Quote:
Originally Posted by Moldova
The is millions of tonnes of coal left in all the old mining areas where the mines where closed and deliberately sealed with rubble and concrete to make them not cost effective to reopen and all the surface buildings demolished in most cases.
This has led to us importing the vast majority of the coal we use when we could still be self sufficient.
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You forgot the billions of pounds worth of machinery left down there when the shafts were sealed. At the mine I used to work at we left everything down there, one machine was only just built up to start a new seam when Thatcher announced the closures, that was a new machine made by DOSCO at a cost of £3 million. Everything was left right down to the strip lights.
Add the amount of coal down there which is billions of tonnes plus the heating they can get from extracting the methane gas from the mine and selling it on to the national grid it all adds up to a nice little sum.
Coal fired power stations are still the way to go, if the EU don't like it "tough".
---------- Post added at 05:03 ---------- Previous post was at 05:01 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
Yes, one aspect of Thatcher's strategy of Scargillite emasculation which I never understood and bitterly opposed. That having been said, the costs and time involved in building these nuclear power stations is going to be huge and I'd love to see some independent figures re. the comparative costs and timescales involved in each option.
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You can get a mine up and running within 18 months, Ashfordby in Leicestershire was up and running within 18 months of the shafts being sunk. Sinking the shafts is the hardest part.