coal mines to re-open in wales do you want to be a miner ?

[jonny2mad]

The Welsh assembly energy minister, Andrew Davies, said: "Most people in Wales think of coal as part of our history. But it is, in fact, a fuel of the future."

are we desperate ? we were getting 50m tons a year in 1990s and they say we have only 500m tons left how then is this a fuel of the future

[camillitech]

The Welsh assembly energy minister, Andrew Davies, said: "Most people in Wales think of coal as part of our history. But it is, in fact, a fuel of the future."

are we desperate ? we were getting 50m tons a year in 1990s and they say we have only 500m tons left how then is this a fuel of the future

should last as long as the oil then

[Muddypause]

I reckon it must be one of these things where you pick the statistic to suit the argument. When Thatcher was busy closing down all the mines, some were saying that there were 100 years of coal left in the ground.

'Tis a pity that some of us still hold a romantic memory of the stuf - coal fires, smelly steam engines, toast done on a toasting fork unequalled for flavour... to say nothing of acid rain, city smogs, emphysema, bronchitis, asthma, dirtied washing, ruined buildings, mining disasters...

[Welsh Girls Allotment]

It is well known in these here mining parts that there is a hell of a lot of coal left in the seams under my beautiful valley, the pits were closed because Thatcher had to remove power from the unions - Tower colliery was closed down because there was no coal left according to the gov and was uneconomical to work, the workers buy the pit and its still going strong today.
i think the biggest practical obstruction to getting the coal out these days is that people are too bloody lazy to do the work, most people in my area can tell tales of their grandfathers working in two foot seams half covered in water and thowing coal at the rats to keep them away - can you see your average 18-25 year old doing that ?
I certainly wouldn't 'my pit' opened back up it was a messy disgrace when the rivers ran black with slurry - however you really cannot beat toast done on the fire For some images of how pits look when they being worked, dismantled and then reclaimed by nature have a look at my mothers blog http://angel-way-the-bargoed-by-pass.blogspot.com/

[Welsh Girls Allotment]

It is well known in these here mining parts that there is a hell of a lot of coal left in the seams under my beautiful valley, the pits were closed because Thatcher had to remove power from the unions - Tower colliery was closed down because there was no coal left according to the gov and was uneconomical to work, the workers buy the pit and its still going strong today.
i think the biggest practical obstruction to getting the coal out these days is that people are too bloody lazy to do the work, most people in my area can tell tales of their grandfathers working in two foot seams half covered in water and thowing coal at the rats to keep them away - can you see your average 18-25 year old doing that ?
I certainly wouldn't 'my pit' opened back up it was a messy disgrace when the rivers ran black with slurry - however you really cannot beat toast done on the fire For some images of how pits look when they being worked, dismantled and then reclaimed by nature have a look at my mothers blog http://angel-way-the-bargoed-by-pass.blogspot.com/

[Jack]

Gidday

How many people put crude oil in their cars?

Coal is really a great energy source especially if it is properly refinde first, because then it becomes a really clean fuel.

[Muddypause]

I'd be interested to hear more about that, Jack. We hear a bit about carbon sequestration these days, in order to remove CO2 from the flue gasses, but as far as I know, the only large scale way to do this involves a pretty inelegant method that uses large amounts of chemicals, and you are then faced with the problem of what you do with what you have left.

I would imagine the same is true for any technique of removing all the other nasty stuff (of which, I gather, coal has plenty). Would this simply be left accumulating for future generations to sort out in the same way that we are leaving so much else of our garbage?

I have a feeling that any method of making coal into a clean source of energy actually just changes the location that we dump its toxins, rather than making those toxins disappear altogether. I think I'd take a bit of convincing about any commercial claims otherwise. After all, to follow through with your comparison, refining crude oil doesn't exactly make it environmentally polite, regardless of how many claims the oilcos make about being 'green'.

[Jack]

Gidday

Well put it this way.

If you believe the science, coal is only timber, like wood, trees. Science says it took hundreds of thousands or even millions of years and that coal is just trees that have been subjected to heat and presure. But I am a believer in Creation and know that science is actually only half right because after Mount St. Helliers blew it's top and buried a forest there was a coal seem there within about 8 years. Proof that coal is only trees.

Coal therefore is organic yet not many people will acknowledge that. Oil is also organic as it has come from marine life that has been under similar heat and preasure.

Almost everything that can be got out of oil, like petro-chemicals, can also be refined out of coal. And if we had petro-chemical like plants working with coal and the coal did actually run out, it could then be easily be switched over to using the renewable resource, trees.

When you refine coal, at one end of the spectrum you get a very good and efficient gas to burn and at the other end you get coke which can also be burnt very efficiently and all the tar and other chemicals have been taken out instead of being pumped straight into the atmosphere. From coal you can also make liquid fuels like petrol or desiel as well, so why the hell is there a great panic being created over the alledgedly depleting oil reserves.

O.K. I acknowledge that burning gas or coke will produce carbon dioxide, but burning any fuel will do that. But there is a lot of crap written about that stuff too, because it is a heavier than air gas and it also disolves in water so huge quantities of CO2 is sucked up into the sea. CO2 is also absolutely essential for all vegitative growth and the best was to soak CO2 up is in good organic farming and not the chemical farming that is being done everywhere now.

So to answer your question, refine your coal and the only polutant will be simple CO2. which is far cleaner than anything from oil.

[Enormous Sage]

i think the biggest practical obstruction to getting the coal out these days is that people are too bloody lazy to do the work, most people in my area can tell tales of their grandfathers working in two foot seams half covered in water and thowing coal at the rats to keep them away - can you see your average 18-25 year old doing that ?

To be fair, would YOU want to do that? I don't think laziness comes into it!

[gunners71uk]

is it a potnoodle mine ?????????????

[Muddypause]

Jack, I think a few people would take issue with you on several points there, but to keep to the main point in hand...

So to answer your question, refine your coal and the only polutant will be simple CO2.

I'm still unconvinced that the only pollutant from any sort of refined coal would be CO2 alone. That would be remarkable, but even if we accept that is all that the refined coal itself emits, all the other nasty stuff which has been removed has to go somewhere - they won't just disappear, and the processes to remove or make use of them won't be benign and without implication, either.

Here in the UK, I grew up with town gas (aka coal gas) - it wasn't until the early 70s that we all got converted to 'natural gas'. My memories of it are that it was nasty, mucky, poisonous stuff which many a jilted lover used to end his misery with. That stopped being possible with non-toxic natural gas, from the North Sea oil fields. But even this needs some processing to make it into clean burning methane. Until the 70s, every big town had its own coking plant that 'refined' coal into coke and gas. They were disastrous for local water courses and air quality. Even today, the land that these plants occupied is classified as contaminated.

because it is a heavier than air gas and it also disolves in water so huge quantities of CO2 is sucked up into the sea.

What you describe is, in escence, the normal carbon cycle. This is the way that free carbon within the environment is absorbed-released-absobed by plants, animals, and to some extent, geology and hydrology.

Following through a carbon cycle can be extremely complicated, and I'm not claiming any expertise about it, but from what I do understand, the probelm with releasing fossil carbon is that this carbon has not been free in the environment for millennia, and life on earth as we know it in this era is not a product of so much free carbon.

Maybe the sea can absorb more CO2, but if it does, things must change within it - the balance of life within the water must change in response to the changed environment within the water. This alone could have far reaching implications - not only will the change in the balance of dissolved gases favour some life forms over others, which will in turn change food chains, but the changing constituency of the water will affect how it absorbs solar heat, how temperature is stratified, how currents flow, and who knows what else...

As far as I can see, carbon from fossil fuel can only be released into the environment if we liberate it. Buried deep below the surface of the earth, this carbon would otherwise be locked up and effectively unavailable forever (well, OK, I know that's a long time, but it would be reasonable to assume it would be locked up for the duration of mankind's existence). We are changing the nature of the carbon cycle by adding huge, out-of-balance quantities of additional carbon that was long ago permanently removed from the carbon cycle. What we are doing is imposing a far-reaching change - in addition to anything that would happen naturally - which could not happen if we did not make it happen.

Whether that can be considered as a legitimate evolutionary expression of our existance is probably something for another thread.

[Jack]

Gidday

Well that old gas you were using back then was probably produced in a refinery that was designed nearly 200 years ago.

As for the carbon cycle, one of the greatest poluters of carbon would be modern agriculture. Modern production on farms, using chemical fertilizers is destroying the carbon cycle and the people who consume their produce as well. If you farm organicly the carbon cycle builds up huge amounts of carbon in the soil, which becomes slightly acidic and that is what used to break down the inorganic particles in the soil and release the trace ellements that are so lacking in our modern foods. The use of chemical fertilizers does not add to the carbon cycle so the carbon is leaching into the atmosphere so we are losing out on it in two ways at least.