Coal: Technology for Britain’s Future

143 Pages·1976·33.895 MB·English

by  Sir Derek Ezra (auth.)

TECHNOLOGY FOR
BRITAIN'S FUTURE

© Macmillan London Limited 1976
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, without permission.
Picture research by Jeanne Griffiths
Diagrams by Osborne Marks Associates and
Berry/Fallon
ISBN 978-0-333-19418-8 ISBN 978-1-349-02881-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02881-8
Published 1976 by Macmillan London Limited
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York,
Toronto, Dublin, Melbourne, Johannesburg and Delhi
Filmset in Great Britain by Servis Filmsetting Limited
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Coal: technology for Britain's future
Index
333.8's HD 9551.5
Coal - Economic aspects - Great Britain
Contents
Foreword
Sir Derek Ezra 6
1. The Significance of Coal
as a World Energy Resource
Roger Vielvoye 8
2. Coal and Coalmining
Sir Andrew Bryan 29
3. The New Mechanisation
Professor E. L. J. Potts,
Dr R. K. Dunham and John Scott 52
4. Selby - The Mine
Michael Pollard 97
5. Selby- The Community
Jeremy Bugler 108
6. New Uses for Coal
W. T. Gunston 129
Index 142
Foreword
This book appears at a time when world attitudes towards energy
have been transformed. Untill973 energy, when it entered into
calculations at all, was regarded as a stable resource of infinite
capacity, something so permanent and constantly available that it
could be safely left to take care of itself without causing concern to
Governments.
The fuel crisis in October 1973 changed all that. Almost over
night, the action of the oil-producing countries in quadrupling
oil prices and restricting output revolutionised the world situation.
Energy became a major factor in global politics. For the first time it
was widely realised that fossil fuels supplies were not infinite.
Reserves of oil, even in the vast fields of the Middle East, would
begin to dwindle after attaining peak production in the 1990s, and
natural gas - already approaching the point of exhaustion in the
United States -could not be seriously relied on when planning for
the twenty-first century.
The one hydro-carbon fuel the world has in abundance is coal.
There are large deposits in most continents, and although in Britain
we have been working coal seams intensively for more than a
century, we still have reserves which could be worked for at least
another hundred years with our present machinery and equipment,
and perhaps for many hundreds of years if new techniques can be
developed for mining thin or hitherto inaccessible seams.
The British Government was among the first to see what the
changed situation meant for coal. No longer could Britain rely on
cheap imported oil while running down the mining industry. The
decline in coal production which had been continuous since the
mid-fifties had to be halted, and then reversed.
In a detailed examination conducted with the National Coal
Board and the trade unions of the mining industry, the Government
6
concluded that it was essential to the country's economy that coal
should be revitalised, and gave full approval to a ten-year
programme, 'Plan for Coal', that would double the historic rate of
investment for the following decade and thereby restore the
industry's production capacity.
The coal industry has made a good start on this plan. Investment
is going according to schedule and the exploration programme to
find fresh coal reserves has been establishing them at a rate four
times greater than the current rate of mining.
The prospects for British coal are bright.
Our research and development programmes are forging ahead to
improve the performance of mining machinery, using the most
up-to-date methods of automatic and remote controls. Considerable
resources are also being devoted to the processing of coal, and in
conjunction with other coal mining industries and through the
International Energy Agency, the N.C.B.'s Coal Research
Establishment is working on the production of gaseous and liquid
fuels as well as other sophisticated chemical derivatives from coal,
and on the more efficient combustion of solid fuels using techniques
such as fluidised bed combustion. The concept of the 'Coalplex'- in
which heat, energy, and a multiplicity of by-products could be
produced from a single coal processing 'refinery' - is one of the
positive offshoots of the years of concentrated research by coal's
scientists.
All this points to an expanding and prosperous future for the
world's coal-mining countries. But prosperity will not fall into our
laps: it will have to be planned and worked for. This book plots the
paths which brought the coal industry in Britain to its present
position. It also looks at the opportunities for the future. Choosing
the right course and sticking to it will require all the technical and
human skills at the disposal of Britain.
The prize for success will be a strong place among the
economically significant nations of the future -the energy suppliers.
Sir Derek Ezra
7
1.
The Significance
of Coal as a World
Energy Resource
RogerVielvoye
In the two hundred years that have passed since the start of the
industrial revolution, the countries of Europe and North America,
together with Japan, have consumed coal, crude oil and natural gas
that took over 200 million years to create. As living standards in these
countries have improved, demand for energy has soared. In a modern
industrial society committed to continuous economic expansion the
growth of energy supplies has become as important as expanding food
supplies. People in the developed countries expect to live in warm and
comfortable houses during winter and cool homes during summer.
They are surrounded by labour-saving gadgets in the home and have
their tasks at work made less onerous by more complex machinery.
And they take for granted the ability to drive freely in their own cars or
travel abroad by aircraft. Every facet of modern life in the western
world depends upon an adequate supply of energy.
But the demand for seemingly endless supplies of energy is strictly
confined to the industrial countries. Fuel usage can be directly related
to the economic strength of a country, and on this basis every man,
woman and child in the United States uses the equivalent often tons of
coal a year. Further down the economic league table, in Britain the
consumption is five tons a year, and in Japan just over three tons. At
the other end of the scale Indians consume the equivalent of well under
a quarter of a ton of coal per head. It is estimated that 20 per cent of the
world's population consumes over 85 per cent of its annual production
of coal, crude oil and natural gas. Underdeveloped countries, on the
other hand, are still heavily dependent on what are known as 'non
commercial' fuels such as wood, dung, and vegetable and other wastes.
The United Nations estimated that in the early 1950s about 15 per cent
of the non-communist world's energy requirements were obtained
from these materials. By 1967 only 4 per cent of the total world energy
needs were derived from 'non-commercial' sources, yet nearly half the
world's population was dependent on them.
With the world using up its reserves of fossil fuels a million times
faster than they were created the spectre has reappeared of a world
wide shortage of energy - in twenty-five years' time crude oil and
natural gas could be in short supply unless consumers are prepared to
develop and use other forms of energy. On the surface it might appear
that altering the energy base of a complex economy would be a
8
difficult and lengthy task. Yet in the past fundamental changes of this
sort have been made remarkably smoothly. After the Second World
War, Europe changed from being a coal-burning continent to one
heavily dependent on cheap oil almost exclusively imported from the
Middle East and Africa. During this period cheap oil also transformed
the Japanese energy economy and turned the United States from being
self-sufficient in energy into a net importer of oil. But in each case the
transition took place painlessly, mainly because the new fuel- oil
was cheap, easy to handle, and (at the time) supplies seemed almost
unlimited.
But by the early 1970s it was clear that the oil companies were
finding it difficult to maintain the prodigious rate of new discoveries
that in the past had ensured that oil was plentiful and therefore cheap;
while coal reserves, for instance, in Britain were (and are) being proved
at a rate four times greater than they were being mined. The basic
concept of cheap oil that made it difficult for coal as well as other forms
of alternative energy to compete in the market place was questioned,
and once again the providers of energy began to look at ways in which
a new transition could be made from heavy dependence on oil into a
multi-fuelled world energy economy. International oil companies
began to tum themselves into energy corporations. They bought
interests in coal, nuclear fuel, nuclear reactor construction and other
alternative energy sources.
Whether the industry could have made another peaceful transition
is now largely hypothetical. In October 1973, the Arabs and the
Israelis yet again went to war and the Arab oil-producing nations
deployed the famous 'oil weapon'. At the same time, but in a different
forum, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),
the oil producers, disbarred the major international oil companies
from having any future role in deciding the world oil pricing structure.
The result of these two simultaneous and parallel moves is now well
known. The Arabs banned all exports of oil to the United States and
Holland and reduced deliveries to many of the other leading Western
nations. Shortages occurred almost immediately and the value of oil
left in world trade soared immediately: within three months it had
increased fourfold.
Consumers groaned. They could not get enough oil to meet their
demands and all sorts of rationing schemes were introduced. Sunday
driving was banned in a number of countries and strict speed limits
were imposed. Not only was oil in short supply but the barrels that
were available cost four times as much. Overnight, energy users in the
industrialised countries were given a taste oflife in a real fuel shortage.
Converts to the previously barely recognised conservationist camp
came in their thousands and governments began to take very seriously
the business of planning their future energy supplies. Coal, nuclear
power and more futuristic forms of energy production now came into
their own as paying propositions. The governments of all the major
energy-consuming countries, with the exception of France, banded
together under the banner of the International Energy Agency to
9