mining - the cutting edge
WORKERS, NOV 2004 ISSUE
UK Coal is demonstrating British workers' technological genius and innovation at the Daw Mill Colliery in Warwickshire. A £20 million investment in one of the world's largest and most sophisticated coalface-cutting pieces of equipment is being installed.
In one year the new equipment will cut 5 million tonnes of coal and pay for itself seven times over. It demonstrates that coal can be mined and profitably.
The commitment here is to a mining industry using 21st century technology, productivity at record levels and the skilled workforce required to oversee it.
The government's short-sightedness and failure to invest in new technology to keep the pits open, in clean coal-burning power stations to utilise Britain's greatest natural asset, in skills development and manpower planning to ensure that a new generation of miners is available, borders on idiocy.
When the gas runs out, the oil fails to flow, the nuclear stations are antiquated, the wind and solar farms fail to deliver, the clamour will be to re-open the pits. That decision is for now, not in 10, 20 or 30 years.