Northern Powerhouse? Unlikely if this is true.

[Mallard60022]

11 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

 

I don't where you get your info, but most of it is plain wrong.

 

Large scale iron ore mining around Scunthorpe ceased in 1981, with just one small surface mine carrying on until the early 90's.

 

The case for the Whitehaven coal mine is highly dubious, especially given the planned mass conversion of steel plants to Electric Arc processes, part of which you describe below, or to using hydrogen, neither of which require coking coal. 85% of Whitehaven's output would almost certainly go abroad, according to the steel maker's own federation, which sees no need for the Whitehaven mine for its industry. Cans for Heinz would most certainly not be its largest customer!

 

The conversion of old steel plants to electric-arc does make me laugh, which is being done now to secure carbon capture by 2050. The UK had one of the most advanced such plants in Europe, at Sheerness, but it withered and died some years ago, partly due to the rise in the price of scrap metal. But Sheerness is not "northern" is it, so does not count.....

 

 

Well said matey. These 'so called' projects 'in the north' are purely political and without real substance.

Phil

[rockershovel]

I visited Dragonby Mine in 2012 or 13, when the "managed abandonment" was rapidly accelerating. The scale of the workings was vast (pillar and stall working is inherently stable) but the decision had been made to abandoned the workings outright. 

 

The "planned mass conversion of steelworks to hydrogen" appears to be another of the herds of unicorns which graze the endless savannahs of the Green Utopia.... 

[Reorte]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

British Steel operated large-scale Iron mining at Scunthorpe into the 1990s and the managed abandonment of the workings means that even now  extraction could resume although I agree, it isn't high grade.

AIUI Cumbrian iron ore was high grade. The last Cumbrian iron mine (albeit on a pretty small scale) was still operating earlier this century. Stopped when they couldn't afford to keep pumping the water out.

[caradoc]

16 hours ago, rockershovel said:

There was some dramatic footage of making steel for the cans... at a steelworks using iron ore imported worldwide, that could be mined in UK.

 

Not sure permission would be readily granted these days to start digging up rural Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire or Lincolnshire to produce our own iron ore again.....

 

[Michael Hodgson]

7 hours ago, APOLLO said:

We in Wigan are lucky, two stations and eight rail routes out of town.

I know Wigan is up North, but I didn't think it was so bad you needed 8 escape routes!

[jjb1970]

There are so many things being discussed in this thread that are interesting and no doubt have an influence on transport policy, but at a certain level it's possible to argue that just about anything will have some influence. However I think we are a country mile away from issues which are proximate to decision making for NPR. And proper discussion of some of these issues is material for a learned thesis rather than short posts on a message board.

[phil-b259]

7 hours ago, APOLLO said:

 

 

And something needs to be done drastically and quickly regarding rampant vegetation, it is slowly and seriously damaging infrastructure (retaining walls, bridges etc). Everywhere.

 

 

 

Easier said than done - vegetation like Buddleia is so well established in the UK that you can cut it down one year and even if you poison the roots with herbicide it will re-emerge the next as seeds get blown into fresh cervices / ledges lime motored brickwork has in abundance.

 

Its also problematic  that all the toxic + cancer causing weed killers of yesteryear are rightly banned - to kill a plant these days you perversely need to let it grow first so as to provide a leaf and root structure to inject / spay herbicide into / onto.

 

Its also hampered by the very restrictive H&S procedures in place these days which require things like mobile work platforms rather than ladders and line blockages instead of lookouts.

 

Of course climate change isn't helping - promoting growth in summer and a lack of cold winter temperatures to kill off plants / seeds.

 

The net result is that vegetation control is (1) labour intensive, (2) increasingly disruptive (3) and very expensive to keep on top of.

 

In an ideal world NR would have a large in house team and regular possessions taken simply to de-vegetate structures - but in an industry regarded as 'too expensive' by the been counters in HM Treasury such measures (being required year in year out) would never pass the CBR test...

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by phil-b259

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

AIUI Cumbrian iron ore was high grade. The last Cumbrian iron mine (albeit on a pretty small scale) was still operating earlier this century. Stopped when they couldn't afford to keep pumping the water out.

It was Haematite, with an iron content somewhere above 60%; similar ore was mined at Llanharan, west of Cardiff, into the 1980s. In contrast, the various Jurassic deposits across the middle of England are about 30%.

[Mike Storey]

5 hours ago, rockershovel said:

I visited Dragonby Mine in 2012 or 13, when the "managed abandonment" was rapidly accelerating. The scale of the workings was vast (pillar and stall working is inherently stable) but the decision had been made to abandoned the workings outright. 

 

The "planned mass conversion of steelworks to hydrogen" appears to be another of the herds of unicorns which graze the endless savannahs of the Green Utopia.... 

 

But Dragonby, and the associated Santon, closed in 1981! Just as did nearly every other remaining workings around Scunthorpe, bar one.

 

Hydrogen - you forgot to add the words "electric arc or", obviously not deliberately, I am sure - is already being explored for steel works in Germany and Poland, where they believe they can produce green hydrogen commercially. Just not in the UK. Your Unicorns are far closer to home.

 

 

[paulbb]

Should we not just bin the whole concept of a 'Powerhouse'? The term has no value or meaning particularly as the politician who coined it blamed the 2009 near global financial collapse not on the greed of the people who actually caused it but on public spending . The Opposition let him get away with it too, to their eternal shame . Clearly the Goebbals principle of lie repetition still works rather well !

[Mike Storey]

1 hour ago, paulbb said:

Should we not just bin the whole concept of a 'Powerhouse'? The term has no value or meaning particularly as the politician who coined it blamed the 2009 near global financial collapse not on the greed of the people who actually caused it but on public spending . The Opposition let him get away with it too, to their eternal shame . Clearly the Goebbals principle of lie repetition still works rather well !

 

I don't think "we" can decide. As long as Transport for the North continue to use the term, then we will have to.

 

[billbedford]

9 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

The case for the Whitehaven coal mine is highly dubious, especially given the planned mass conversion of steel plants to Electric Arc processes, part of which you describe below, or to using hydrogen, neither of which require coking coal....

 

...The UK had one of the most advanced such plants in Europe, at Sheerness, but it withered and died some years ago, partly due to the rise in the price of scrap metal. 

 

What is the intended reducing agent in these Electric Arc furnaces? AFAIK if iron oxides are just heated without reduction the output will be no more than molten iron oxides. 

 

The plant at Sheerness was not a blast furnace producing iron from iron ores. It was just an over-sized foundry furnace producing steel billets from steel scrap. 

[Mike Storey]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

 

What is the intended reducing agent in these Electric Arc furnaces? AFAIK if iron oxides are just heated without reduction the output will be no more than molten iron oxides. 

 

 

 

I have no idea, but Tata Steel seem to believe in it, along with their brethren in the Netherlands, along with many other European steel makers. Perhaps you could look it up?

 

[jjb1970]

There seems to be a much greater focus on recycled steel in preference to making steel from newly extracted ore. Electric-arc furnaces can significantly reduce energy use and emissions as they're much more flexible and using old steel as a raw material significantly reduces emissions as well as all the other environmental impacts associated with extractive industries. Until recently recycling old ships was an expense for owners, now it's becoming quite lucrative as demand for scrap steel has increased. Apologies for contributing to the diversion.

[rockershovel]

19 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

But Dragonby, and the associated Santon, closed in 1981! Just as did nearly every other remaining workings around Scunthorpe, bar one.

 

Hydrogen - you forgot to add the words "electric arc or", obviously not deliberately, I am sure - is already being explored for steel works in Germany and Poland, where they believe they can produce green hydrogen commercially. Just not in the UK. Your Unicorns are far closer to home.

 

 

Pillar and stall workings like Dragonby and Santon are inherently stable, and the workings are very largely on a single level. Both mines are quite shallow. 

 

Mine owners are responsible for the abandonment of their workings in sn orderly fashion. 

 

The Northamptonshire workings have gradually decayed after abandonment in the 1960s but even now, large areas are still open (and visited by "urban explorers" who seem to have little grasp of the risks they are running). Collapse isn't monitored because the workings are under agricultural land. 

 

The Scunthorpe workings were still intact at the time of abandonment, and the possible risks and costs of uncontrolled collapse under a relatively urban area are contained by an ongoing programme of localised inspection, pumping and minor works. This has now been largely curtailed but until quite recently, contractors carried out works underground two or three times a year.

 

There was also a "retreat mining plan" by which the mine could have produced a great deal of relatively low-grade ore, cheaply and quickly, by working out the pillars from the furthest end towards the entry. It probably wouldn't be used but for many years, it was notionally active .... probably because of political reluctance to definitively abandonment the workings. 

 

Mining is a curious business. 

 

[rockershovel]

15 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

I have no idea, but Tata Steel seem to believe in it, along with their brethren in the Netherlands, along with many other European steel makers. Perhaps you could look it up?

 

The one shown on tv was charged with scrap, then surcharged with ore. The whole was heated and as it was described, "oxygen forced through it". This really isn't my field, but that was what was shown; the operator was indeed Tata.

 

 

[ess1uk]

On 31/07/2022 at 16:38, rockershovel said:

 

 

Government policy is totally inconsistent. 

 

 

yes!

U Turn?

Edited July 13, 2023 by ess1uk
spelling

[Mark Saunders]

On 01/08/2022 at 16:44, caradoc said:

 

Not sure permission would be readily granted these days to start digging up rural Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire or Lincolnshire to produce our own iron ore again.....

 

Why not Northumberland was still being dug up till about four years ago for coal!

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, ess1uk said:

yes!

U Turn?

Electioneering, it will be buried again on the other side of the election if the blues win, Labour are still currently committed, but on the other hand may not have the funds to pay for it for quite some time.

[Neil]

19 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Electioneering, it will be buried again on the other side of the election if the blues win, Labour are still currently committed, but on the other hand may not have the funds to pay for it for quite some time.

 

The funds would depend on tax policy. At the moment the UK has one of the most unequal societies in the world; a spot of levelling down would provide funding. 

[Ron Ron Ron]

9 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

The funds would depend on tax policy. At the moment the UK has one of the most unequal societies in the world; a spot of levelling down would provide funding. 

I don’t think it’s a good idea to introduce politics and links to the output of an organisation founded and run by far left activist academics.

 

 

.

[woodenhead]

19 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

I don’t think it’s a good idea to introduce politics and links to the output of an organisation founded and run by far left activist academics.

 

 

.

Even though the actual announcement to reopen looking at the link is purely political and nothing more.

[Neil]

4 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

I don’t think it’s a good idea to introduce politics and links to the output of an organisation founded and run by far left activist academics.

 

 

.

 

It's not politics; it's simple economics. If something is good for the country then it has to be paid for and however that's done the cost has to be borne by someone. Those with the greatest wealth are best placed to shoulder that cost, particularly at a time when the average person in the street is feeling the pinch.

 

I'd also take exception to your characterisation of the Equality Trust as 'an organisation founded and run by far left activists'. If you bother to take a look at the history and people section of the website you'll see that the initial funding came from the respected Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and that the personnel behind the organisation come from academia, main stream charities and business. I'd also like to point out that irrespective of where the information comes from (here's stuff from the Office of National Statistics) there's broad agreement that inequality has been on the increase since the eighties; I chose the Equality Trust's pages on the matter as they presented the information in a clear and easily digestible format.

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Neil
Include link

[The Stationmaster]

11 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

It's not politics; it's simple economics. If something is good for the country then it has to be paid for and however that's done the cost has to be borne by someone. Those with the greatest wealth are best placed to shoulder that cost, particularly at a time when the average bloke in the street is feeling the pinch.

 

 

Before we get back to the subject it might be worth quoting some data from the ONS covering the period 2018 - 2019

 

In the period 2018-2019 there were 31.6 million Income tax payers in the UK.

The top 1% of Income Tax payers paid 28.9% of the total Income Tax paid.  

The top 50% of Income Tax payers. i,e 15.8 million people, paid 90.5% of total Income tax paid.  

So that, by simple maths it means that -

The bottom 50% of Incomae Tax payers, another 15.8 million people, paid only 9.5% of the Income Tax paid.

 

So it seems pretty clear that those receiving the larger incomes paid the overwhelming majority of Income Tax collected.  Income of course has not to much to do with wealth - wealth is in many respects a consequence of  geography and inflation especially when it comes to domestic property ownership which forms the assumed 'wealth' of the vast majority of people in the country.

 

Back to the 'Northern Powerhiuse' - hopefully 

[MidlandRed]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Before we get back to the subject it might be worth quoting some data from the ONS covering the period 2018 - 2019

 

In the period 2018-2019 there were 31.6 million Income tax payers in the UK.

The top 1% of Income Tax payers paid 28.9% of the total Income Tax paid.  

The top 50% of Income Tax payers. i,e 15.8 million people, paid 90.5% of total Income tax paid.  

So that, by simple maths it means that -

The bottom 50% of Incomae Tax payers, another 15.8 million people, paid only 9.5% of the Income Tax paid.

 

So it seems pretty clear that those receiving the larger incomes paid the overwhelming majority of Income Tax collected.  Income of course has not to much to do with wealth - wealth is in many respects a consequence of  geography and inflation especially when it comes to domestic property ownership which forms the assumed 'wealth' of the vast majority of people in the country.

 

Back to the 'Northern Powerhiuse' - hopefully 

The problem with your analysis here, whilst maybe correct in the taxation of the bottom 50%, does not take account of the fact that their average income is a fraction of the upper 50%. And the top 1% earn absolutely vastly more than the average of the upper 50% - look at the income figures - there’s gross inequality!!! We have become a generally low income economy - the top 20%-25% earn the majority of the total income! Sorry for the thread drift.