How Can We Possibly Be Short Of Coal?

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20x1qqyz8vo

FGS we live on an Island largely made of it, yet we are importing it on diesel powered ships? How is that helping climate change? Stop this net zero rowlocks and open some mines again. Now is the time.

[naomi24]

I read somewhere yesterday that Ed Miliband is likely heading for the chop.  We can hope!

[mushroom25]

allegedly, we're short of the right kind of coal, that is, coal with a low sulphur content. even if we weren't though, the UK no longer has any coking ovens, so UK mined coal would have to be sent away to be coked.

[ToraToraTora]

build some coking ovens then.

[douglas9401]

We are governed and controlled by feeble minded roasters who go with the latest fad to appear in touch and valid.

Also not many jollies to far flung destinations involving coal so that knocks things down the list.

There may also be the fear of actually having to do stuff and pay out a bit of money up front resulting in a depletion of the funding available for invaders who are, of course, a pet project of the chattering classes.

The whole thing boggles the mind.

[Untitled]

we don't live on an island "made of coal". the UK has very small reserves of coal left after centuries of digging it up. based on current consumption (which is historically very low) and proven reserves the UK has about two years' worth of coal left. 

https://www.worldometers.info/coal/uk-coal/

that's the trouble with non-renewables. eventually they run out.

[newmodarmy]

That assumes we completely stop imports of coal. Noone's suggesting we do that are they?

[ToraToraTora]

well that's rowlocks:

https://euracoal.eu/library/archive/united-kingdom-6/#:~:text=The%20UK%20has%20identified%20hard,wind%20and%20solar%20totalled%202.6%25.

 

[mushroom25]

// that's rowlocks //

I suspect untitled's link relates to currently economically recoverable reserves, which pretty much equates to what's reachable by opencast. beyond that, it would not currently be viable to mine in the UK, when set against the cost of buying it in.....

[youngmafbog]

When claims of "there are only x number of yers left of things like caol and oil it is based on what is known and being drilled.  I worked for BP years ago, they were quite open about this and knew there were many other deposits not known about or at the time they didnt hsve the tech to get at them cheaply.

The whol net zero thing has to stop.  Mad Milliband is a zealot, and zealots should never be in charge of anything, they are incapble of any thoughts outside the "groupthink".

[Ellipsis]

As an island, we really ought to figure out how to use tidal power better. The sun might not shine, the wind may not blow, but the tide is always present on an island ...

[youngmafbog]

Yes Ellipsis, that is something I really dont understand why they didnt develop.  There were problems but surely with tech we can sort them?

[naomi24]

^I suggested that years ago - a never-ending source of power - but someone said it wouldn't be cost effective.  I don't know why.

[mushroom25]

// There were problems //

indeed. they are very expensive to build and install, and even more expensive to maintain. mainly because that big wet wobbly thing that moves the generators is made of a corrosive liquid that's prone to wind-driven destruction of everything in its path. wave generators of any scale will need to be more robust than anything yet built to be effective. that's before we get to their possible (and as yet unknown) effects on marine life........

[Untitled]

the statistical review of world energy was run by BP until a few years ago when it passed to the energy institute. the more recent editions do not for some reason measure coal reserves at all. but the last time BP did to my knowledge was in 2019.

https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2019-full-report.pdf

this lists the UK's known coal reserves at 29 million tons at the end of 2018.

the uk's consumption of coal is currently very low (much lower than it was in 2016 which is the year from my link above). regardless, even our true reserves are double the known ones that is not particularly high. it isn't something we can rely on for more than a few years. that's why we are importing coal.

[ToraToraTora]

still rowlocks, are they making it up in my link at 13:03?

[Untitled]

it's not rowlocks just because you disagree with it toratoratora.

euracoal does not provide a source for its figure of the UK's coal reserves so i don't know where they got it from. it's also unclear from the formatting whether they mean three thousand million or thirty-something million.

[Togo]

The supply of coking coal is not the problem. We still have the coal. The intended coking oven in Cumbria that, was given planning permission, to ensure our supplies was cancelled! Bet you can guess why and by who. The problem in UK, like the rest of Europe is the supply of Iron ore.
//However, the UK’s iron ore reserves have been depleted so it must import all of its iron ore, and despite the approval of a new coking coal mine in Cumbria two years ago, the UK still imports most of its coking coal.
A tonne of steel requires 1.7 tonnes of iron ore and 0.77 tonnes of coking coal. Coking coal has 60% to 90% carbon, low sulphur and phosphorous content, and can be baked in an anaerobic furnace at over 1000C to produce coke. That means about 2.5 tonnes of iron ore, coke, and limestone are transported across the world, to be fed into a blast furnace in the UK, to make one tonne of ‘virgin’ steel.
Britain once had all of these ingredients in plentiful supply as well as a large demand for steel to build its railways, bridges, Navy, merchant ships, machinery etc. Now we don’t need as much steel and we have no real comparative advantages in this industry. The UK only produced about 6 million tonnes of steel in 2022 according to World Steel Association and imported another 5 million tonnes of iron or steel according to COMTrade.
The lack of raw materials is not just a UK phenomenon. Most of Europe seems to have run out of iron ore and coking coal, as well. This is slightly surprising as the EU started life as the  European Coal and Steel Community, but like Britain, they have been making steel for a long time. Now only Sweden produces any quantity of iron ore, about 29 million tonnes a year, while Austria produces about 3 million tonnes. Neither are significant producers when compared to Russia’s annual production of around 200 million tonnes, Brazil’s 400 million tonnes or Australia’s 900 million tonnes. Coking coal exports are also dominated by Australia, the US, Canada, Russia and Mongolia who together supply about 90% of world exports. Europe just isn’t in this game anymore and re-joining the EU will not save the UK steel industry.//

^^That was from an article I referenced 2 years ago. It is still valid sensible reading.

https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/steel-yourselves-you-might-not-like-this/

[Old_Geezer]

Going for the cheapest option can be against everyone's best interest (save the buyer/seller in the short term).

[William51]

 I agree with TTT. We are sitting on a lot of coal and it is stupid we are not using it. Why have so many governments pandered to the green brigade and given coal a bad name?. I am sure with modern technology we could extract coal cleanly without causing pollution. And we are incapable of planning forward, why disregard our own coal and close an industry and buy from abroad?, it is madness.

[ToraToraTora]

"it's not rowlocks just because you disagree with it toratoratora." - nowt to do with me guv, it's an organ of your beloved EUSSR that say it's rowlocks. Up to 189bn tonnes they say.