Deep Pit Coal Mining
to end in Britain by December 2015
Dieser Beitrag ist abgelaufen: 12. Dezember 2017 00:00
The UK's very last deep pit coal mine, Kellingley in Yorkshire, is about to close in December. The BBC's former labour and industrial correspondent, Nicholas Jones, on the end of an era:
"Coal heated our homes, fuelled the industrial revolution, and over the centuries provided millions of jobs in coalfields across the UK, but soon deep mining will be no more, and a way of life is about to end."
According to MINING.com, over 20% of the UK's energy needs are still met by coal, which is mostly imported. Since 2000, U.K. power generators from Electricite de France SA to RWE AG bought more of the fuel from abroad. European coal for 2016 delivery to the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp region slumped 73 percent from a record in 2008.
UK purchases from abroad covered a record 84 percent of total consumption in 2014, compared with 21 percent in 1995. But the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change states that imports of coal, 5.2 million tonnes in the second quarter of 2015, were 52 per cent lower than in the same period in 2014, reports GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin. According to the government, this was the lowest quarterly value for over 15 years, due to lower demand from electricity generators in the UK.
Shadow Energy Secretary Caroline Flint has been quoted with “Not enough has been done to support the workers to retrain and find employment." One nail in the coffin for the UK's collieries might have been the carbon tax which power plants are charged per tonne of CO2 emissions to encourage their switch to green fuels.
"The closing of Kellingley will mark the nation’s exit from an industry that employed more than a million workers at 3,000 pits a century ago."