The BBC is being very economical with the truth….the government’s, em that’ll be Ed Miliband’s, renewable energy policies are driving coal mines out of existence….but you’d hardly know that if you relied upon the BBC to tell you what is going on.
Hatfield Colliery is to close and the Prospect Union tells us that…
Government forces closure of Hatfield Colliery
30 Jun 2015
Prospect has blamed shortsighted government policy for the decision by employee-owned Hatfield Colliery, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire to stop producing coal with immediate effect.
Despite agreeing staff reductions with the three unions and being on the verge of starting its last coalface, the colliery was unable to agree contracts for selling its coal.The colliery will close 14 months earlier than scheduled, with the loss of 420 high-skilled jobs and further job losses in the supply chain.
Prospect union represents 19 management team members at the colliery, which has been run by an employee-owned trust since 2013.
Prospect negotiator Mike Macdonald said: “Hatfield has been unable to sell its coal because of the government’s refusal to sponsor coal contracts with generators and the doubling of the UK’s carbon tax.
“Despite the continued demand for coal in electricity generation, Hatfield will start to close this week and the UK will have to rely on coal imports.
“Unlike other European countries that have a managed transition plan for closing their mines, the UK has decided to accelerate closures so all large deep mines will shut this year.
Reuters reports that and the link to the carbon tax…
Britain’s Hatfield Colliery will stop producing coal with immediate effect after being unable to sell its coal following the sharp rise in the UK’s carbon tax, Prospect union said on Tuesday.
In April, Britain’s carbon tax, which charges power producers for each tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) they emit, almost doubled to 18.08 pounds per tonne to encourage utilities to switch fuels, as coal-fired power generation produces almost double the amount of CO2 as gas-fired plants.
The BBC’s interpretation of the closure…
Hatfield Colliery, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, was due to shut in the summer of 2016 but the move has been brought forward unexpectedly.
Micheal O’Sullivan, spokesman for the colliery, said: “We can’t find a market for the coal, so there is no point in producing it.”
The report says that O’Sullivan said…
External factors such as low coal prices, a switch to renewable energy and large coal stocks have made a set of “almost unprecedented circumstances”, he added.
‘A switch to renewables’ gives the impression that it is the building of wind turbines and other renewables that is out competing coal and resulting in the closure when that isn’t true…the real cause is the artificially imposed carbon tax that makes coal uncompetitive whilst the renewables get subisidised to the max.
What the BBC doesn’t tell us is that the reason they can’t find a market for the coal, despite there actually still being a market for it as the Union tells us, is that British coal mines are being priced out of the market by the green taxes…..introduced by Miliband, which makes the next BBC report even more disengenuous with its continued failure to mention the role the carbon tax plays in the closure….
Hatfield Colliery early closure ‘wrong’, says Ed Miliband
Miliband’s ‘carbon free’ economy is turning out to be job free for many people….shame the BBC can’t seem to make the link for some reason.
Same old BBC….still providing cover for its old marxist buddy Miliband and hiding the truth about the costs of green energy.
And curiously nothing on this story in the Telegraph from the BBC yet….
Green energy subsidies spiral out of control
George Osborne to abolish coalition’s green tax target as customers face paying £1.5billion more through their bills to subsidise wind farms, solar panels and biomass plants.
The cost of subsidising new wind farms is spiralling out of control, government sources have privately warned.
Officials admitted that so-called “green” energy schemes will require a staggering £9 billion a year in subsidies – paid for by customers – by 2020. This is £1.5 billion more than the maximum limit the coalition had originally planned.
The mounting costs will mean every household in the country is forced to pay an estimated £170 a year by the end of the decade to support the renewable electricity schemes that were promoted by the coalition.
I imagine Harrabin and Co will be burning the midnight oil trying to rewrite that…oh wait…that’s why the story’s not out yet…got to wait till daylight…no oil burning thankyou!!
Looks as though Osborne is due to redress some of the absurd imbalance created by the ‘green’ levies in the budget on Wednesday – though there’s little doubt our wise and motherly broadcasting system will announce the proposals as ‘more savage government cuts’.
It has been estimated that each and every wind turbine, with an effective life of 20 years or less, costs ten times its potential energy saving in creation, erection and maintenance, and then need replacing for an equally staggering sum. I suppose that’s what they mean by ‘renewables’ ?
I’ve always wondered how much energy is used to mine the steel, forge the steel into shape, transport the shapes, and build the turbines. Is it less than the energy the turbines produce? I doubt it!
Just to add a little frisson of excitement to the figures, these were based on land sited turbines. With ever more popular marine mills you have to factor in caisson, anchoring and far higher maintenance costs, including regular visits by rather expensive teams of divers, due to the corrosive environment.
Life in Britain today is driven by the minority eco-socialist-fascist movement who, with the help of the BBC and others, are able to suppress any meaningful debate on our energy needs, with Labour and the unions taking up whatever position suits their political aims (regardless of how much they contradict themselves). It’s 1984 dystopia mixed with Monty Python surrealism served with a generous topping of Kafkaesque absurdity.
And here we go again:
‘When Professor David MacKay stepped down as chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) last year, he produced a report comparing the environmental impact of a fracking site to that of wind farms. Over 25 years, he calculated, a single “shale gas pad” covering five acres, with a drilling rig 85ft high (only needed for less than a year), would produce as much energy as 87 giant wind turbines, covering 5.6 square miles and visible up to 20 miles away. Yet, to the greenies, the first of these, capable of producing energy whenever needed, without a penny of subsidy, is anathema; while the second, producing electricity very unreliably in return for millions of pounds in subsidies, fills them with rapture.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11718550/Why-are-greens-so-keen-to-destroy-the-worlds-wildlife.html
Beam me up, Scotty (no, not you).
Oh , come on.
It`s the BBC-serial liars, fantasists and Tippex twirlers for “The Past”.
I for one remember all those manly miners at every Durham Gala from 1981 through to 1992 marching under gaily-embroidered rainbow flags, practicing pas de deux and pointes duties on their silk slippers en route to ballet school, near Billy Elliots cottage.
Made an impact on me-bloody miners boots had to go after I`d stepped on Quentin the pit ponys hoof…poor thing.
I was there-indeed , in a sense we all were.
And the BBC confirms this every day-Scargills cup cakes deserved better than being binned by the Black Queen…well, if Rachel Dozy is black, who`s to say that Maggie wasn`t Billie Holliday.
Which-in a real sense-she was!
Here’s a perfect example of left-wing statistical illiteracy (or just sheer promotion of ignorance!):
http://leftfootforward.org/2013/04/tory-spin-on-coal-masks-fact-that-80-per-cent-of-coal-jobs-were-lost-under-thatcher/
“Unsurprisingly, both are being highly selective with the facts. The historical data shows that while 212,000 coal mining jobs were lost under the 1964-1970 Labour Government, under Mrs. Thatcher’s 1979-1990 government, the percentage decline in jobs was actually double that.”
Just in case there are some here that find the stats confusing (and that is intentional on behalf of the socialist idiot(s) that wrote the article), there is a 6 year Labour governance in which 212,000 miners lost their jobs, and an 11 year ‘Thatcher’ period (almost double the time duration) in which the “percentage decline” was double.
Mixing an ‘absolute’ figure of job losses from 1964 to 1970 with a ‘percentage decline’ from 1979 to 1990 (a gap in between of 9 years!) is probably an act of “cooking the books”.
Greece did this to get into the EU and plonk its feet firmly under the table.
Thanks for the link – it’s actually quite amusing, in a sad, ignorant sort of way.
I particularly liked: “43 per cent of mining jobs went in the 1960s under Wilson while 80 per cent were lost under Thatcher”.
Sounds bad if you don’t understand percentages. At least some of the comments, below, question the figures.
But the article isn’t evidence of the numerical illiteracy or ignorance of the writer in my opinion, it just demonstrates the killer instinct of the Left and explains why the Left has been so successful in our major institutions over several decades.
If just 25% of readers accept the figures on their face value, the article has been successful. The Tory Right, which lacks the killer instinct (far too polite and understated), needs to understand this. UKIP understands it much better.