The finance industry, and in particular in the UK, is a surprisingly dirty industry… The UK’s finance industry is more polluting than Germany!
That is amazing - presumably they count investments in dirty industries ?
I would give 10 hearts if it were possible! In short order shut up and come up with a plan, oh and get back into the workplace as some of us have done for 2 years, "working from home " yeh right, just not available when I email you because you aint working at all.
Fiji, composed of 300 islands in the Pacific Ocean, isn’t waiting for the world’s leaders to act on climate change. They are and have been taking mitigation action since 2014 and started seriously discussing how to relocate villages at near sea level to higher ground back in 2004 to avoid flooding.
According to The Guardian the rest of the world is watching, but are they?
Like the lateral thinking, so much better than throwing soup.
And still the idiocy continues…
Tim Farron likened it to opening a new Betamax factory.
Sorry, phone auto-corrected his name and I missed it.
To quote Caroline Lucas…
“This government has backed a climate-busting, backward-looking, business-wrecking, stranded asset coalmine. This mine is a climate crime against humanity – and such a reckless desire to dig up our dirty fossil fuel past will be challenged every step of the way.”
Heard a comment this morning that the coal/coke is needed to manufacture steel needed to construct windfarms and all sorts of equipment used to generate green energy. It seems that the only way to manufacture steel is by using coking coal or perhaps gas so seems to me this new mine is a necessary evil if green energy is to progress.
Perhaps people need to look beyond the news grabbing headlines.
That is not the case. The UK steel industry is already moving away from using coking coal - electric arc furnaces can be powered by green electricity.
The following commentary helps clarify things…
Lord Stern of Brentford, an acclaimed economist who has worked on the climate, development and public policy, added:
Opening a coalmine in the UK now is a serious mistake: economic, social, environmental, financial and political.
Economically, it is investing in the technologies of the last century, not this, and that is the wrong path to growth.
Socially, it is pursuing jobs in industries that are on the way out, creating future job insecurity.
Environmentally, it is adding to world supply and thus consumption of coal and releasing greenhouse gases, when there is an urgent need to reduce them.
And politically, it is undermining the UK’s authority on the most important global issue of our time.”
That’s what I thought, until I did a bit of research.
The older methods of steel-making do indeed use coke. That’s why this mine will be exporting over 80% of its production.
Hence the comparison with Betamax.
Even Philip Dunne, the Tory MP who is chair of the environmental audit committee in parliament, is against it. He said, “Coal is the most polluting energy source, and is not consistent with the government’s net zero ambitions. It is not clear cut to suggest that having a coalmine producing coking coal for steelmaking on our doorstep will reduce steelmakers’ demand for imported coal. On the contrary, when our committee heard from steelmakers earlier this year, they argued that they have survived long enough without UK domestic coking coal and that any purchase of coking coal would be a commercial decision.”
Indeed they can. Electric arc furnaces though can only be used in the production of steel from recycled materials, and not from iron ore. Not sure if there are any alternatives for iron ore. I hope I’m wrong.
Just looked it up, because I was interested if iron ore could be used to create steel without coke. Looks like it can. Sort of. Electric arc furnaces can’t use iron ore directly and they commonly burn gas as an aid to production, so aren’t as good as they sound. There are new processes such as the Hisarna process which are less carbon intensive to process ore, and also a hydrogen reduction process which, if it uses true green hydrogen, would be better still, but it does still need a source of carbon for part of the process.
Steel is iron with a bit of carbon and a few other things depending on use, carbon is going to have to feature in the process somewhere.
Yes, there is a very low percentage of carbon in steel. That carbon is locked up in the steel and doesn’t, in Itself, contribute to global warming. It’s the use of carbon during the process, in order to make the process work, that does cause CO2 emissions that is the problem. The article by Porridge suggests that zero carbon (as in emissions) steel has been produced in Sweden, but AFAICS, there isn’t yet a truly zero carbon process, certainly not a commercially viable one.
In the same way that mining coal requires a lot of bullsh1t
