Coal Newcastle USSR

"During the last two months, we brought in
two shipments of low sulphur coal from Russia."

RUSSIAN COAL TO NEWCASTLE

"The Tyne was the largest exporter of coal.
We do not export coal now but it is ironic
we are now starting to import it."

In the once coal-rich North-East of England, the phrase "taking coals to Newcastle" was a definition of the absurd. But now, what for centuries was unthinkable, has happened - and shipments of cheap Russian coal have arrived on the Tyne.

Tyne Dock expects to import up to 70,000 tonnes by December in an experimental deal with a North-East smelter plant.

It is a complete turnaround for the port, which at its peak was the largest exporter of coal from the North-East's collieries, sending millions of tonnes a year from the Tyne.

The managing director of the Port of Tyne, Keith Wilson, said the port has not exported coal since 1998 but was now delighted to have secured the contract with Alcan for its aluminum production in Lynemouth, Northumberland. He said: "During the last two months, we brought in two shipments of low sulphur coal from Russia. The Tyne was the largest exporter of coal. We do not export coal now but it is ironic we are now starting to import it." Mr Wilson said the deal had in part helped the port's rail division take off in the past two months, with the number of trains using the port rising from one or two a week to up to 12 a week.

A spokesman for Alcan said the firm had been importing coal for some time but this was the first time it had been delivered through the Port of Tyne. "The company has a contract to take coal from the nearby Ellington pit in Northumberland, but the colliery has not been able to produce enough coal to power the station for around ten years," he said.

But Dave Hopper, North-East secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, branded the coal imports into the Tyne a disgrace. Mr Hopper said: "Ellington, which is the last colliery in the North-East, is only two miles away from Alcan and is struggling to stay open."

JOURNEY TO ORWELL'S JURA (...There was a stack of coal in clear plastic bags destined, we assumed, for Barnhill. I imagined it to be a gift to Orwell from the coal-miners he'd immortalized in The Road to Wigan Pier. He said, "Our civilization is founded on coal and in the metabolism of the Western world the coal-miner is second in importance only to the man who ploughs the soil...You could quite easily drive a car right across the north of England and never once remember that hundreds of feet below the road you are on the miners are hacking at the coal. Yet in a sense it is the miners who are driving your car forward. Their lamp-lit world down there is as necessary to the daylight world above as the root is to the flower'. Orwell would be disgusted with the treatment of the coal-miners these days who are permanently out of work while coal is brought to Newcastle on Russian ships. I'd read about it in Canada just before leaving and had looked for coverage of outrage in England but I'd found none.)

JOURNEY TO ORWELL'S JURA (Orwell's wife Eileen had been born and raised in South Shields and she is buried in Newcastle. Several times on his journeys to and from Jura Orwell stopped in Newcastle to visit Eileen's grave. As we passed the "Angel of The North" I snapped a photo in rememberance of her for Orwell.

When Eileen was a girl, she spent her time,
Sitting on the banks of the river Tyne.
Watching all the ships going down the line, they were leaving,
Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving...

China polluting coal plants surging (despite environmental damage). Herald Tribune, Jul 26, 2007
BEIJING: Coal consumption by China's power companies soared nearly 18 percent in the first half of this year from a year ago, a state news agency said Wednesday, despite rising concern about pollution and efforts to promote cleaner energy sources. Chinese utilities burned a total of 591 million tons of coal in January-June, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing the official power industry association, the China Electricity Council. China's coal consumption has soared in recent years to meet surging power demand amid an economic boom. The country is building dozens of new coal-fired power plants every year, despite government warnings about environmental damage from pollution. The government has been pushing power companies to switch to cleaner power sources such as natural gas. But demand is rising so fast that China is expected to rely on its dirty but abundant coal reserves for most of its power in coming years.

Canary in Chinese coal mine (China most polluted on planet; wheat kernels dark-sooty-hollow-twisted) & China exempt from cutting greenhouse gases (in spite of world-leading coal use) & Dark cloud of pollution over Hong Kong (from smokestacks of China mainland). GlobeMail/Telegraph, Feb 3, 2007