Will This Proposed Bribe Work? Up To 10K If There's Fracking In Your Area.

[sandyRoe]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37000975

[Togo]

Talbot pits had been closing as they were worked out or uneconomical since mining had started in the UK. As the shallow reserves were taken deeper and deeper mines had to be developed, with the added cost and reliance on bigger and better surface plant for the provision of power and air. The big problem was that the rest of the world started coal mining as their own industries developed, and coal could actually be shipped round the world and sold to us cheaper than the cost to us of mining our own.( Poland and China spring to mind) The strange result is that other nations are now experiencing the same cost conundrum that we faced and using up their reserves very quickly. We on the other hand still have the coal under our feet.

[paddywak]

It could be scary as well Togo, we had a couple of districts where they fittedthe rings with boxes the idea being that when the initial weight came on they slid through the box without bending every thing was settled for a few days then one day we were sat in the gate having snap when we heard some groaning and banging and you could see the rings being forced through the boxes as the load came on,I don't know what the rest of the lads thought but I was getting ready to run.Shortly after I got shifted to the pit top for some years and when I went back U/G they'd changed to roofbolts in the face roadways and I hated it as I couldn't get it out of my mind that if it can buckle steel rings what could would a few bolts grouted into the roof be.

[-Talbot-]

I didn't ask for a history lesson, Togo. I asked paddywak where he got his info from.

[paddywak]

http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/individual/Bob_Bradley/PM-Closures.html

Have a look through this Talbot and you'll see the big closer was Wilson

[-Talbot-]

I know that site well.

So how from that site do you come to the conclusion that Labour closed more pits than the Cons?

[-Talbot-]

Let me also point out that Wilson in his two periods as PM closed around 27% of the available number of mines ... Thatcher closed around 79%

[Togo]

//Let me also point out that Wilson in his two periods as PM closed around 27% of the available number of mines ... Thatcher closed around 79%//

Groan percentages.. 27% of say 500 is 135... 79% of say 100 is 79. If you have the percentages that means you have the number of mines yes?
Available number of mines! There is the clue. Ohh and I don't need a maths lesson.

[Togo]

I think paddy that the reason the roadways were subject to such dramatic movement was due to the practice of collapsing the "gob" as the face advanced. Of course you then had between the "in and out" face roads a massive expanse that was settling and on a tall face (some mines had 8 footers) which must have put huge stress on the ring and fishplate system. I can hear the corrugated steel sheet ring infills pinging as I type. Lol glad I got out.

[Togo]

Of course there have been 7 Labour and 11 Conservative Governments since 1947. The closure of mines was not confined to one flavour of government, but the Conservatives had 61% of the total time served.

[Togo]

Just a naughty thought before I log off. (walkies) Just say the new wonder fuel coal was discovered, right now, in abundance all over the UK and because it was buried deep under ground we would need to dig it out and put in place infrastructure and cause some disruption to get at it. Do you suppose that the eco mentalists would let us get on with it? Of course not. But we gaze back into the mists of time, at coal mining, and imbue it with a misty eyed reverence. Get fracking.... you never know we may come to love it too.

[mikey4444]

Coal pits have been closed due to geological reasons since coal mining began.

But almost all pits that were closed after the end of the miners strike, were closed for non-geological reasons, political being the main one.

As has been said on here today, coal mines very rarely survive being closed for any period at all....once they are gone, they are gone.

We do have huge reserves of coal, however whether it can now be got out of the ground, economically and environmentally is a moot point.

Very near me, there are huge reserves of good quality coal, in what could become the Margam Super Pit, if only we had the political will required.

Here is a very useful link, for South Wales Coal Mines :::

http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/Photo.htm

[sandyRoe]

The father of one of my friends at school was a labourer who dug trenches in the days before JCBs. One day a trench collapsed and he was trapped and left with a gammy leg. When he recovered he went back to the same job. Every working day he'd be in a situation where he had once came close to death and could again. I always thought him to be a brave man.
Having read some of the posts in this thread from men who'd experience of coal mining I've got to say if he was brave then they were heroic.