James Bendle, University of Glasgow quoted in Metro Aug 2nd 2012 pg. 29. 129

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

2013 reported that there was a “60% increase in ice-covered ocean water since last year, leading some scientists to believe that the planet is actually undergoing ‘global cooling’”.'” Let us recall that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 2014 declared that man-made global warming was destroying the Arctic ice cap, and that pack ice had contracted 12% between 1979 and 2012. Low-lying lands would be swamped, islands wiped out, and the polar bear made homeless. However just one year later in July 2015 a detailed 88 million measurement report from the European space Agency Cryosat satellite showed

that the northern ice cap had instead increased by 41% in 2013.' Now we should recall that this is at a time when MORE coal is being consumed than at any time in the earth's history, and the planet is supposed to be heating up. (Actually, it hadn't in sixteen years up until two years ago when there was a slight increase.) Before the sudden (and rapid) end of the last ice age the Arctic ice reached all the way down to Chicago,

New York, Moscow

and London. Accordingly,

perhaps

there were

much

lower

sea levels worldwide. Scott and Shackleton, in their movement and concentrations under Dr Jonathan Day, using the ice has actually expanded

efforts to chart Antarctic waters, recorded in great detail the of sea ice. Modern researchers at the University of Reading the Satellite evidence of the last 30 years, now conclude that and grown slightly in the last 100 years and certainly has not

shrunk or retreated.

This should have had a profound impact on the Climate Change panic, considering a whole scenario of melting ice, rising oceans, flooded continents, famine

and

mass

extinction had

been forecast on the assumption of disappearing Antarctic ice. It hasn't, because it doesn't fit the faith. Arctic ice at the top of the planet has been shrinking, though nowhere near as fast as predicted, but this is an entirely natural and largely cyclical process. This would produce next to no effect on sea levels worldwide because the volume of the melted water is the same as the volume of the ice. This is not to be compared to the same process affecting the other ice cap over Antarctica, a gigantic continent containing 90% of all the ice on the planet. It is however not a process which has even started and as stated is actually shifting somewhat in the other direction. The evidence discovered in this study is that it is getting colder in the Antarctic and has been

doing so continuously over the last 50 years.'”° In 2015 the extent of the ice was at its greatest since NASA started to record it from space in 1979. This confronts and confounds all the theories of global warming, it means as the planet has got warmer and more CO, is produced, the amount of ice has increased! More evidence yet

173 Time, September 23rd 2013, Briefing. 174 Daily Mail July 22nd 2015 page 14 175 Feature article on the Dr Jonathan Day study by Christopher Booker, Daily Mail, Nov 25th 2016 pg 15. 130

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry from

NASA

shows

the

depth

of the

ice

is also

increasing

- 112

billion tonnes

per year

between 1992 and 2001 and an average of 82 billion tonnes between 2003 and 2008.‘ In the interests of total truth, it should be said Antarctica is a huge continent and has warmer and colder regions. Its western coastline is warming because it sits in the Western Ocean, and

it is here

that the world's

media,

feeding

the climate

change

clamour,

has

endlessly

photographed melting ice and glaciers crashing into the sea. Less hysterical scientists have

pointed out that, rather than evidence of atmospheric warming, this is more likely due to an opening fissure far below on the sea bed which is warming the waters from below. It is important to actually see the question

more remarkable actually remains.

of melting ice in perspective.

What

is perhaps

is not that this far after the ice age, ice is melting, but that so much

ice

Fools’ Errand To a greater and lesser extent writing this book is something of the task of painting the Forth Bridge,

the workers

finally finishing at the north side, had then to start again at the south

side. For my part | have tried to keep up to date with every new cry of hysteria and new set of ‘evidence’ that the sky really was falling in and see if in fact the facts were facts. The Climate one with Hysteria campaign is, as pointed out in this document, a seriously well-funded of new teams of workers employed worldwide night and day to churn out endless streams natural albeit panics adding a ‘manmade disaster’ twist to events great and small largely e.g., the bulk of sometimes truly devastating. At other times where the cause of the disaster, down to global fires taking the world by storm in summers of 2019/2020 was indeed but directly humanity, it has not been through our presence and generating ‘global warming’, action such as actually lighting the fires for land clearance, or failure to take preventative the devastation creating firewalls in anticipation of forest and bush fires, ironically to prevent they went on to cause. Sea Ice This is perhaps most vexatious with the question of sea ice, is it disappearing, if so, how fast, of is it on average the same, is it in fact thickening? One can find evidence to demonstrate all what these options, and sadly it is no longer now a question of objective scientific fact, but you want to find and prove. As objectively as | can be as a climate panic hysteria sceptic, not a climate change ‘denier’, the jury is out. Some melt of Arctic sea ice is occurring, very localised, not overall and many theories have been offered as to why it is partial and local and not overall, such as an undersea volcano heating the water at that region. In other regions clearly the ice itself is thickening and the sea ice spreading. | have to draw this book to a close, it will never and can never be definitive because the questions arise faster than

theories to explain them or the ability to analyse what we are looking at. Nobody is neutral in this debate; the hysterics have tried to blind the world with very selective science and quite

reactionary anti-human ‘science’ and claim the word for their side of the argument. Truth is a great deal of science confronts their theories and conclusions at every turn.

178 Ibid. 131

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry Since the last ice age sea levels have risen approximately 400 feet in the last 10-12,099

years because the ice age is over. Ice is indeed melting so additional small levels of rising sea levels are expected. Many think that the climate is indeed are much closer to the beginning of the next Ice Age than the otherwise venerated scientists and anthropologists talk about current trajectory’ the ice caps melt, of course it would be an

on its cyclical turn and that we end of the last one. So, when scenarios in which ‘given the extinction event for all or most

land-born creatures including us. But its ‘trajectory’ is of absolute historic and environmental

fact not going to continue. Their aim is to terrify people with an environmental event which will not happen and if it did, it would be the result of some huge and earth-destroying event

far outside the contribution that positive or negative human impression could make. The current process, which even at its worst end also means that ice cover will increase, also

implies that if Antarctica gets warmer, snowfall would increase....the average temperature in the interior of Antarctica is, | have read, -50 degrees.

If it does warm there this will result in

more snowfall which will help to keep the icepack stable. This would keep global ocean sea levels fairly stable. When the entire earth was warmer 1000 years ago and when grapes grew in Labrador and England, and at the same time the conclusion is that CO, causes warming, it wasn't fossil fuel, coal miners, oil rigs, cars and planes or mass human inhabitation which caused it, was it

9

In any

case

isn't it true that CO,

levels

lag

increases

in global

temperature

hundred years - in other words, that CO, increases are an EFFECT not a warming? So what you have to take from this book and the hysterics’ arguments are strokes of political and social solutions rather than trying to follow every ping so-called scientific facts, all of which, on both sides, are partisan. Science

by several

cause of global the broad brush and pong of the is being used to

prove a programme already decided not the other way round.

A full third of the planet is still under ice, and 70% of all clean water on the planet is ice.'”” As stated earlier the polar caps have not always been there, they come and go, they are melting now because the last ice age is over, the planet is warming, in part because our current trajectory is taking us closer to the sun. But that’s not a factor from which we can posit definite consequences either, because the sun itself if not fixed and constant. The sun is like a giant coal fire with a massive super-hot outer surface. Fuel from the centre

pushes up, or dies back relatively, cooler spots appear, or huge infusions of added heat suddenly burst into space. The core of the sun we speculate is colder than the surface which is a mystery we haven't yet fathomed. The combustion variant of the sun directly affects the climate on earth. There are in addition general solar cycles which produce global or partial cooling (freezing actually) on earth.

30,000 years ago, the Neanderthals were wiped out by climate change in the shape of the

Ice Age of that period. These periods are fairly well recorded, the one of the 1600s produced 177 97.5% of all water is salt water, with 2.5% clean water, 70% of that is frozen 132

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry what was called ‘a mini-ice age’ so too in the early 1800s - they are utterly unpredictable, other than to say they are on a loop and will return. Europe was considerably warmer 700 years ago, in the Mediaeval Warm Period. Low solar activity changes pressure and the height of the pressure in the atmosphere. High pressure causes the jet stream to assume a more southerly position across Southern Europe for example,

dragging

winds and arctic conditions to Britain from the north. The

impact of the

Rocky Mountains in conjunction with the oceans can cause the Jet Stream to assume a more northerly angle securing a mild British winter.

Some see a decreasing pattern of solar activity which will impact as cooling generally and especially in the southern hemisphere which will more than offset any danger of the planet over-heating.

In fact, a minority of scientists, who

use the sun as an indicator rather than

other factors, suggest we may be moving toward more general ‘global cooling’ rather than warming for the next decade and more. Another ice age is likely to descend upon us in 1000

years’ time. That forebye, the fact is that climate overall is quite naturally variable.

Volume (m. cu.)

January 2nd Arctic Sea Ice Volume

ti

7 SEZ 2006

009

2010

2011

2012

' 201

2014

2015

201

In 2018 the hysteria had reached boiling point, forest fires blazed across the world, tsunamis had devastated islands, floods were sweeping through many parts of the world. “We're

doomed” they cried again, although it was in fact yes, the Jet Stream stupid revisited - “this time it's personal”! In fact, instead of it whip-lashing here and there it had again locked itself into a fixed position and was bringing intense weather variants with extreme results. This was nothing whatever

to do with ‘global warming’, but why miss a good chance for blatant propaganda?

133

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Having

decided

that the world wasn't quite hysterical

enough,

the

IPCC

issued

a new

statement - that the earlier warning that global temperature increases must not exceed 2% more (since the start of the industrial revolution in the 1700s - what they call ‘pre-industrial times’) was wrong. In fact, it must not exceed 1.5% or we're (as always) doomed. Seizing on

the extreme weather they allow the myth to go forth that this is evidence of their new cut-off level between survival and destruction of the human race. The world's press, and especially British and European TV, go into raptures of a global self-

inflicted holocaust. Showing scenes of the world apparently burning and forgetting the earlier news coverage which showed most of the fires had been started deliberately, in one case started in order to clear forests for illegal house building, but in most for farming and cattleraising. They warn of biblical droughts, plagues of malaria, the spread of tropical diseases, decaying coastlines and world famine. They show the floods and even shots of exploding volcanoes, all now the work quite obviously of the increased pace of ‘global warming’. But the photos and the weather had nothing to do with any new panic on marginal increases in global temperature. The reduced target at once puts one in mind of those US TV preachers who

have

been

told by God

they need

to raise $100,000

for a new

church,

then

after a

further word with God they discover it’s actually $200,000.

In this case it’s not a new church custom-ordered by God but a world full of turbines. Yet still the clear and obvious need for wholesale adoption of carbon capture and a world halt

on destruction of the earth’s forests is not the demand ‘8

Solar-magnetic activity with Lunar modulation drives weather, climate and CO2

Connections ‘OFF = Ice Ages - The norm of sun-earth links in the last million years The above diagram is from a paper by Piers Corbyn.'”° July of 2015 had seen a report from Solar researchers at the University of Northumbria, which created a new model of the sun’s activity which they claim gives “unprecedentedly accurate predictions’. 178 See report Daily Mail pg 10 Tues 9th Oct 2018 179 www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews13No043.pdf 134

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry They say that fluid movements within the sun will converge In such @ Way that temperat ures

will fall dramatically in the 2030s (just in time for the EU and British government's timeline f ” the total elimination of coal-powered generation). "Solar activity will fall by 60% as two waves of fluid effectively Cancel each other out’ according to Professor Valentina Zharkova: “the result will be similar to freezing conditions of the 17" Century when Europe and North America experienced very Cold winters.™ The impact of space weather, violent weather waves and sunspots, creates solar storms, and this dramatically affects the earth's weather. This has been observed and chronicled for thousands of years. A big sunspot can cause a big solar storm moving forces upon the earth

which even modern human development at its most destructive couldn't hope to replicate. Indeed, the whole of human technology could crash in an instant utterly at random and totally impervious to our alleged all-powerful existence and we wouldn't be able to do a damn thing

t

to stop it. The turbulent process of super-heated plasma on the sun produces massive solar

impulses generating ‘sympathetic’ magnetic impulses and fields which resound like waves crashing

upon

a shore

upon

patterns and the earth's ‘own’

the earth

and

magnetism.

its atmosphere,

These

dramatically shifting weather

are potentially astronomically gigantic

impulses.

The sun ‘blows’ magnetic bubbles of plasma, and magnetic fields flip toward the earth, with the power of one billion atom bombs exploding at once, with the potential of rapid and (for life as we enjoy it) catastrophic climate and magnetic change. The earth was not made by God for man, man is not the central character in God's creation, neither the earth nor man are the

centre of the universe, contrary to ancient views and the arrogant religious belief of men. Neither do the constant movements of climate and environments have much to do with our very short and temporary occupation of the surface of earth. The universe is some

12 billion

years old, humanity from the time we still crouched less than a million, the idea that our presence on the surface of this planet and some four or five hundred years of industrialisation is the chief dramatic cause of altered performance of global climate and composition, given the range and dynamism of universal impacts, is frankly just silly. The earth lives in relationship to the whole system of solar weather and is not isolated from it.

This process is many times more important than man’s impact on the climate of the earth. 440 million years ago an extreme ice age wiped out most of the life on the planet which had evolved up to that point. Floating ice covered central France (what is now France) the sea level dropped by 70 metres. 50% of all living things died out. All the animals which had learned to adapt to warmer climates were caught out as the climate changed.

A million years ago Scotland was covered by glaciers, there were successive ice ages, which

came and went during which time the ice melted and the polar caps receded or disappeared. The problem of trying to look at climate in perspective is man seems to think the climate and

earth were put here for us, and that climate and change must serve us, and we must be responsible for it. That any change in the climate which doesn't suit us is a catastrophe and 180

The Sunday Telegraph 12 July 2015, pg 17 135

Mining Industry Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal can’t

be

‘natural’.

“God”

presumably

wouldn't

have

planned

to

have

his

creation

disadvantaged by non-compliant weather.

When we present the above facts of the planet's life, we are told, a yes, climate change js natural but now it’s happening much faster than normal.’ Well let's be clear here, climate change is normal in so far as it happens all the time, but each and every occurrence of dramatic climate change is abnormal and unusual in relation to the previous pattern. If this were not so, there would be no change. To one extent or another all the causes of dramatic climate change, (and scientists have very few sure reasons why they have occurred in the

past) were prompted for different reasons. It is not true that all of them were slow and gradual, the meteor strike which started the steady process of dinosaur extinction to name but one. 10,000 BC the Ice Age of that period ends, the ice melts in relative global terms

‘overnight’. This current process of climate change may be more rapid than some previous climate changes, but they are by very definition odd, dramatic and ‘unusual’ events. There is also a simple matter of scientific fact and logic, as the ice age recedes further into the past and the overall temperature is steadily rising, the ambient temperature of glaciers and ice at

the poles rises increasing the temperature of waters and air surrounding, which speeds up the rate at which the central core melts. Something like this probably 8,400 years ago gave

rise to the biblical flood of Noah. As a vast area of land-locked glacial ice melted into a rising pool of warmer water, the level of the water rose, increasing the area of warmer water and gallon by gallon increased the rate at which it melted, in other words it begins to melt faster than previously for the most obvious of reasons. At a point in time when the ice melts at a faster and faster rate, so the thinning ice dam is breached and trillions of gallons flood over and through what was the natural land and

ice dam

into what is now the Strait of Gibraltar,

linking what is now the

Mediterranean with the Atlantic and dramatically altering the saline content of that sea with an ocean of pure water as well as raising dramatically the levels of the Black Sea. It was of course neither God nor man who had created this flood, the dramatic impact on sea

levels, the composition and alteration of land mass and devastation of human and animal life, but an entirely natural process of global warming. 7,000 years ago, the end of the ice age

and climate polarisation ironically also ended the lush environment of North Africa and brought desert and drought and in the process created Egypt.

This too was not the work of a bad-tempered God angry with his creation, neither was it the

damn fool actions of short sighted men, simply the next incident in the repetitive cycle of climate change impacting as it always does hard upon existing life forms and geology and water mass.

To restate, 450 million years ago almost all living things were wiped off the face of the planet and depths of the oceans in an as yet unknown tide of devastating climate change, natural,

dramatic, and unstoppable. Somewhere along the line, the anthropomorphic nonsens e which sees all of life ‘creation’ and evolution as centred around our own existence, here for and by us in one form or another, : will hit the hard realisation that w € are a speck in the evolutionary

plan, and not nearly as important as we like to think oursely

es.

The fact is that man’s impact on climate was nil for most of the dramatic change s which took

place on the planet because he wasn't here. Today it may be true only at the very margins. 136

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry Natural evolution and natural climate change endemic to the earth may actually have other plans for us. 70,000

years

ago,

the entire

human

race was

brought

to the edge

of total extinction

by

starvation and disease, fewer than 2000 inhabitants survived globally. Nobody is certain what feature of climate change brought this about, but what we know with absolute clarity is that it

was not something human beings were responsible for, and it certainly wasn't CO2.'®" Of all the probable global forthcoming catastrophes custom-built to either wipe us out or knock us back a millennium (perhaps to the edge of survival as we were 70,000 years ago), the following ought to catch our imagination and attention: -

e

Agiant asteroid on collision course with the earth.

e

The collapse of underwater caves on the Canary Islands causing massive landslips

e

The explosion of the giant magma field in Yellowstone Park, which will have the same impact as the meteor which wiped out the dinosaurs.

and a tidal wave which will drown half the world.

Of these there are three things to say: 1. 2. 3.

They will happen Human beings have nothing to do with creating them We have not the slightest means of stopping them

There is a far greater and more pressing effect of natural forces upon the earth and that is the irrefutable fact the moon is moving away from the earth, not on a cycle which will all come right in the end, but permanently and relentlessly. The moon, as most will know, is the most stabilising influence on everything which happens on earth. It adjusts the speed at which the earth spins, the distribution of sunlight and moonlight, the tides, waves, and

gravity. As the moon moves further away, which it is doing day by day, the ‘wobble’ of the earth's spin melt of all summer of catastrophic

and orbit will increase. Massive changes of climate will occur including a total earth caps and other icepacks. The seasons will morph into one elongated heat and one long elongated winter of extreme cold. Of the predicated and harbingers of climate change this one is the most certain and obviously is

‘natural’ and not the result of human activity or indeed any earth-based activity. On

the question of man-made

global warming,

we are not totally helpless to nudge

the

climate and change a few degrees in one direction or another, but we should not be so selfcentred as to think ‘the earth’ is either here to serve us, or is easily influenced by us.

The earth has no particular preference for which species /f any occupies its surface. Neither is the make-up of the air a fixed constant which has some natural permanent balance. Hundreds of millions of years ago, in the Carboniferous period oxygen composed more than 60% of the make-up of earth’s air. This led to the periods of ‘gigantism’ with massive giant Le eee “ Although the balmy hot tropical Antarctic described earlier is claimed to have arrived ‘by Global Warming’ eo by ‘naturally high CO> levels’, the cause of such ‘naturally high CO; levels’ as yet escapes the discovery a aT and seems to be based on some sort of back projection. Global warming of the past, they assume, seas = have been CO based’. They hang the charge time and again on volcanoes, although they don’t dee ny now where it came from, it certainly wasn’t burning coal. The fact is that deep core samples in milesP Ice records CO; levels twice as high as currently, during an elongated ice age and global winter. 137

of the British Coal Mining Industry Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction as the size of seagulls, centipedes as big Cats, trees hundreds of feet high and dragon flies to the dominance due tly direc was t abou came en oxyg n of atio entr OVer That this high conc

dense forestation and their Propensity the planet of vegetation and massive woodlands and | | oxygen. uce prod to also but CO, ‘eat’ not only to of this as the ‘norma % The air we are used to contains now only 20.93% oxygen. We think In gas composition and air COMPOosition natural mix, but it isn’t necessarily. The change planet has

human dominance of the around the planet is constantly evolving. It is clear this is ag development and science and industry, but added to the warming process by our

‘natural’ as any other phase of the earth's history, certainly as natural as when the trees had mix, with tiny percentile Changes the planet to themselves. CO, is 0.03% of the current air over perhaps the last century.

creatures which predated them. It is as natural as plates moving and volcanoes erupting, continents freezing, oceans boiling, or new land mass forming. We are part of the planet, we

ourselves are part of the ecology, our existence is part of the earth not an alien infestation of it. Obviously, we aesthetically have preferences for green fields, clear skies and non-polluted oceans, this is entirely to do with our odd development of introspection and subjective

thought. It has nothing to do with some natural state of existence endemic of the planet prior to our arrival. The earth’s violent evolution and continued volatility is far more devastating than anything our wee souls can unleash upon the planet, but there is nothing personal about it. We are however the only creature on this planet capable of planning our intervention into it and adapting as conscious choice our relationship with all we see around us. What is scary for many is not that ‘the planet is dying’ - it isn’t of course - the earth will survive whatever puny effects we have on its ecology and climate, as it has survived far more devastating effects of perfectly natural climatic convulsions millions of years before we got here. At last reckoning the planet has 1.5 billion years yet to run with or without us. What

is scary is that the conditions of life which have operated for humanity may be becoming

more difficult. Worse that it may affect everyone and not just the third world and African masses who have hitherto starved, parched, perished from disease in an unforgiving climate and a punishing environment without any of the panic and worldwide soul searching which is now focusing the attention of the rich and powerful. So, efforts are being rushed through to minimise the harmful effects of our dominance on the

planet. This leads us to a discussion of what those harmful activities are.

“We do not yet know how big the effects of Carbon Dioxide are on temperature, still less the balance of harm it will do.”

Trade Minister Peter Lilley"® As coal miners with an understanding of geology and gases, we are not easily convinced that

CO, and our production of it could possibly have caused the massive impact which it is

blamed for - CO; is a tiny component of the earth's atmosphere. True, human presence and 182 Sunday Express, Dec 18, 2011 138

ee

Our domination of the planet is as natural as when the dinosaurs dominated the earth, or the

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

ion over the last century, carbon industries, especially coal, have greatly increased its proport but it remains a very small player in the field in our view, but let's accept the arguments despite our cynicism.

ment and Human dominance of the planet has added to the warming process by our develop science

and

industry,

but as argued

earlier this is as ‘natural’ as any other phase

of the

nicer than dense cities. earth's history. ‘The Earth’ doesn't really think dense forests are cities actually, and humans who Dense forests are no more ‘natural’ to the earth than dense some caution. So too should the deem to speak “for the earth” ought to be treated with climate change panic which has gripped the earth. climate change holocaust gained the Just how this theory of catastrophic global man-made we are standing, to grasp. almost universal acceptance it has, is hard, from where

n which can't be denied or challenged has Something of a scientific mass hysteria, a revelatio the

called ‘climate change deniers’, worse than taken deep sectarian root. Oppositionists are the theory s of the postwar world. flat earth theorists of old or the Holocaust-denier

In truth

a theoretic proposition, to try and inject some started among relatively few scientists with were developed which attempted to predict science into the theory when computer models the climatic future. by had risen from 1975 to 1998 accompanied The rise in earth climate temperature which rising amounts

of CO,

this model on the predictive rising into the atmosphere was fed into

to rise in an uninterrupted fashion at a rate trend that if they weren't stopped would continue phe are based upon this presumption and of multiple progression. All the theories of catastro model and the prediction, although carbon computer model. The facts though confront the couple of years when their rate of increase emissions have continued to rise (until the last rising) global temperatures have not has declined, despite coal production and consumption started to rise again. Climate change risen at any appreciable rate (until 2009) and then and model didn’t match the actual scientists have no answer as to why this prediction it in the light of living fact rather than climate. They refuse to redraw the model or recalibrate prediction.

domestic energy, economic Science has become dogma, and that dogma is being applied to disorganising labour, and political social policy for reasons which can only be linked to capable of disarming the unions, and neutering the working class as a productive force that may challenging and replacing the existing social system, although | am aware to many sound fanciful.

139

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

IS The Globe Warming Your End? Because our end is bliddy freezing.

Climate is just big weather, and weather changes almost day by day. Is the earth getting warmer? Asked like that using all evidence of the earth’s climactic history the answer has to be - ‘no’ not in historic terms. The trend in temperatures is dramatically from hot to cooler. Now do we mean has the earth got hotter since we've been on it? Again, the answer has to be ‘No’ not since we’ve occupied the earth and especially not before that; it has been both hotter and colder, sometimes dramatically. So is it hotter now “than ever before”? They usually say, ‘yes since records began’, but that is only less than 200 years, it clearly isn't hotter than when sabre tooth tigers and elephants and rhinos roamed the streets of what is now London. Even within the period ‘since records began’ there have been dramatic rises and falls and periods of stability, not least during this panic when static temperatures almost for a decade refused to conform to their computer models. Now halleluiah God be praised the temperature has started to rise again over the last five or six years but is still by most figures less than 1 degree “since the industrial period”, the early/middle 1700s. This work argues that temperature fluctuations and sometimes dramatic climate change are hardwired into the ‘creation’ - it’s how the whole thing works. Have 8 billion people and our development

of industry

and

rapacious

plunder

of the

earth

resources,

especially

those

influencing climates, made a contribution? Obviously, and the destruction of the earth’s forests and jungles, a highly damaging contribution, coupled with huge emissions of all sorts, is driving the natural process of climate change faster and deeper than it probably otherwise

would be. However, and we will return to this, the proportion of emissions to the volume of fossil fuels mined is falling as the volume increases.

We and and CO, the

can fix it, indeed only we can, but the almost total focus on attacking carbon emissions fossil fuel extraction, as if this alone or even mainly were the problem, is an own goal a distraction from an overall strategy. We restate that the main problem is not so much emissions, even supposed you are convinced this is indeed the root of all evil, but rather inability of the earth to absorb and transform them into oxygen or neutralise it. This is

entirely due to loss of trees, hedges, grasslands mass forests and jungles, something which is likewise entirely fixable without stopping human progress. 140

cat nsblheel

the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining industry

5.1.1 Methane

Is the burning of coal the major source of the global warming gases? Methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO,,; it is one of the worst. if not THE WORST source of greenhouse impacts.

Miners do not produce this on any scale although it is a by-product of coal mining, but mass and widespread global meat production does. Farming of mass herds of cattle, pigs and sheep etc. to supply meat for the meat industry is

at least on a par with coal burning for the damage it does. How come? Billions of animals produce billions of cubic feet of methane from their burps, as does all the multimillion tonnes

of manure and silage. (A common misconception is that the cow's rear end emits methane. however the vast majority is released orally.) Beef cattle can produce up to 1,400 kg CO, equivalent per animal per year, while dairy cows produce up to 2,700 kg CO; equivalent per animal per year. When

the associated manure is kept, as in liquid ‘anaerobic’ conditions as

most is, even more methane is produced. 9 billion animals are slaughtered in the USA alone for meat consumption, leave aside the moral question of such carnage; the factory farms of America

produce

two

trillion pounds

of animal

waste

per annum

which

pollutes

air and

water.'® Slurry, made up of manure and urine, contains high levels of ammonia which encourages the bacteria that produce acid to thrive. This directly contributes to acid rain. Slurry can be 100 times more polluting than untreated domestic sewage. Silage effluent is 200 times more polluting.

5.1.2 Forest Destruction Secondly and perhaps most importantly is the ever-ongoing destruction of the earth’s forests, mostly to make way for farmed animals, and to make land to farm them. The destruction of the rain forests and areas of dense vegetation in ancient woods and tundra is producing a spiral of desertification and is killing the lungs of the planet, taking away the ability of the earth to change the CO, into oxygen and maintain a balance of breathable air. The Brazilian authority's record destruction of the rain forest between August 2010 and July 2011 extends

to 2,420 SQUARE MILES, a size equivalent to the US state of Delaware © and this is only one part of the never-ending elimination of the earth’s dense forests. Between 2003 and 2011 they wiped out 7,722 square miles of forests and they weren't the worst. Paraguay has the world's worst ratio of forest loss over forest gain, with Malaysia and Cambodia having the world's highest rate of total loss. Indonesia,

which had imposed a temporary ban on new logging licences, presided over gross increases in total deforestation. But despite the global knowledge of its impact and despite the cries about global warming and climate change, Canada, North America, South America, Russia and China also added to the process of deforestation. A map based on high-resolution images from space showed that from 2000 to 2012:

2,305.100 km (890,000 sq. miles) of forest was lost with Malaysia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Zambia 8 Time, Vol 181, no 11, 2013 ,pg. 35 141

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry and Angola scoring the highest levels, with Indonesia the fastest rise in deforestation as a

result of logging and mining. ' The single most important factor in the whole ‘global warming’ process is this feature . destruction of forests, desertification, and animal meat production. At least a third of the

increase in CO, levels comes directly from the felling of trees but we have yet to sag

anything like the clamour directed at this as is directed at coal mining. Odd when you consider that replanting the woodlands and stopping the ongoing destruction could be achieved in a very brief period if the will was there. Nature has already stepped in on its own to take up the slack. Trees and plants have in recent years increased their intake of CO, and as a result have become more prolific, and the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’ is demonstrated to be levelling out. * Clearly a diminished pool of trees and vegetation will not cope with rising amounts

of CO,,

reforestation programme

and

there

is a crashing

need

to firstly do

a mass

and secondly a worldwide application of Carbon

worldwide

Capture and

Storage.

THE UN FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANISATION ESTIMATED THAT THE NET LOSS OF FORESTS DURING THE 1990's WAS 8.9 MILLION HECTARES PER YEAR. The felling of the forests is only the start of the ecological process of destruction. It is followed by rapid soil loss and spreading desertification. The trees protected the soil, without them it is washed away, and the land destroyed. The UN estimates that more than 250 million people are affected by desertification, and approximately two billion people, a third of

the earth's population, are potentially victims. Desertification leads directly to famine, malnutrition, and displacement and impoverishment of the world’s poorest people.

5.1.3 Livestock Farming “The 2006 UN report Livestock’s Long Shadow states that “the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributions the most serious environmental

problems at every scale from local to global.”

“The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions

measured in C.O. equivalent. This is a higher share than transport.” (Transport is 13.5% worldwide.)

"ANIMAL FARMING CONTRIBUTES 65% OF ALL HUMAN-CA USED NITROUS OXIDE. NITROUS OXIDE HAS 296 TIMES THE GLOBAL WARMING EFFECT OF CARBON DIOXIDE.”8 6 In the year 2013 global demand for meat was expected to grow by 60% by 2050, the amount

of farmland, and grain needed to feed Chick ens, pigs and cows and the widespread devastation of the remaining forests and woodlands, coupled with ae strial-scale production 184 Metro, Nov 15th, 2013, pg. 23. 185 Nature Communications. Dr Trevor Keenan, US of 186 Ecology section, Animal Free Shopper, 8th SilllonDept. Vaganee 142

: : ‘ National Laboratory California.

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry of greenhouse gases from the extra animals will be totall u i eco-systems, and humanity and wild-life."®” y unsustainable for the planet, :its

5.1.4 Transport Next is transport, private cars, planes, not simply their emissions but also the road-building devastation which accompanies them. These too eat up the oxygen-producing vegetation, countryside and woodlands. Could this be addressed by a return to public transport, mass transit rail systems fuelled on clean power? Mass public transit systems could be fuelled without pollution by using hydrogen, (a benign gas), a by-product of the clean coal hydrogenisation process. Again it requires only the will.

USA Factors producing Carbon Dioxide Emissions in 2011:

Commercial Residential Industrial Transportation

992 Million metric tons 1,162 Million metric tons 1,472 Million metric tons 1,845 Million metric tons

Higher than industry or commerce is transport, which dominates the Carbon emissions in the

USA, and within that figure the private car is the biggest contributor. '*° 53 Million metric tons 62 Million metric tons 175 Million metric tons 353 Million metric tons 1037 Million metric tons

Military International Shipping Air travel Freight Trucks Cars and Light Trucks

In June of 2015 the EU sought to impose ‘greener’ petrol on drivers. Like most of these schemes it demands either travel less or pay more to do so, dumping the biggest burdens on

the weakest backs. The EU Commission demands all the oil producers replace ‘regular’ unleaded with ‘green’ petrol to ensure Britain hits its renewable targets. Something the greens are very jolly about. It will mean another £80 per year on the average driver and at once wipe out all the savings from falling oil prices through new discoveries of oil in the USA.

It is also less efficient and demands more fuel per gallon. It will (surprise surprise) make most existing cars redundant as they are unable to use the new fuel. Older cars will have to be scrapped to meet the ‘green’ requirements. The fuel E10 is 10% composed of bio fuel, made from corn, another brilliant idea which stops the production of food to eat, and transfers the

land use to crops for fuel." *8? Animal Free Shopper. Op.cit

#88 Time, Oct 28. 2013, pg. 33 Power Surge *8° Sunday Telegraph 12 July page 6 143

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

5.1.5 Cement By weight cement is the most widely used material globally. We now produce over 3.5 billion tonnes each year, with the majority of it being produced and consumed in China. And one of the most important uses of cement is in concrete production. Cement only makes up between 10 and 20% of concrete’s mass, depending on the specific concrete. However, from an embodied energy and emissions point of view it makes up more how than 80%. So, if we want to make emissions-free concrete, we really need to figure out to make emissions-free cement.

quite often We make cement in a cement kiln, using a kiln fuel such as coal, natural gas, or of greenhouse gases used tyres. Provision of heat in cement production is an obvious source

and providing this heat with low carbon sources will face multiple challenges. from energy provision, Approximately 50% of emissions from cement production come not but from chemical reactions in its production.

The

reaction in cement

key chemical into

(limestone)

calcium

oxide

production

(lime).

The

is the conversion of

removal

carbon

of calcium

carbonate

calcium

carbonate

from

inevitably leads to the emission of carbon dioxide: CaCO3 — CaO + CO, production extremely These chemical realities will make total de-carbonisation of cement difficult.

emissions, Total cement production currently represents about 5% of global carbon dioxide to go with the almost 7% from iron and steel production.

5.1.6 Coal unfettered up the Finally, yes, coal, not so much coal production but the burning of coal not be burned chimneys of mass-polluting coal power stations. As demonstrated, coal need problem, but in this fashion. It is not even coal and the production of CO, that is the central

rather the lack of absorption and conversion of CO, to oxygen and nitrogen that is the direct result of the devastation of the earth’s woodlands. Science cannot be uninvented of course, and the opportunity is still there, if the commitment

can be found for clean coal systems -

prepared to currently none of the establishment or anti-establishment political parties are declare such a commitment.

5.2 Natural progression or man-made? The vision of hell which Australia became in the winter months of 2019 to January 2020 saw large swathes of the entire country consumed with unstoppable fires. Many states of the country

were

affected

and mostly simultaneously. 1000s of houses and businesses and of all sorts perished in the flames. It was predicted half a billion wildlife untold numbers of

animals have been wiped out in NSW wonderful

excuse

to predict the

doom

alone." This gave the extinction death cult a awaiting

190 Eddie Ford, Weekly Worker, 1281 Jan 9th 2020

144

the

rest of the

planet.

They

pointed

at

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destructio n of the British Coal Mining Industry

Australia's coal mining and blamed that and the fires on the miners. It was all vastly overblown as the world press presented us with daily images flames and death; no one wanted to listen. Actually,

Australia's

contribution

to CO,

was a little

under

1%,

the

same

as

Britain's.

Australia's overall temperature had also risen a little over 1 degree since ‘the industrial period’ and well within global targets for global warming. Australia is the biggest per capita user of renewable energy.

To what extent is the bush fire disaster different or man-made? Well firstly it's true that a number of the fires were started deliberately, but they hardly explain the extent or longevity

of the crisis. What we have to understand is that bush fires are, like much else, an integral part of the Australian outback and bush. That the country is an extremely hot one generally,

combined with an ongoing drought and high unpredictable winds, the seeds of the immense fire were being laid.

storm of These particular fires are due to a lethal combination of factors producing a perfect disaster. This year has been particularly hot with an ongoing drought.

-

We are told by comrade Eddie Ford writing in the CPGB(PC) Weekly Worker, this is due to :-

similar to El "a natural weather phenomenon known as The Indian Ocean Dipole, Nino whereby you get different sea-surface Indian Ocean. Temperatures in the eastern warm and cold compared with the western to as "positive" "neutral" and "negative". The been strongest for six decades,

temperatures in opposite parts of the part of the ocean oscillate between part, cycling through phases referred dipole's positive phase this time has

meaning warm

sea temperatures in the western

Indian Ocean region with the opposite in the east. The result is higher than average rainfall and floods in eastern Africa and droughts in south east Asia and

Australia." '' Sadly, comrade Ford then goes on with predictable certainty to ignore the science of the situation and the past history of such fires and the ecology of Australia and its weather and blame the miners and coal. This modern variant of self-declared ‘communists’ now find their natural home among the middle-class greens rather than the horny-handed sons and daughters of proletarian toil and industry.

In fact the greens may well have contributed more to this particular catastrophe than any miners did. Since the days when the aborigines dominated the outback they had known not to let large swathes of land accumulate great waves of dead combustible material - brush, leaves, gorse etc. Such swathes provide the gunpowder trail by which fires spread from one conflagration to another. They therefore had employed a systematic and annual burning off of the material and created firewalls which contained the later developing bush fires. This had been a system adopted by farmers and miners alike, until the greens campaigned to have it stopped as it contributed to global warming and Australia's carbon footprint. The

“* Eddie Ford ‘Climate’ Weekly Worker, January 9th, 2020 pg 9. 145

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry State, ever ready to be seen to be concerned, allowed the forests to accumulate a tinder-dry veritable bonfire of fuel and feet-deep waste pathways between forest and bush. As a matter of fact, Australia has in the past been just as hot as it is now, and mass forest fires also punctuate Australian history like the ones of 1938-39 and more recently 2009. We hear of life for folk poor, fossil fuel

the argument that climate change is impacting heavily on the lifestyles and quality third world people, but it is poverty and underdevelopment which makes third world not climate change. Actually, as demonstrated in earlier illustrations, the rise in production and utility - especially coal - leads to simultaneous rises in all indicators

for health, hygiene, life expectancy and sanitation. Why should Bangladesh be facing problems from rising sea levels and The Netherlands not? Given the same degree of poverty and under-development and industrial neglect that Bangladesh experiences, all of Holland would now be underwater. Contrary to green arguments, it is industrial development, power production and science which lift countries out of poverty not halting the process. China, India, Vietnam and other impoverished countries had the absolute right to industrialise and drive-up living standards. Nobody in the west has the right to criticise this. We do however have the duty to influence those countries to develop environmentally helpful production processes and internationally recognised union rights and health and safety regulations. The problem for both China and India is the industrialisation is too slow and the

mining of the coal too crucial for coal communities who often take matters into their own hands, continuing to mine abandoned mines, working old shallow drifts and even abandoned deep mines themselves without supports or machinery, often in the style of 17" or even 16" century British and European mines, by hand, unregulated, and in appalling danger. These death pits are the only source of income for these communities and everyone, men women and children labour in them. It is here where the bulk of world deaths in coal mines take The British green lobby on the other hand is happy to hound the last surviving place. vestiges of British coal mining off the face of earth, despite the fact that for every tonne of production

lost here,

environmentally

worse

it is produced

conditions.

elsewhere

Virtually

the

in worse

whole

working

conditions

of John

Major's

and

burned

pit closure

in

coal

capacity was made up by imports, and at far higher costs in blood and finance than we did it here at huge domestic social and financial loss. This no longer is the case since coal fired power, and coal fired steel and manufacture have paid the ultimate price in the war against of ‘environment’ and industrial Britain and its proletariat, while flying the false colours ‘stopping extinction’. Yet still the ‘Climate Camp’ sets up for business at the emaciated Coal Power stations now on life support or death row, demanding an end to British coal usage despite ever increasing demand and production on a world scale.

It makes not a jot of difference to the atmosphere, global warming or whatever, but makes their liberal consciences easier, so long as the hypocrisy spoken of earlier is ignored and obscured.

146

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Is this energy anorexia helping the planet? No - suppose the government's energy fund covers the whole of the island from stem to stern with wind turbines or manages to build six new nuclear stations with all that means in terms of everlasting pollution from waste, it will not alter the climate, or global warming to any

extent at all, fractionally at best, and at the cost of secure energy supply and rising deaths. The world will continue to consume coal and produce CO;.

5.3 Scaremongering by governments/scientists We are not on the verge of climate extinction, there is not a climate emergency, there is a

global and serious problem which needs rationally addressing without trying to put the clock back to some preindustrial ‘golden age’.

Here are just the top 10 new signs that catastrophic man-made warming may be something of another panic like swine flu, SARS,

and the Y2K bug. Meantime coal mines continue to

close or lie undeveloped, reserves are left unmined or worse are being destroyed where they

sit, mining communities are left on the scrap heap, and coal power stations are aoe"

of unspoiled Turbines are marching across all the protected areas, national parks, and areas

natural wasteland and wilderness. Nuclear power is set to expand worldwide on the back of the scare. All of this is cheer-led by an army of middle class greens who have always hated

industry and to be frank never liked the working class, and especially that the dusty proletariat might plan the future rather than their self-appointed selves.

5.3.1 Climategate from the Climatic Research Unit The rot started in November 2010 with the leaking of emails of Britain's University of East Anglia. them conspiring to sack Those emails from many of the world’s top climate scientists showed up errors. sceptical scientists from magazines, hide data from sceptics, and cover

to “hide One of the scientists, CRU boss Phil Jones, even boasted of having found a “trick” the decline” in recent temperature records. Jones was also on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so influential in convincing us our gases are heating the planet that it won the Nobel Prize. But he showed how political the IPCC actually is by promising in yet another email that he and another colleague would do almost anything to keep sceptical studies out of IPCC reports.

Just as damning was the admission by IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth that the world isn't warming as the IPCC said it must: “We cannot account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.” In July of 2013 the UN World Weather Organisation informed us that the ‘first ten years of

this century’ recorded the hottest weather temperature since records began’ and that is the way the media reported it in screaming headlines. Further investigation of this report actually

nn : 5 a

Sctiecinos ie

the earth's kaenh

rsp

that records have only been kept for 170-odd years, in terms of the

ulated taba ef iehaeercT acter a, e

hottest climatic areas of desert on earth,

global temperature remained unchanged and the cause of the higher

recorded spot temperature could not be identified. 147

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry Professor Michael Kelly, Prince Philip Professor of Technology Fellow of the Royal Society, stated:

at Cambridge

University/

“| have personal experience of this selectivity. Last year at the request of the president, | produced a paper that urged the Society's (The Royal Society) Council to distance itself from the levels of certainty being expressed about future warming. | said we ought to have a plan ‘B’ if the pause (in rising temperatures)

should last much longer, so calling the models into still more serious question. | got a polite brush off..... Those who fail to provide balance are not giving advice, but lobbying. It is with deepest regret that | must now state that this is the role which has been adopted by the Royal Society. And when scientists abandon neutral inquiry for lobbying,

they jeopardize their purpose and integrity.”"

5.3.2 The Copenhagen farce More than 40,000 politicians, scientists and activists flew to Copenhagen in clouds of greenhouse gasses - to get all nations to agree to make the rest of us cut our own emissions to “stop” global warming. This circus ended in total failure. China, the world’s biggest emitter, refused to choke its growth. So did India. Until recently the United States was unwilling to make cuts, but under great pressure is now thinking of fossil fuel taxes. The world agreement in South Africa in December 2011 was highly unlikely to stop the level of power generation, and the truth is the global recession has not reduced power generation overall.

The world climate control conference in Africa cobbled out some emission limits to be implemented within the next twenty years, time will tell if the desperate need for development in the third world and the desperate search for profit in the west are as good as their word and they stick to the limits. The effects of these limits on climate change are in any case entirely speculative.

5.3.3 The Himalayan scare Some quote the IPCC as an authority on global warming, some claim it's a group of “guys in white coats” who “just measure things”. But the IPCC also just makes things up. The

claim from its 2007

report: “Glaciers

in the Himalaya

are receding

faster than

in any

other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current

rate.”

In fact, we now know this bizarre claim was first made by a

little-known Indian scientist in an

interview for an online magazine, and then copied into a report by the green group WWF.

From there, the IPCC lifted it almost word for word for its own 2007 report, without checking if

it was true.

i

192 The Mail On Sunday March 15th 2015 148

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry It Fal of ae more.

a8 the IPCC conceded. The glaciers will be around for at least centuries

aces only exist, by the way, because ice melts - if it didn't, they wouldn't move.

But why did the IPCC run this mad claim in the first place?

The IPCC's Dr Murari Lal, the co-coordinating lead author responsible, says he knew all along there was no peer-reviewed research to back it up.

“(But) we thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policymakers and politicians..." Note: you are told not the truth, but what will scare you best.

But Himalaya is an interesting general case in point. When India collided with Asia during a change

great climate environmental

and land realignment,

it cut off the existing east-west

multitude of circulation in the ocean that then existed - the Tethys Ocean. It was one of a masses, the Gobi realignments of ocean currents. Himalaya marks the great collision of land

created a Desert formed where there was once lush vegetation as the rising Himalayas of a highland mass changed the ‘rainshadow effect’. The monsoons intensified as the growth

are the most way air flowed between land and sea. The Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau

the Himalayas erosion lowers rapidly eroding landscapes in the world. In the Tamur Basin of them carry massive amounts the land by almost five metres a year. The rivers that flow from the vast deposits of sediment which of material down to the oceans. Bangladesh is built from material in the Ganges and also spread out to sea. The sheer amount of dissolved

Brahmaputra Bengal.’

ocean in the Bay of rivers has changed the chemical composition of the

The point? All of this is dramatic ongoing

climate change

impacting

on the earth in an

a

which is entirely natural and specifically evolutionary sometimes circular historic process An eccentric United Kingdom the planet. nothing to do with the presence of man on

in January of 2014 that the deluges Independence Party local council candidate announced power cuts for weeks over Xmas of rain which plagued southern England causing floods and of same sex marriage. It is and new year was God's response to government legalisation angry God or a bad-tempered unlikely that rain or bad weather is really caused by either an of weather on the earth responding to man’s miniscule presence on the mighty processes planet.

THE GREATEST SINGLE SOURCE OF CO, IS ... THE HIMALAYAS.

The Himalayas host hundreds of geothermal springs which release huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Scientists at Wadra Institute of Himalayan Geology confirmed the chemical process taking place in the rocks deep in the Himalayan core is a significant source

of emissions. Decarbonising of Carbonate rocks deep in the core and oxidation of graphite generate the gas. The geothermal springs have the potential to emit around 72x106 MOL of carbon dioxide per year. (The mole - symbol: MOL - is the base unit of amount of substance ("number of substance") in the International System of Units or System International (SI), defined as exactly 6.022 140 76 x 1023 particles, e.g., atoms, molecules, ions or electrons.)

5.3.4 “Prepare to meet thy doom!” re big crowd inevitably attracts a sole born-again Christian with his placard announcing Pare to meet thy doom’ or ‘the end is nigh’ convinced as he is that the Day of Judgment 193 N

=

atural History Museum

149

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

is upon us. So it was that by February of 2014 with floods sweeping through the southern counties of England and blackouts for weeks, with homelessness and desperation, a flock of Green Peace activists descended on the devastated areas. Their mission ostensibly to help people and support flood defences, actually at every turn, as folk sat among devastation and

TV cameras sought out stories and sound bites, they announced ‘it's climate change’, ‘it’s fossil fuel’. Ed Miliband declares this is all due to climate change. The TV and Press go along

for the ride declaring that the whole situation is unprecedented. Actually, February recorded there had

it wasn’t of course, September 1976 recorded more rainfall than January and of 2014 but without the level of flooding and devastation, there was more rain in October/November 2002 but without any of the flooding in 2014. In the 1950s been the great tidal surge which caused devastating floods and killed hundreds of

people - only two people had died in 2014.‘ The truth was more tangible than days of judgment. The commanding river which overflowed and flooded the Somerset ‘levels’ (these are below sea level marshes historically prone to flooding) had seen regular dredging stopped (owing to cuts in local Council budgets). This caused the river to lose 60% of its capacity and much of its flow, meaning, it was both shallower and moved more slowly. This

had the greatest impact in Somerset.

But the scenes of devastation were

because instead of empty marshlands and meadows,

more

visual

mass house building had been allowed

on flood plains traditionally kept clear of developing for that purpose. This was true also of the Thames Valley. In July of 2018 came a mass ‘outbreak’ of forest and moorland fires amid a blazing summer. Britain experienced the best summer since the seventies and weather outranked traditional holiday resorts. Disastrous fires struck Greece with hapless folk burned to death. The tabloids screamed ‘The World Is Burning’ and the green ghouls cried about the heavens falling in and this was clear proof of ‘global warming’ and the trend of rising temperature. It wasn't of course, but they knew that. The weather was due to our old buddy The Jet Stream again, stuck as it was in an irregular drift, this was one of a constantly recurring cycle of weather syndromes totally unpredictable and utterly normal. The fires themselves were more sinister, the Yorkshire Moors and the deadly Greek ones having been started deliberately. The motives for this fire starting are beyond the scope of this book, but at this stage of writing

there is no doubt that this is direct human intervention and not the knell of doom from The Creator. The same

panic again broke out as ‘wild fires’ (as the British press now insists on

calling them) blazed with catastrophic effect in a number of countries in 2019 - without exception they were indeed man-made but not via global warming but rather with a box of matches. In all cases it was done to clear land for farming or property development often with the indulgence of governments.

It is simply fraudulent for green propagandists to point to the

blazing forests and credit them to ‘global warming and climate change’.

In the huge Climate Change

panic which ensues we are reminded that the global overall

temperature has actually increased by 1% since ‘the start of the industrial period’ which one can safely put somewhere at the beginning of the 1700s. The implication here of course is

that it is the ‘Industrial Period ‘which has caused the 1%, but is that true? A more measured

view would tend to demonstrate that perhaps something like a half of 1% was due to human 194 Correspondence in Daily Mail, Friday February 14 2014. 150

Coal, Clim

a eanton explosion of the industrial revolution worldwide and for four centuries. The

activity ete p

ate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

nat tb

nt natural.

US, Over multiple millennia has increased and decreased the temperature of the

y massive extremes all on its own. While everything on the planet, living and affects the planet and its impact on global warming, the process is by and large

5.3.5 “It’s the Jet Stream, Stupid”. As to the reasons for the constant rain here, snow in America and drought in the Mid-West,

had decided to meander rather this was due entirely to the activities of the Jet Stream which than take its more usual direct routes. This was caused by decreasing temperatures "0 me

a Canada and maelstroming with warm through down sweeping winds freezing Arctic and a from the Tropics, the increased turbulence ‘snaked’ the path of the jet stream and a than: ae rather mode particular a into lock’ ‘to weather erratic weather. This was causing a highly dynamic 2 = more variable. Not only is this a perfectly natural process, it indicates had warned was ‘greens’ of all descriptions volatile Jet Stream which in recent years danger of dying out and even stopping. It hen ieriatee that the nets es

; in aa colder than it had been in recent times.

extreme cold wr a 4 much of Eastern USA, that is almost half the country, was gripped bysecond greatest ° Sita of March. This was the of the Great Lakes frozen by the beginning for winter were 1 degree & a ok the ice in more than 40 years. US average temperatures o of 2014 were more of tie Sarthe Most winter for Predictions average. Century 20" ; blast in November. Midwest and the East have already endured a polar - an “Omega Block” of stationary an Again, this was due to a perfectly natural process with aett in place. The Climate Change fundamentalists pressure that froze the cold weather polar bears and tropical global warming,

homeless doom-laden stories of melting ice and of nature, are unfazed. This too, they tell faced with these stubborn contrary facts disagree as to how it might work. of the ‘Global Warming’ process though they that the far north has warmed twice Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University believes planet is warming twice as fast the rest of the globe (i.e. the COLDEST part of the snow which reflects heat parts!) because Arctic Sea ice is melting replacing white colder (on average) open ocean which is absorbing the added heat. Thus allowing air to pour further south than normal.'%

us, Is part

as fast as as warmer with black cold polar

but eventually All of them predict colder wilder winters for the forthcoming possibly decades rising overall temperatures will overwhelm the extra cold winters making the aggregate climate warmer. In 2018 we discover that polar bears are doing better than they have for years with some populations taking well to the new environment. The real challenge of climate change since life appeared on the planet up to the present day is one of adaptation or extinction. Fortunately, science is now able to lend a significant helping hand, IF there is the political motivation and morality.

ees

soe LIM®, Double Issue Dec/Jan 2014 Climate Strange. pg. 36. Bryan Walsh.

195

+.

Time, Op.cit 151

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

Rather chubby polar bears adapting to dry land again and thriving. (of course not all bears will end up on hospitable land, and not all bears will run out of an ice platform - climate and evolution are not ‘fair’ to any sense of human justice.) There are thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000 polar bears in 19 population groups around the Arctic. While polar bear numbers are increasing in two of these populations, two others are definitely in decline. We don't really know how the rest of the populations are faring, but better overall than the ‘extinction’ predicted on eco posters.

Personally, | think on every hand the natural evidence contradicts the computer model theories which have then to be bent round the shape of what is happening. Ed Miliband MP might well be stating the obvious, ‘it meaning the weather, is being affected by climate change. Well? One might ask, “why shouldn't it be?” Climate change happens, has always happened, will continue to happen. Whether we would have had deluges of rain and rivers overflowing and low-level land flooded even if humankind wasn't on the planet is fairly probable, given that it was mankind who drained all the lands which left to their own devices would be under water anyway. Environmentalist activists announce

with surety that warmer seas in the Indian Ocean

and Arctic are allowing more

water to be sucked up into the atmosphere and dumped by the Jet Stream onto Britain. Britain is uniquely affected by the moods of the stream. The islands are the border between two different and conflicting weather zones warm and cold. The Jet Stream during the period of severe weather had developed a kink which favoured the cold zone; the lesson being that ‘we’ humankind are warming the seas and the planet causing the problem. As we state repeatedly in this work, the climate is warming (very slowly) because we are moving further

away from the last ice age. Although the Antarctic has thicker sea ice than for decades, the poles do not ‘naturally’ always have ice and snow. They were left there because these are the coldest places on the planet following the general thaw which took place everywhere else on the globe. It is almost an inevitable process that more and more ice and snow will melt as the planet naturally warms and the ice age recedes. Whether this process will see all ice and

snow disappear before the next ice age starts to descend in about one thousand years is hard to tell, but if it does that will only at the very margins have been contributed to by the presence of Man and fossil fuel on the planet. Ice ages came and went constantly for four 152

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

and a half billion years before humanity arose, we didn't cause those

countless

processes

although our presence and changes and it's doubtful we have very much to do with this one, here is forced to make some impact be it ever so minimal and marginal.

5.3.6 Pachauri’s response

ay engineer, first tried to defend the afore IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, a former railw of practicing “voodoo science”. mentioned “mistake” by accusing sceptical scientists , then the scientist who first made the false claim in, Hasna Syed ly, cious suspi more Even

ed by ... turned out to be now employed by The Energy Research Institute (TERI), head Pachauri.

the Carnegie Corporation to study More astonishing still, TERI won up to $500,000 from exactly Hasnain’s bogus claim.

gly well from his IPCC job. k since In fact, Pachauri and TERI do amazin ted a global business networ aph revealed TERI had crea

Britain's Sunday Telegr Pachauri became IPCC chairman in 2002. - and, sadly, Rudd, who Bank, Toyota, Yale University sche Deut de inclu s donor We Its recent with such a big UN honcho. n, hoping to win influence millio $1 over ed hand year try last us this climatic anti-indus green socialists try to convince while is this that recall d shoul campaign is somehow anti-capitalist. tment institutions and er to a score of banks, inves advis or tor direc a now is lf Pachauri himse . s directly affected by IPCC policies

area carbon traders, many involved in The green hand revealed.

a report its false claims about the Himalayas from We have seen how the IPCC just copied such doom. p which earns donations by preaching by WWF, a green activist grou in fact, the IPCC’s 2007 report cites WWF times.

documents

as ‘evidence’

at least another

15

d paper from another activist body, the Elsewhere it cites a non-scientific, non-peer-reviewe ing ainable Development, as its sole proof that global warm International Institute for Sust could devastate African agriculture.

5.3.7 More fake IPCC claims Evidence that the IPCC sexed up its 2007 report, this time when it claimed the world had “suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s”, thanks to global warming.

in fact, the claim was picked out of an unpublished report by a London risk consultant, who later changed his mind and said, “The idea that catastrophes are rising in cost bsczaase of

opportunisti This hasn't stopped the Climate Change industry leaping onto the most vulgar Suriog the bandwagon following the catastrophic Philippines typhoon of November 0 m me t ne of global disaster voices started to proclai that this was all the result stop climatewarmi San tnendi we had to do more to wished to help the hapless Philippines

=

=

KR

=

eetn

climate change is completely misleading.”

153

Coal Mining Industry Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British emissions. Oxfam, whose brief surely is not to take a partisan side in the debate of Climate

aimed all the death and destruction was due to global change and CO., waded in and cl l

to link this typhoon or any tropica warming. There was not and is not a shred of evidence that tropical weather is no more storms to global warming or COz. Science demonstrates tm hit land, but that is simply a extreme now than ever. This was indeed the worst storm

biased IPCC had concludeg matter of chance not climate change design. Even the heavily to prove weather and climate to be two separate things and that no evidence could be found Specific er 2013). a link between bad weather and global warming (IPCC report of Octob

er. American reports by climate scientists in the US on this very subject found no link whatev

(Naderev Safio) had in the case The Filipino diplomat to the UN Climate Change conference

warming

of this Halyan typhoon of 2013, which claimed 2,500 deaths, held global ” had to be causing it. responsible, though only from a gut feeling that “something “In truth, global warming charging super typhoon

likely played only a small role, if any in turbo Halyan. While sea-level rise-which has been

than the global average-would increasing faster in most of the Philippines

temperatures have added slightly to the massive storm surge, and warmer

is that the typhoon might have given Halyan a bit more power, the reality te change... The would have been devastating even in the absence of clima frequency is link between global warming and tropical storm strength and records of past still muddy, especially in the Pacific where poor historical

storms make it more difficult to know

if things are getting worse

... Halyan

wasn't the result of climate change ...”"°”

evidence against the link is far stronger than that. A research team which examined data on tropical cyclones in the Philippines from 1902 to 2005 concluded that “The In fact,

the

number of tropical cyclones annually making landfall in the Philippines didn’t experience any net change.” Another group examining data for other tropical cyclones between 1944 and

2010 found that statistics didn’t support claims that these events have increased in frequency

or intensity.’ Typical of the way in which the press, in this case the Guardian followed by the Mail, just run with a panic story without foundation, the Guardian posted a misleading story about a dry

period that much of Europe experienced from 2014 through 2018. Citing research published in Nature Geoscience, the Guardian story says a series of severe droughts between 2014 and 2018 have been the most extreme Europe has experienced in

the past 2,000 years." Data from the United Nations Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC) and

elsewhere demonstrates that the Guardian's claims are false.

187 Bryan Walsh. Time. Nov 25", 2013. The T yphoon’s Toll. Pg. 26 198 Daily Mail. Nov 21st 2013. pg. 78 199 = https:// nes www.theguardian.:com/enviro nment/2/

i te-crisi ict s-recent-european-drough 021/mar/15/clima ts-worst154

y Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industr oaks from a small region of The researchers involved in the study examined tree rings from for the last 100 years they the Czech Republic and Bavaria in Germany. To represent climate examined tree rings from 21 living oak trees.

trends since 75 BCE, they sampled tree climate waning and waxing s Europe' ruct reconst To in old buildings or sunken in the mud of rings from timber from 121 dead oak trees, found riverbeds.

of Central Europe, the Guardian follows the Based on this limited dataset from a small part historic drought and this climate reconstruction fairly represents

researchers in speculating Southern tip of the upper reaches of the arctic to the rainfall trends across all of Europe, from Romania along the Black Sea. Italy, and from Ireland's west coast to Eastern ting claim recent heat waves “have had devasta As the Guardian sums up, the researchers igniting forest

of early deaths, destroying crops and consequences ... causing thousands

Europe from a small region of Central source single a from data whole. Any In fact, reconstructed climate the European Continent as a across climate of or flooding in is not representative the past 2,000 years, drought across note will n historia climate meteorologist or of Europe. climate patterns in other parts reflect not may or may found one part of Europe multiple sources of data, ‘Climate of the Past’, using journal the in study ed from One recent during the past 500 years occurr c Republi Czech the in the driest extended period and a 1531 to 1540. 7° drought in the Czech region ntury 46th-ce the that found or multiThe authors of that study of severe impacts of multi-country

fires.”

gave “no indications small part of Central Europe year effect[s].” d, stayed in or near and the wetter period that followe Europe, Central in drought In short, the Central Europe. and collated by Drought Atlas, from data compiled an Europe ted comple y recentl a Also, shows Earth Observatory, Lamont-Daugherty researchers at Columbia University's over the past 1,000 ons across North- Central Europe “persistently drier-than-average conditi longer during in the Northern Hemisphere that lasted years, and a history of megadroughts century.” to 1250 AD] than they did during the 20th the Medieval Climate Anomaly [950 AD 201

e 800 to 1,000 years ago than recently. In other words, droughts in Europe were more sever

5.3.8 New research on our gases carbon At least four new papers by top scientists cast doubt on the IPCC claim that our

dioxide emissions are strongly linked to global warming.

One, published in Nature, shows the world had ice age activity even when atmospheric CO,

was four times the level of our pre-industrial times. In other words, during the time of mass human

ns were four population but before the rise of the industrial revolution, CO, emissio

times lower than during the ice age. So, with four times the level of CO, the earth had global freezing not global warming. It poses two questions: why didn’t that excess of CO, cause

ae https://cp.copernicus.org/preprints/cp-2020-92/cp-2020-92. pdf https://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/3264

200

155

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry global warming?

And where did that CO,

come

from?

It clearly wasn’t the miners.

More

importantly, it casts doubt on the big claims for this tiny gas.

Another, by NASA medallist John Christy and David Douglass (not me, a namesake scientist in the USA), shows global temperatures did not go up as much as expected from man-made emissions over the past three decades.

5.3.9 New Australian research James Cook University researcher Peter Ridd says Australian scientists have cried wolf over

the threat to the Great Barrier Reef from global warming, and the reef was in “bloody brilliant

shape”.

The

alarmist

CSIRO

(Commonwealth

Scientific

and

Industrial

Organisation) this month also backed away from blaming global warming

Research

for a drought in

Tasmania and in the Murray-Darling basin, saying “the jury is still out’. A new paper by another Australian academic, Associate Professor Stewart Franks, says the Murray-Darling drought is natural, and has nothing to do with man-made warming. AND still the world didn't warm between 2001 & 2014, even though we pumped out more emissions than before. Even professional alarmist Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers, seen a continuation of that (warming) trend” and “the computer modelling data disagree”. The hysteria regarding ‘climate change deniers’ verges blasphemy, so passionately and fundamentally do the believers believe. staid and conservative scientists to start tarting up and falsifying evidence

admits “we haven't and the real-world on accusations of It causes normally to silence the body

of evidence which contradicts them. 7°

5.3.10 Some final thoughts on climate change Europe, the United States and China were hit with record cold and snow over recent winters - no wonder Kevin Rudd has suddenly gone cold on global warming. The well-trailed tale is that global warming is causing the arctic ice sheet to melt. Fact is the evidence shows the opposite! Global temperatures have been cooling for the past ten years,

and although Arctic sea ice has been shrinking, for reasons already discussed, in Antarctica (which holds 90% of all the world’s ice) the opposite is happening, and it is holding its own

and spreading! 7° In September 2013 the long-awaited second UN report on global warming was released in a 2000-page report by IPCC. Its problem is that it can find no evidence of global warming over the previous

17 years.

None

of the predictions

made

in 2009

of where

we would

be with

global warming by now, had in fact happened. They had actually predicted in 2007 that by the end of September 2013 the Arctic ice would have completely melted and the arctic would

be ice-free. In fact summer of 2013 saw the smallest ice melt for nine years and the global extent of polar sea ice is equal to the average of the past 34 years.2% Is it another ‘dodgy dossier’? Not so far as the hard facts and data are concerned,

but this is not an impartial

team, it sets out to find evidence of manmade global warming and therefore man-made 202 Charges made against academics at the University of East Anglia 2011.

203 Sunday Express, Dec 18 2011, pg. 36 204 Christopher Brooker — Opinion- Sunday Telegraph Sept 22, 2013. pg. 30 156

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

climate change. They now moderate the prediction to one of ‘up to 50% of global warming is due to human activity’. Government loyal media and TV outlets then spin to read ‘World scientists have

discovered

the greatest evidence

yet that global warming

is man-made’.

spun to Likewise, the fact that there was no global warming over the previous 17 years, was theory that ‘the read ‘global warming has slowed down’ before adding the entirely speculative

that the oceans hadn't world's oceans are absorbing the higher temperatures.’ Odd though and odd that the ocean has done this in the first place and prevented the original warming,

expected added heat, the suddenly learned to do this. Or why, since it has absorbed all this ice melt in the preceding nine years, ocean hasn't warmed up and instead seen the smallest

at a time when vastly greater amounts of CO2 are being pumped

into the atmosphere

predicted in through increased use of fossil fuels around the world. The wild weather recent some and hurricanes and tornadoes, despite previous reports has not materialised

than in previous decades.”” spectacular exceptions, have a lower incidence 800 individual scientists, producing hundreds

to the The report's supporters are keen to point

a single one of their predictions of different reports to draft the report; odd though that not this, one TV boffin to have materialised. In answer to over previous reports has been shown

see J hypothesis and then test it to based announced that ‘this is what scientists do; they set up 4 and panic has been let loose, worldwide scare, it's true’. What has happened here is a industry incomes, energy policy, closed down on the word of experts, which has wrecked

en-

environments into “= masse and driven many working people into fuel poverty, wrecking against to see evidence of ongoing global warming, as bargain. But we are still waiting

twenty-year cycles of rises and falls.

been much warmer and As demonstrated here, there have been long periods when it has happening. In-between

nothing novel is actually long periods when it has been much colder; have shorter smaller waves. The last 65 years the long waves of warmer and colder are ng periods of stable temperatures. What demonstrated a longer overall rise against middli : which is demonstrated by the last isn’t happening is a relentless rise in global temperatures three- or four-year period of slight 17 years of stability. In autumn of 2019 we were in a back or continue to rise to temperature rise, whether it will continue for a few years then sink ns to be seen. the dreaded 1.5 or 2 % rise when we are as they say all doomed remai ts. | for one am not joining the panic on the streets and the school strikes and protes

in summary the 2013 IPCC report concludes with 95% certainty, that 50%

of the global

warming, (which hasn't happened in 18years) is due to human activity.

Despite this and many contra-indicators, the World Climate Change Summit in December

2015 forced through wide-ranging plans to restrict and inhibit the mining and burning of coal, to set final goals at which point the production and consumption of coal would actually stop expanding. Despite the glaring need to solve two perceived problems at once: a) the crucial need for developing countries to keep on industrialising and raising the

standard of life from coal fired power and energy and

b)

the need to stop CO, emissions. The conference of world wizards and b offins igno i é

the answer - CCS and clean coal technologies which were staring them in the face. | have a sneaky feeling that as the predicted rises in global warming don't occur and 205 Ibid. 157

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry

never were going to except through normal and natural climate change, the advocates of global catastrophe will then claim victory and suggest they have saved the world.

| am not of course saying human beings contribute nothing to climate and environmental changes - with billions of us occupying every corner of the planet, the mark of our existence is everywhere to be seen. Of course, we have an impact on the planet as have all other life forms which dominated over millions of years. Ours is more visible in terms of deforestation, and the sheer impact of numbers.

What | am saying is our tiny contribution to the wealth of

factors and forces impacting on climate and weather is minimal compared

to long term

natural cyclical trends. We add to rather than cause the process. The fact is that Global Warming, CO2, coal mining, etc. have become new moral panics they are rapidly becoming acts of faith which no reasonable person is allowed to challenge or test. They have opened up new areas of profit making and capitalist expansion. The ‘green agenda’ despite its progressive advocates and passionate hippy followers and advocates is firmly in the hands of big corporate business. Neither am | saying that it is helpful or healthy just to burn coal in the cavalier fashion as we currently do in some countries, with emissions going up the chimney destroying the health of populations,

vegetation and the atmosphere.

This book argues

that coal

is a rich resource

which should be valued and used in the most efficient, environmentally responsible way, through the utility of CCS and other modern ‘clean coal’ technologies which have so far been spiked because of the rush to non-carbon fuel sources.

5.4 Extinction Rebellion

In spring 2019 Extinction Rebellion protesters blocked the centre of London in a number of

places. In stark contrast to the way in which miners were treated when we tried to stop strikebreakers going to work, they were richly indulged.

Sir David Attenborough, a much-respected scientist, was given free rein to make a hardhitting and doom-laden TV programme where scientific caution is thrown to the winds. The

programme

lacked any attempt at balance or warnings of what was

speculation and

presumption and what is actual fact. Floods, hot summers, drought, blazing hells, starvation 158

Coal, Climate Change & the Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry te

the literal end of humanity and all species on the planet were all rolled out as straight

The school students took the cue and encouraged by the press and campaigners and a day off school, walked out on strike. Truth is that climate-related deaths are actually falling

against the proportion of fossil fuel being used, because, true to our species’ forte of disasters. adaptation and improvement, we are better at handling rough weather and natural 10000 5