Was chatting with a local farmer (retired but still lives in farm house) he used to allow a local coal merchant to store coal, no charge in return he
had use of the coal, anyhow local merchant no longer trades.
To cut a long conversation short he had just purchased and had delivered 1 ton of coal, he asked me to guess how much, I was miles off, it cost
£245!!!
He then asked and "where do you think it originates from?" I guessed eastern Europe maybe Australia, no China I didn't realise we are
importing house coal from China, feel free to discuss, personally I was surprised by both the cost and where it was from.
But If we produced it here in the UK it would of cost £2000 per ton
quote:
Originally posted by steve m
But If we produced it here in the UK it would of cost £2000 per ton
Totally bonkers. It was so short sighted to stop mining in this country.
Don't have a feel for price against how long a tonne of coal would last you TBH.
I wonder how many households still use coal domestically?
IIRC from Open University studies a few years back, we also import a lot of power station coal from South America. We visited Didcot power station
outside Oxford where they used both coal and gas. Again IIRC 1,000 tonnes a day of coal was trained up from South Wales (Port Talbot?) off the boat
from Brazil. The train never stops to load or unload, just keeps rolling under the loading spout and over the drop chute.
Only a small amount of Anthracite (i.e. coal used for residential heating) is imported from China, most of it still comes from within the EU.
Russia, Colombia and the US supply most of our steam coal for power generation.
Whichever way you look at it, it's a terrible position to be so dependent on other countries for our energy requirements. The sooner we offset
this with modern nuclear power stations the better IMO.
[Edited on 4/11/13 by MikeRJ]
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRJ
The sooner we offset this with modern nuclear power stations the better IMO.
I bought half a ton at the end of august for £130 inclusive of delivery which will see us through winter. Although we have normal gas central heating
/ combi boiler, we also have the coal fire in the living room which is nice to have lit during the winter months (normally every weekend from october
to end of march).
When the fire is lit, it takes the load of the central heating and helps keep our gas bill down. I've never worked out if the nett effect of this
is cheaper or not but we just do it because we like the fire in the winter.
quote:
Originally posted by slingshot2000
Would that be "modern nuclear power stations", built by a company owned by the CHINEESE GOVERMENT and operated by a company owned by the FRENCH GOVERMENT ??
We all have Mrs Thatcher to thank for that........ That's also why we pay so much for our electric, she didn't like the miners having a
say....... The north east of England is still suffering from what she did up here. Most of the people up here still have open fire,or wood burners.
Our village hasn't got gas so we don't have the choice,we have an open fire and oil heating......... Costs a packet.
well said JonhH but it was not only the coal mining she did us for it was also steel & ship building She would rather help the Bankers & look what a mess they got us into
+1, Scrappy. How can company's put there prices up by 10% when there costs have only gone up by 1% ? I'am selfemployed and if I put up my
costs by 10% I won't be doing much work.......... This country's on its knees. We need to start and look after our own country. Charity
starts at home, and if we have any left, then share it out.
UK Coal supply mainly power stations but i believe a small quantity goes to domestic customers.
Funnily enough BBC 4 tonight documentary about the coal industry and its decline.
Tyne Dock imports millions of tons of coal from Murmansk, Russia. At any one time there will be one ship docked & unloading with another 2 sitting
outside the piers waiting to dock.
Coals to Newcastle, Yes ! as long as its Russian,
How about the Baltic gas import pipeline. We not only need thousands of wind turbines, tidal energy stations, but a few more UK owned nuclear power
stations to get away from relying on the Ivans for energy.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Major_russian_gas_pipelines_to_europe.png
Hmmm
Raging inflation, heavily subsided industry holding the country to ransom and your surprised that Thatcher closed down industry? She was voted in by
the majority more than once so had the countries support.
The key to being successful is to remain competitive, I,m sure if money could be made out of our old industries in the modern world they would still
exist today.
I agree its madness that it's cheaper to ship in from abroad but these mines are generally open faced not men digging expensive dangerous holes,
however would you pay twice the Chinese or Russian price to keep our industry working?
it's our own reality, we all like shopping around for the cheapest insurance, mortgage rates, fuel prices so are all equally culpable for the
closures if you think about it.
quote:
Originally posted by mark chandler
Hmmm
Raging inflation, heavily subsided industry holding the country to ransom and your surprised that Thatcher closed down industry? She was voted in by the majority more than once so had the countries support.
The key to being successful is to remain competitive, I,m sure if money could be made out of our old industries in the modern world they would still exist today.
I agree its madness that it's cheaper to ship in from abroad but these mines are generally open faced not men digging expensive dangerous holes, however would you pay twice the Chinese or Russian price to keep our industry working?
it's our own reality, we all like shopping around for the cheapest insurance, mortgage rates, fuel prices so are all equally culpable for the closures if you think about it.
we're all guilty..................
we all want cheapest this and cheapest that, then moan because local industry and companies cannot compete. whens the last time you said
"i'll take that one, as its made in Britain"................not likely if Johnny foreigner's offering is 100quid cheaper !!
many of the coal consuming industries are owned by foreign interests. they don't care if local / Uk suppliers cannot compete, as long as they
keep their profit margins. (I live and grew up in the middle of the South Wales coalfields and have seen the decline since I was knee high to a
grassshopper!!!)
quote:
Originally posted by clanger
we're all guilty..................
we all want cheapest this and cheapest that, then moan because local industry and companies cannot compete. whens the last time you said "i'll take that one, as its made in Britain"................not likely if Johnny foreigner's offering is 100quid cheaper !!
many of the coal consuming industries are owned by foreign interests. they don't care if local / Uk suppliers cannot compete, as long as they keep their profit margins. (I live and grew up in the middle of the South Wales coalfields and have seen the decline since I was knee high to a grassshopper!!!)