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There used to be millions of coal miners in the UK before Thatcher, millions. Can anyone imagine the renewable sector hiring so many people, working long shifts

There used to be millions of coal miners in the UK before Thatcher, millions. Can anyone imagine the renewable sector hiring so many people, working long shifts and doing physically hard work? That coal mining is now done the global capitalist way but there are people still digging coal. A switch to coal is valuable in that people no longer have to have such a risky occupation. It is a shame this is not seen as a benefit and that it is all about CO2.

toyg 10y ago
If harnessed properly, a mass-switch to renewables could generate millions of jobs at very little cost for the public purse: installers, maintainers, manufacturers, auditors, developers for smart grids, etc etc etc... but you'd need a smart government writing smart laws to push people down that road. The current bunch finds it so much easier to just cut a huge check to EDF and China to build an obsolete, centralized big-ass plant. Benefits to occupation levels will be zero outside of Hinkley. We have no sustainable solution for nuclear waste, and one more terrorist target. Facepalm.jpg
- stevetrewick 10y ago
  >If harnessed properly, a mass-switch to renewables could generate millions of jobs There are excellent reasons why it shouldn't. Jobs are a cost of doing something, not a benefit.
  - simonh 10y ago
    Exactly, currently UK unemployment is at an 11 year low. The employment rate is the highest it's been since 1971. We should be looking at how to upgrade people to better, higher paying jobs in internationally competitive sectors that increase national wealth, not downgrading to low skilled manufacturing and physical labor.
  - toyg 10y ago
    I don't see any appetite to move to an economy not based on mass-employment - not among current elites and certainly not among the current UK government.
    - stevetrewick 10y ago
      The actual economy doesn't give a fig for the appetites of 'the current elites' - whatever that means, but that's not the point, the point is that it is bad to move to an energy supply model that creates a large number of additional jobs because that means it is likely to be more expensive than the current one. It also carries the opportunity cost of the value that labour could add by doing stuff other than keeping the lights on for the rest of us.
- ChoHag 10y ago
  Generating jobs is easy. If generating jobs were the goal, unemployment would be zero, internationally.
stevetrewick 10y ago
If by 'before' you mean in 1920, when mining employment peaked at around 1.2 million. In 1970, 5 years before Thatcher was elected there were around 300,000. [0] To your second point, I come from a mining background, you can find my name on many pit disaster monuments and you can take it from me that that benefit is very much recognised. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Kingdom# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Ki...
simonh 10y ago
There hadn't been a million jobs in coal mining since the 1920s. By 1979 there were about 200k coal jobs left. The tax payer was subsidizing coal to the tune of £1.3 billion a year, just under 1% of total national GDP, not including the increased costs to power and steel industries that were prevented from using cheaper alternatives. When Arthur Scargill appeared before a Parliamentary committee and was asked at what level of loss it was acceptable to close a pit he answered “As far as I can see, the loss is without limits.” Coal was fatally wounded in the 70s when the industry became more heavily subsidized, less productive (by 6% in 5 years) and failed to implement any meaningful modernization or reform programs (Plan for Coal). By the 1980s it was just too late to save it.
- stevetrewick 10y ago
  How refreshing to come across someone who understands the economics and doesn't just blame Thatcher.
  - neximo64 10y ago
    It helps alot with these things to read the newspaper from the older times when the issues first came about. There's lots of reason lost in history books and on the information we would typically read up on. Last week i was going through 1880s articles, and got reason to why banks aren't 'unlimited liability partnerships'. The realities were, they were in the early 1880s. Then one Scottish bank failed and the courts went after widowers and simple retail investors who owned the shares to get claim back assets for depositors for the failed bank. Apparently taking money from widowers then was absolutely terrible. They allowed banks to become limited liability companies shortly after. Not the best to repeat that today, as bad as limited liability banks can be, it would be worse for them to sue household investors to reclaim deposits, particularly when they can't enforce accountability in the company, being such small investors. Today if the idea ever caught hold, that old 1880s newspaper would shed light.
- gaius 10y ago
  I can never forgive Scargill. He could have offered to buy the loss-making pits for £1, run them as workers collectives. Instead he betrayed the Revolution by turning worker against worker (i.e. the workers in other industries taxed to pay his cronies).

toyg 10y ago

If harnessed properly, a mass-switch to renewables could generate millions of jobs at very little cost for the public purse: installers, maintainers, manufacturers, auditors, developers for smart grids, etc etc etc... but you'd need a smart government writing smart laws to push people down that road. The current bunch finds it so much easier to just cut a huge check to EDF and China to build an obsolete, centralized big-ass plant. Benefits to occupation levels will be zero outside of Hinkley. We have no sustainable solution for nuclear waste, and one more terrorist target. Facepalm.jpg

stevetrewick 10y ago
>If harnessed properly, a mass-switch to renewables could generate millions of jobs There are excellent reasons why it shouldn't. Jobs are a cost of doing something, not a benefit.
- simonh 10y ago
  Exactly, currently UK unemployment is at an 11 year low. The employment rate is the highest it's been since 1971. We should be looking at how to upgrade people to better, higher paying jobs in internationally competitive sectors that increase national wealth, not downgrading to low skilled manufacturing and physical labor.
- toyg 10y ago
  I don't see any appetite to move to an economy not based on mass-employment - not among current elites and certainly not among the current UK government.
  - stevetrewick 10y ago
    The actual economy doesn't give a fig for the appetites of 'the current elites' - whatever that means, but that's not the point, the point is that it is bad to move to an energy supply model that creates a large number of additional jobs because that means it is likely to be more expensive than the current one. It also carries the opportunity cost of the value that labour could add by doing stuff other than keeping the lights on for the rest of us.
ChoHag 10y ago
Generating jobs is easy. If generating jobs were the goal, unemployment would be zero, internationally.

stevetrewick 10y ago

If by 'before' you mean in 1920, when mining employment peaked at around 1.2 million. In 1970, 5 years before Thatcher was elected there were around 300,000. [0] To your second point, I come from a mining background, you can find my name on many pit disaster monuments and you can take it from me that that benefit is very much recognised. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Kingdom# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Ki...

simonh 10y ago

There hadn't been a million jobs in coal mining since the 1920s. By 1979 there were about 200k coal jobs left. The tax payer was subsidizing coal to the tune of £1.3 billion a year, just under 1% of total national GDP, not including the increased costs to power and steel industries that were prevented from using cheaper alternatives. When Arthur Scargill appeared before a Parliamentary committee and was asked at what level of loss it was acceptable to close a pit he answered “As far as I can see, the loss is without limits.” Coal was fatally wounded in the 70s when the industry became more heavily subsidized, less productive (by 6% in 5 years) and failed to implement any meaningful modernization or reform programs (Plan for Coal). By the 1980s it was just too late to save it.

stevetrewick 10y ago
How refreshing to come across someone who understands the economics and doesn't just blame Thatcher.
- neximo64 10y ago
  It helps alot with these things to read the newspaper from the older times when the issues first came about. There's lots of reason lost in history books and on the information we would typically read up on. Last week i was going through 1880s articles, and got reason to why banks aren't 'unlimited liability partnerships'. The realities were, they were in the early 1880s. Then one Scottish bank failed and the courts went after widowers and simple retail investors who owned the shares to get claim back assets for depositors for the failed bank. Apparently taking money from widowers then was absolutely terrible. They allowed banks to become limited liability companies shortly after. Not the best to repeat that today, as bad as limited liability banks can be, it would be worse for them to sue household investors to reclaim deposits, particularly when they can't enforce accountability in the company, being such small investors. Today if the idea ever caught hold, that old 1880s newspaper would shed light.
gaius 10y ago
I can never forgive Scargill. He could have offered to buy the loss-making pits for £1, run them as workers collectives. Instead he betrayed the Revolution by turning worker against worker (i.e. the workers in other industries taxed to pay his cronies).