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We’re all conflicted. I’m currently burning kerosene to heat my bathwater.
Ironically, I have the technical understanding to solve that confliction, but lack the time, or money, or engineering equipment to actually do it. It’s most frustrating. Starmer isn’t even trying to help, he’d gladly have me locked up, but the other major political parties are almost identical. And that’s how it has been for decades.
Quote BBC
“Plaid Cymru have accused the United Kingdom government of not fighting equally for Welsh communities after it revealed it was considering nationalising British Steel.
The party has stepped up its call for nationalisation of the Port Talbot steel plant, after Chancellor Rachel Reeves put the option on the table for British Steel’s Scunthorpe site.
“If it’s good enough for Scunthorpe, why wasn’t it good enough for Port Talbot?” said Plaid’s economy spokesman, Luke Fletcher MS.
Tata Steel’s blast furnaces at Port Talbot were closed six months ago, with 2,800 jobs lost”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy77j7j243oI think I understood, when Port Talbot opened it was the most modern and the biggest steel plant in Europe, not sure what year, about 1960?
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer may, just becoming to understand, that if the grid is to be increased by three/four or five times, the U.K. will need a lot of steel.
As Donald Trump knows from the Rust Belt of the U.S.A. when you have a Coal/Steel community and it shuts down, you get drug taking, alcohol abuse, domestic abuse and criminality – a massive lack of hope, for that chucked away society.Port Talbot – the modern steelworks
The modern steelworks were built upon 32,000 piles into sand and peat. Opened in 1951, it was fully operational by 1953.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Talbot_SteelworksI had thought that the Labour Party were supposed to help working people, meaning those poor sods, who had to go in each day and do physical toil.
Like coal miners.
Steel workers.
Farm workers.
Forestry workers.
Quarry workers.
Fisher folk and the like.
Why is is only now dawning on them, that we can not all be civil servants and button pushers.
Some have to get off their arses and do real, meaningful jobs.“As Donald Trump knows from the Rust Belt of the U.S.A. when you have a Coal/Steel community and it shuts down, you get drug taking, alcohol abuse, domestic abuse and criminality – a massive lack of hope, for that chucked away society.“
I come from a small mining village in Scotland – my grandfather was an engineer at the pit head, making and maintaining the steel cables, cages and coal face cutters. There was full employment; school levers had a choice of further education, the dockyard at Rosyth, retail in one of the many High Street stores – or the pits, which still employed the majority of the village men. After Thatcher won the battle with the NUM and the pits closed, there was depravation – as you suggest – alcoholism, drug abuse, suicides & etc certainly increased – and was directly linked to these developments.
The failure was in poor or absent planning. The government knew that large scale redundancies were inevitable following the closure of the industry – but did absolutely nothing to mitigate the impact. Not that coal mining was exceptional – the shipyards and more recently the oil refineries and platform construction yards followed the same neglectful pattern.
There is no doubt that coal has been beneficial to humanity over the centuries – but the increased emissions from a rapidly growing global population have given us enormous problems with the environment. Another example where the principle of “everything in moderation” gets conveniently forgotten. Coal fuelled the early Industrial Revolution but became the mainstay of energy production in most developed countries in the years that followed – until very recently.
We should be having conversations about how we could limit the use of FFs to essential activities – not burning them needlessly – but it’s really a discussion that comes after agreement about population control.
The World
is different now, since the Ukraine war, also because of Donald Trump.
Quote BBC
“Even in the last six months the world is in a slightly different place.
So not wanting that blast furnace to go down now has a lot more importance for the government.”
Before the Ukraine War, Britain used to get its Iron/Steel from Russia/Ukraine.
The Iron is mined at the Kursk Anomaly, then moved over the border into Ukraine, where the Coal is mined.
Then the Ukrainians made the Steel.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_Magnetic_Anomaly
Some of those pigs came to the United Kingdom.
All this has stopped now.I do not think we still mine Iron in the United Kingdom.
We still have plenty of Coal and plenty of Limestone.C: “But there is one, namely michael; […]”
Oh come on, do you actually call this a discussion? Someone who ignores 90+% of points directed to him, even on issues he has raised himself? Someone who Gish-gallops, responds with whataboutary, non-sécateurs, and an endless stream of right-wing sourced talking points? Someone who demonstrates a profound, practically studied ignorance of the very subject he is banging on about?
That’s not a discussion, that’s a pointless exercise. I’m not sure who’s enjoying it more, to be honest – the one trying to nail jelly to a wall, or the jelly that’s having a laugh avoiding it.
Frankly, anyone who has had their brain calcified by decades of right wing propaganda is probably beyond reason. You are adding a data-point to that hypothesis, in fairness.
Shibboleth,
thank you for the story of your grandfather.
Very soon the Refinery in Grangemouth will be shutting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grangemouth_RefineryI know some of you will choke on your cornflakes and tell me these are bad anti science people paid for by the coal people.
but science seems to undoubtedly show, increased CO2 is beneficial to crop growth” I’m not sure who’s enjoying it more, to be honest – the one trying to nail jelly to a wall, or the jelly that’s having a laugh avoiding it.”
We all are glenn_nl or we wouldn’t bother participating, including the lurkers if there are any. Michael is part of the furniture around here and it is HIS thread 😃. Plus any discussion forum activities may help the main blog.
I don’t know why you allow Michael to irk you so. He is entitled to his views but they can be challenged. I don’t think this miniscule corner of the internet is doing any harm.
Chill out 😎Parliament to be recalled on Saturday over British Steel collapse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx20jr8rjj2oIf Scunthorpe shuts, Britain will be the only G7 country with out virgin steel making abilities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X1CdOHevAs
Labour M.P.s to be forced to come in to Parliament, on Saturday.
Talk is of Nationalisation of the Steel Industry in the U.K.Sir Keir Rodney Starmer
has been making a primeminsterial speech from 10 Downing Street
on Steel
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cyvqm83z1nrtNational Interest to make Virgin Steel, with Coal
I wonder where he will get the Iron from?
I wonder where he will get the Coal from?I guess some chickens are roosting at home, now.
Real.
Guess what, life is really about real stuff.
Some, in the modern world have deluded themselves, into thinking the world runs on people in their pyjamas working from home and interacting on the internet.
HELLO, the real world, is real stuff.
This means people digging Coal, Limestone, Iron, Phosphates, Kaolin and the like.
this means – real people turning Limestone, Coal and Iron in to Steel.remember this – 30% of all real stuff is in Russia.
That may be your “real world”, Michael and little doubt you have been celebrating the news regarding the British Steel plant at Scunthorpe and the possibility of new coal mines in the UK to keep the blast furnace burning. But how does that square with your recent proclamations on the importance of protecting the soil? Making prime steel is one of the most polluting industries – you might care to visit the town someday and walk around the surrounding countryside and see for yourself what your world does to the environment. It’s not a place I would care to live.
I remember the slag heaps and the pollution in Fife as a young boy. The River Ore once had wild salmon and sea trout runs every year until the 1940s but by the 1960s only eels and a few very dark brown trout existed in the murky coal-dust filled water. Toxic chemicals from the pit heads eventually washed into the river killing all fish and waterfowl, however in the 70s and 80s a major clean up commenced removing the slag heaps and top soil and half a century later, the countryside has been restored to a degree.
I was trying to imagine how you would feel if the PM had made the statement yesterday but announced instead the closure of the steel plant, but keep the workforce fully employed to decommission and clean up the site and nearby countryside over the next 50 years. New homes instead of the terraced hovels that blight the town presently – something very different to illustrate the PMs commitment to decontaminating and preserving the natural “real” world. He’d seen The Hobbit recently and fell in love with Middle Earth and thought: “That’s the Britain we’re going to create”…
Would you think that was a good idea? The workforce would be kept in full employment for a couple of generations at least – undoing the damage that previous generations had inflicted on the environment. Would that be a good thing? Not mining or importing coal. Is that a good thing too? Not making new prime steel would sure require a rethink on defence and munitions procurement – and infrastructure ‘projects’. Is that necessarily a bad thing?
I’m not interested in the economic impact or the claims about money. The government can fund any amount of money by using its magic money tree, but is it really wise to throw it down the never ending toxic hole of a loss making industry – or might we prefer to see it invested in our “real world’?
What say you Michael?
Shibboleth,
Apparently our government suspected the Chinese were trying to collapse the U.K. Steel manufacturing business.
Recently, Donald Trump has put very high “fees” on stuff made in China, that they intend to offload in America.
This means the Chinese will be looking to offload a lot more of their stuff in the U.K. and Common Market countries.
The pollution still happens but it happens in India and China.
We have been going “Green” for a couple of decades, we are not using less stuff, we are using more stuff, we have been moving our filth abroad.
Surely, if we are to go “Green” by 2030, we are going to need a huge amount of steel?
Why not dig the Coal just a few miles distance from the steel making, we will be using the steel, in this land, we will not be then be importing the steel from the other side of the world, using filthy fuel oil?Quote BBC
“The government said Jingye had been selling off raw materials,
as well as not ordering more, before officials took control.Asked several times by Laura Kuenssberg on whether he was sure he would be able to get the supply of coal before current stocks run out, Reynolds insisted “I’m not going to get into that” but the takeover “was essential to maintaining steel production in the UK”.
Looks like they might have left it too long, why did they not act last year, soon after they grasped the rudder?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87p3lep19yoI watched Parliament live, yesterday, it was very interesting.
At one point it was said that Jingye had actually cancelled coal, that was on order.
They also said that they thought the plan was to shut the business, then strip the infrastructure out and ship it to China.“Why not dig the Coal just a few miles distance from the steel making, we will be using the steel, in this land, we will not be then be importing the steel from the other side of the world, using filthy fuel oil?“
Have I missed something? Has coal remarkably undergone a green transition? Is steel making suddenly become “green”? What’s more important – jobs or life itself?
Shibboleth
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer claims he wants Rolls Royce to manufacture Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
This together with the fleet of EPR Reactors, could be our base load, instead of Oil or Coal or Natural Gas.
I expect Rolls Royce would prefer to make their Reactors using English Virgin Steel with a known provenance.
Rolls Royce are based in Derbyshire, which is quite close to Lincolnshire, so they would not have to move the steel very far from British Steel to Rolls Royce, no massive sea journey needed.Shibboleth, I doubt Coal has become Green, just yet, although not impossible in a world where two new things a day that were not true, by the evening they now are true.
It is a topsy turvy world.
Labour are now so incredibly unpopular, I would not mind betting they soon sack Ed Milliband and drop his Net Zero Fantasy.It’s rumoured that the Magic Roundabout is making a comeback – and the Clangers too. I’m sure there was an adventure on one of them involving the pyramids and the amazing construction below – all built without virgin steel or the use of fossil fuels, just loads of Blue String Pudding. We need a Soup Dragon, Michael. Are you up to the challenge? (Just one question this time….)
I was always very fond on the Clangers.
I also enjoyed Magic Roundabout,.In the bottom of Manor Farm Swallet, in Charterhouse, Somerset, somebody named the wet/shower,
(then) bottom of the cave ” Florence’s Bathtub”
In honour of The Magic Roundabout.
I suppose it was discovered when Magic Roundabout was on the telly and popular.Sizewell C nuclear power station is a project to construct a 3,200 MWe nuclear power station with two EPR reactors in Suffolk, England, it has just been signed off by Sir Keir Rodney Starmer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sizewell_C_nuclear_power_stationIt is not that far from British Steel, in Lincolnshire.
The Chinese were going to be involved in this project.
The project was proposed by a consortium of EDF Energy and China General Nuclear Power Group.
In 2022, the U.K. Government announced a buy-out to allow for the exit of CGN from the project.Ed Milliband will be the new owner of Sizewell C
Quote“As of 30 November 2024, the project is 83.5% owned by the U.K. Government (specifically the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Milliband) and 16.5% owned by EDF.
The power station is expected to meet up to 7% of the U.K.’s electricity demand.The project is expected to commence in 2024”
