Noticed a post earlier which mentioned Australian coal. It seems that our biggest customer is the Japanese steel industry - especially since our own steelworking industry was re-developed after the merger with a UK firm. (For "re-development", read shut down, and for "merger with", read bought by). This means that Japan has been making a good try at controlling coal prices, and therefore mniner's wages, for years. Now our mines are also closing, as supplies - I think mostly from Korea - are able to undercut our costs.

I lived in a coal-mining town in Scotland, and watched one of the biggest pits in the country close because of european competition, putting most of the town's workers on the scrap-heap. It started happening in the UK thirty or forty years ago, and now it's happening here as well. When it happens in what used to be East Germany and Poland and Korea, and all the other "newly economically viable" nations, where are the steelworks going to go for their cheap fuel? Will they pay reasonable costs to offer reasonable wages? Will they support safe working practices? Will pigs fly?