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10% of the entire UK's area available in mines? That seems a tad on the high side at first glance. No mention of flooding, collapse and the many seams that wer
by NeedMoreTea 8y ago
10% of the entire UK's area available in mines? That seems a tad on the high side at first glance.
No mention of flooding, collapse and the many seams that were well under 6' high. I remember claims that many mines would be inaccessible thanks to flooding and collapse within days of closure during all the mine closures of the 80s. No idea how much of that was hype to try and avoid closures of course.
So what percentage is worth opening up again for possible agriculture? Based on the photo of two chaps using an old shelter the size of a poly tunnel, very very inefficiently, barely any.
Seriously, having seen commercial poly tunnels, I'd expect to have the staging shown but wide enough that a human can only just squeeze down the centre path, and another level, and the entire floor area allocated to growing as well.
I'm gonna need a bit more convincing on this. :)
- arethuza 8y agoHere is a link to the UK Coal Authority interactive map: http://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html http://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html There are a lot of old mines in the UK! [NB I found out about this when researching buying a house outside of Edinburgh - we ended up getting a house near an old limestone mine in Fife although where our house is it's volcanic rock with no mine workings under us]. Edit2: In case anyone is wondering here is a geology map viewer for the UK: http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoOh yeah, they're everywhere, we've been digging for millennia. Though as anyone who's bought a home around old mining areas knows there's a fair bit of subsidence around old mines and shafts. Leaves me wondering what proportion is feasible without significant effort digging them out, pumping and propping them again? Then there's the countless seams that were narrow enough to trigger instant claustrophobia. The many crawlable only spaces that don't give space to sit, let alone stand. Plenty of headroom for lettuce, but rather more challenging for harvesting and the associated humans.
- nmeofthestate 8y agoInterestingly you can see mining used to stretch under the Firth of Forth between Lothian and Fife. Supposedly, back in the day, the tunnels linked up and you could have walked from Fife to Lothian via the mine workings. This idea in the article seems like utter nonsense, and the fact that it's in an article on a reputable website doesn't give me any confidence it isn't.
- arethuza 8y agoI remember reading about that link - found this article on it: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2014/apr/30/scotland-firthofforth-coal https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2014/apr/3...
- nmeofthestate 8y agoI see it was upstream at Bo'ness where the gap is narrower - I always imagined it being miles and miles, heading from Edinburgh northward. Less amazing, but still pretty cool.
- shaki-dora 8y ago> Firth of Forth between Lothian and Fife I have no idea what (who? Where?) this is, but now I want to conquer it/ask them out for dinner.
- arethuza 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firth_of_Forth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firth_of_Forth It's an area thick with history from before the Romans to more recent times. One example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46273928 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46273928
- davrosthedalek 8y agoIs that somehow related to Genesis' Firth of Fifth?