The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167191 Message #4035474
Posted By: Iains
22-Feb-20 - 05:11 AM
Thread Name: BS: UK politics
Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
Actually it was Wilson presided over the greated decrease in post war coal miners. Between 1960 and 1970 numbers dropped 607k to 290k. Then 1980 to 1990 a further drop to 48k. By 2000 numbers were down to 11k.
The numbers had been in continuous decline from the 1920s. By 2002 imports exceeded home production. The reason for the decline was economic rather than political, even though the left tries to make political capital out of it. Since 2012 imports of coal have also fallen off a cliff. Beeching cuts and the move away from steam cut coal consumption by approx 12million tons a year(10%+/-)back in the 60s.
In 1971, conventional coal and oil power plants accounted for 88 per cent of electricity supplied to the UK market. Last year coal’s share had shrunk to just 5 per cent. And between April and June this year it fell to an all-time low of just 0.6 per cent.(2019)