This book investigates the consequences of shifting social responsibilities, new inequalities and the sustainability concerns created by the likely energy transition in Africa to end the fossil-fuel era. Focusing on describing the local realities in a growing coal and energy town of South Africa, Emalahleni, it explores whether a just transition from coal-generated energy is possible and what the local implications will be of this global restructuring of the energy sector. The book also provides an overview of the current situation in South Africa, mining and mining towns and the theory of a just transition and mine closure, in order to present a thorough assessment of the political economy of coal towns.Lochner Marais is Professor of Development Studies in the Centre for Development Support at the University of the Free State. His research integrates themes of housing policy, health and mining communities.

In less than a decade, activism against the fossil fuel industry has exploded across the globe. While environmentalists used to focus on legislative goals, such as carbon emissions trading or renewable energy policies, today the most prominent activists directly attack the fossil fuel industry. This timely book offers a comprehensive evaluation of different types of activism, the success and impact of campaigns and activities, and suggestions as to ways forward. This book is the first systematic treatment of the anti-fossil fuel movement in the United States. An accessible and readable text, it is an essential reference for scholars, policymakers, activists, and citizens interested in climate change, fossil fuels, and environmental sustainability. The entire book or chapters from it can be used as required or supplementary material in various courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. As the book is not technically challenging but contains a comprehensive review of climate change, fossil fuels, and the literature on environmental activism, it can be used as an accessible introduction to the anti-fossil fuel campaign across disciplines.

The current discourse on mine closure is informed predominantly by industry and corporate perspectives and predicated by experiences of mainly mining companies that are based in developed countries where necessary planning frameworks and regulatory requirements are well-established. Mine closure planning, well promoted and accepted as good business practice in the global minerals industry, has been primarily technical and precautionary both in approach and focus. Planning, modelling and monitoring strategies incorporate comprehensive and detailed elements such as properties inherent in landforms, climate, geology, flora and fauna, among others. However, locality-based concerns that revolve around resource access and tenure, rights and entitlements tied to locality and indigeneity, labour recruitment, and other non-bio-physical elements are hardly examined. Any mine closure program that omits these elements is deficient and therefore ineffective. Social Terrains of Mine Closure in the Philippines, based on ethnographic research and archival materials, presents the varying experiences of three mines to demonstrate that the mine closure process is an intense locus for competition and compromises among various social actors. This book offers key messages for understanding the complex socio-cultural, economic, political, and business realities that make up the social terrains of mine closure, and will be of great interest to students and researchers in development studies, community development, business studies, anthropology, and sociology. It will also appeal to those working in the global minerals sectors and NGOs that engage in development work and advocacy for responsible mining.

Conflict over the extraction of coal and gas resources has rapidly escalated in communities throughout the world. Using an environmental justice lens, this multidisciplinary book explores cases of land use conflict through the lived experiences of communities grappling with such disputes. Drawing on theories of justice and fairness in environmental decision making, it demonstrates how such land use conflicts concerning resource use can become entrenched social problems, resistant to policy and legal intervention. The author presents three case studies from New South Wales in Australia and Pennsylvania in the US of conflict concerning coal, coal gas and shale gas development. It shows how conflict has escalated in each case, exploring access to justice in land use decision making processes from the perspective of the communities at the heart of these disputes. Weaknesses in contemporary policy and regulatory frameworks, including ineffective opportunities for public participation and a lack of community recognition in land use decision making processes, are explored. The book concludes with an examination of possible procedural and institutional reforms to improve access to environmental justice and better manage cases of land use conflict. Overall, the volume links the philosophies of environmental justice with rich case study findings, offering readers further insight into both the theory and practice of land use decision making.

The region along Deep River in central North Carolina once boasted a small but significant coal mining industry that for nearly two centuries provided fuel for manufacturing and domestic use. Confronted by natural obstacles and other challenges - including a devastating explosion in 1925 that killed 53 men and boys - entrepreneurs and experts made numerous attempts (some successful, some not) to harness the power of coal in a state still defining itself in a modernizing nation. Iron forges and hearths required ample supplies of coal to meet local demand, and the Deep River deposits provided them when no others existed. This book covers the history of coal mining at Deep River, from the early 1800s to the end of the 20th century.

This book is a direct outgrowth of classes that the authors gave over a period of three decades to a university audience taking a Mineral Beneficiation course as a major that included coal processing and utilization. It is designed to be used as a student's (or layman's) first introduction to coal processing and utilization, motivating the concepts before illustrating them by means of concrete situations. As such, this book gives an integrated overview of coal processing and utilization along with clean coal technology, presenting all the basic principles, theory and practice in a systematic way. Every topic covered is dealt with in a self-explanatory manner so that any new reader may find this book interesting and easy to understand. The book makes available the hard core of fundamentals of coal processing and utilization in a form which is general enough to meet the needs of many and yet is unburdened by excess baggage best discussed in research journals. The salient feature is that all the technical terminology used in this book has been sufficiently explained in order to allow the reader to understand the concepts effectively without needing to consult additional literature. Problems are introduced not so much to be solved as to be tackled. Some of them are included to lay the ground work for the subsequent theory and will help the readers in teaching, research and operating plants. Overall, this book will be of interest to professionals and engineers in the fields of energy, mining, mineral, metallurgical and geological engineering, as well as to engineering geologists and earth sciences professionals.

Through a detailed examination of the German coal industry, Martin Parnell illustrates the historical evolution of the practice of industrial self-government and argues that historical continuities lie at the root of a full understanding of German capitalism. His study, which takes us from the eighteenth century to the present day, examines how intensive cooperation between state, management, private sector, and unions has shaped the industry both in growth and decline. He argues that it is Germany's strong tradition of industrial self-government that is the key institution characterizing the organization and functioning of the German political economy, uniting the politics of the dominant state role and the economics of industrial production. Parnell uses and develops the ideas of German economic historians, especially Abelshauser, whose influential work on the nineteenth-century origins of capitalist organization have recently begun to have a wide impact in translation. His work is a valuable contribution to the debate about the origins, forms, and future of German neo-corporatism.

Life in the early twentieth-century coalmining communities changed very little for the women who dedicated their lives to their miner husbands. The women's working days were much longer than the miners, who typically worked an 8-hour shift. Their living conditions were poor and lack of investment by the coal owners greatly challenged their homemaking skills as they faced life without many basics, such as clean water and sewerage systems. Health services were slow to develop and women's health was only just beginning to be of some importance to the medical profession. Coal-miner wives in the twentieth century also had to cope with demands put upon their families by the First World War, which highlighted the importance of solidarity, a feature of mining communities that had proved itself to be at the heart of colliery village life. This follow-up book to the popular Women of the Durham Coalfield in the 19th Century continues with the story of Hannah's daughter as she negotiates homemaking in the most challenging of conditions.

Climate change makes fossil fuels unburnable, yet global coal production has almost doubled over the last 20 years. This book explores how the world can stop mining coal - the most prolific source of greenhouse gas emissions. It documents efforts at halting coal production, focusing specifically on how campaigners are trying to stop coal mining in India, Germany, and Australia. Through in-depth comparative ethnography, it shows how local people are fighting to save their homes, livelihoods, and environments, creating new constituencies and alliances for the transition from fossil fuels. The book relates these struggles to conflicts between global climate policy and the national coal-industrial complex. With coal's meaning transformed from an important asset to a threat, and the coal industry declining, it charts reasons for continuing coal dependence, and how this can be overcome. It will provide a source of inspiration for energy transition for researchers in environment, sustainability, and politics, as well as policymakers.

Economic historians have long appreciated the important role of the Lowther family in the developing Whitehaven from a tiny fishing village into a flourishing industrial centre. In Coal and Tobacco, Dr Beckett has attempted, by analysing the west Cumberland economy, and the Lowther's entrepreneurial role, to reveal the vital importance of the coal industry. Since much of the coal was sold in Ireland, west Cumberland moved into a relationship with Dublin which was similar to, albeit on a smaller scale than, the more famous link between Tyneside and London. The coal trade provided the vital economic underpinning, but geographical considerations help to explain Whitehaven's other trading interests. Dr Beckett's major study is based on the Lowther papers, and reveals the crucial family involvement in these events. This book documents Lowther's story: how close he came to success, why he failed, and the impact of his ambitions on west Cumberland.

What happens when fossil fuels run out? How do communities and cultures survive? Central Appalachia and South Wales were built to extract coal, and faced with coal's decline, both regions have experienced economic depression, labor unrest, and out-migration. After Coal focuses on coalfield residents who chose not to leave, but instead remained in their communities and worked to build a diverse and sustainable economy. It tells the story of four decades of exchange between two mining communities on opposite sides of the Atlantic, and profiles individuals and organizations that are undertaking the critical work of regeneration. The stories in this book are told through interviews and photographs collected during the making of After Coal, a documentary film produced by the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University and directed by Tom Hansell. Considering resonances between Appalachia and Wales in the realms of labor, environment, and movements for social justice, the book approaches the transition from coal as an opportunity for marginalized people around the world to work toward safer and more egalitarian futures.

Rail freight expert Paul Shannon takes a detailed look at rail freight developments since 1968. He examines the gradual decline of coal mining in the UK, the changing requirements of the power generators, and changes brought about by privatization. The text is supported by many photographs, diagrams and maps.

Beginning with the nationalized British coal industry and then raising more general issues concerning the contemporary state, Joel Krieger studies the day wage structure for face workers (National Power Loading Agreement) introduced by the National Coal Board in 1966, its consequences, and the ways in which earlier work conventions, wage structures, and social relations affected it.

Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Experts agree that the earth will eventually run out of certain low-cost, nonrenewable resources, possibly as early as a century from now. Will the transition to reliance on other, more abundant resources be smooth or discontinuous? Might industrial societies experience a marked decline in living standards-a radically different kind of society from the one we now know? Geologists maintain that once inexpensive high-grade resources are exhausted, economic growth will slow. Economists are more optimistic: they believe that new technologies and materials will be substituted rapidly enough to prevent minor economic dislocations. Toward a New Iron Age? takes an important step toward reconciling these divergent views. It is the most comprehensive study of the economic consequences of resource depletion-in particular, it is a thorough exploration of the prospects for one key metal, copper. The authors draw on geological and engineering data to calculate the resources now available and to assess the feasibility of substituting alternatives. Using linear programming and a range of hypothetical base conditions, they are able to estimate the course, through the next century and beyond, of several crucial factors: the rate at which copper resources will be used and when they will be depleted; how the price of the metal will fluctuate; when alternative materials will be substituted, in what patterns, and at what costs. By the late twenty-first century, the authors believe, low-cost copper will no longer be available. Industrial societies will have to operate on more abundant resources such as iron, silica, and aluminum. They will enter, in short, a New Iron Age.

Since the early days of the Obama administration, conservative politicians have railed against the President's "war on coal." As evidence of this supposed siege, they point to a series of rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency that require the nation's power plants to cut their emissions of several types of air pollution. It's true that, because coal produces far more pollution than any other major energy source, the EPA's rules are expected to further reduce the fuel's already shrinking share of the electricity market, in favor of cleaner options like natural gas, wind and solar power. Even so, the rules are hardly the "unprecedented regulatory assault" that opponents make them out to be. Instead, they are merely the latest chapter in a longstanding quest for redemption, a multi-decade struggle to overcome a tragic flaw in our nation's most important environmental law. In 1970, a nearly unanimous Congress passed the Clean Air Act, which had the remarkably ambitious aim of eliminating all air pollution that posed a threat to public health or welfare. But there was a problem: for some of the most common pollutants, Congress empowered the EPA to set emission limits only for newly constructed industrial facilities-most notably, power plants. Existing facilities, by contrast, would be largely exempt from direct federal regulation-a regulatory practice known as "grandfathering." What lawmakers didn't anticipate was that imposing costly requirements on new plants while giving existing ones a pass would simply encourage those old plants to stay in business much longer than originally planned. For almost half a century now, the core problems of U.S. environmental policy have flowed inexorably from the smokestacks of these coal-fired clunkers, which continue to pollute at far higher rates than their younger peers. In Struggling for Air, Richard L. Revesz and Jack Lienke chronicle the political compromises that gave rise to grandfathering, its deadly consequences, and the repeated attempts-by Presidential administrations of both parties-to make things right.

Beginning with the nationalized British coal industry and then raising more general issues concerning the contemporary state, Joel Krieger studies the day wage structure for face workers (National Power Loading Agreement) introduced by the National Coal Board in 1966, its consequences, and the ways in which earlier work conventions, wage structures, and social relations affected it. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A personal remembrance from the preeminent chronicler of Black life in Appalachia. The Harlan Renaissance is an intimate remembrance of kinship and community in eastern Kentucky's coal towns written by one of the luminaries of Appalachian studies, William Turner. Turner reconstructs Black life in the company towns in and around Harlan County during coal's final postwar boom years, which built toward an enduring bust as the children of Black miners, like the author, left the region in search of better opportunities. The Harlan Renaissance invites readers into what might be an unfamiliar Appalachia: one studded by large and vibrant Black communities, where families took the pulse of the nation through magazines like Jet and Ebony and through the news that traveled within Black churches, schools, and restaurants. Difficult choices for the future were made as parents considered the unpredictable nature of Appalachia's economic realities alongside the unpredictable nature of a national movement toward civil rights. Unfolding through layers of sociological insight and oral history, The Harlan Renaissance centers the sympathetic perspectives and critical eye of a master narrator of Black life.

Like so many other lads in North Staffordshire, George Shufflebotham followed his father down the pit, so he knew what to expect when he rolled up for his first day at Berry Hill Colliery. Between 1996 and 2003 he wrote a series of popular articles that were featured in the Sentinel newspaper in the series "the way we were" and "all your yesterday's". This selection of those articles recall the experiences of working underground and reflect on the many human aspects of a working life down the pit.

The paper `Challenges and Approaches to Electricity Grids Operations and Planning with Increased Amounts of Variable Renewable Generation: Emerging Lessons from Selected Operational Experiences and Desktop Studies' focuses on analysing the impacts of variable renewable energy on the operation and planning of the power system (mostly, generation system). It is aimed at informing stakeholders in power utilities, regulatory bodies and other relevant audiences, on the fundamentals of technical challenges and approaches to operate electricity grids with renewable energy. It covers renewable energy as a whole, but in particular, focusses on wind and solar energy. It also presents three case studies of countries, including China, Germany and Spain. The total worldwide installed capacity of wind and solar projects is growing rapidly, and several countries are noticing increased penetrations of wind and solar in their electricity generation mix. In addition to operating experience being gained from adding wind and solar capacity, several grid integration studies have been performed that assess potential grid and operating impacts from adding higher amounts of wind and solar capacity. Perhaps just as important, the electric power industry and those that conduct research on grid integration have not found a maximum level of variable generation that can be reliably incorporated, and it is clear that it is as much an economic question (how much cost in additional reserves or grid impacts is acceptable) as a technical question regarding grid operators' ability to adapt to the new challenges. In addition, while their contributions to capacity or "firm" power and associated costs are different from those of conventional power sources, variable renewable generation technologies can contribute to long-term system adequacy and security. The paper describes on the contribution of variable power sources to long-term supply adequacy requirements, i.e. how much sources like wind and solar power contribute to "firm supply" in a system. It also describes methods to find out to what extent they contribute and at what cost. It also aims at providing indicative answers to how costs to system operations be determined and when and how an integration study be done to estimate the short-term reserve costs of renewable energy. The concepts in the paper should be of interest, especially to grid planers. For grid operators, the paper summarizes a menu of strategies that the operational practices and desktop research tell about managing wind in a system at different levels of penetration. It also elucidates available strategies, amongst other crucial questions of operational impacts and challenges that operators need to be aware of, to integrate variable generation.

Arthur Horner (1894-1968) was a miners' leader from the 1926 general strike to his retirement as general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1959. During his life he played a crucial role in the fight for a national mineworkers union, and in the development of the National Coal Board. He was a champion of the Republicans in Spain, was imprisoned several times for his views, and was in constant demand as a speaker. But it was his warmth, good humour and enthusiasm which made 'little Arthur', as he was affectionately known by his union colleagues, really memorable. Horner was a committed communist, but was also able to exercise effective leadership in a major trade union committed to social democratic principles, playing a key role in the social democratic settlement after the second world war.

" Coal miners evoke admiration and sympathy from the public, and writers -- some seeking a muse, others a cause -- traditionally champion them. David C. Duke explores more than one hundred years of this tradition in literature, poetry, drama, and film. Duke argues that as most writers spoke about rather than to the mining community, miners became stock characters in an industrial morality play, robbed of individuality or humanity. He discusses activist-writers such as John Reed, Theodore Dreiser, and Denise Giardina, who assisted striking workers, and looks at the writing of miners themselves. He examines portrayals of miners from The Trail of the Lonesome Pine to Matewan and The Kentucky Cycle. The most comprehensive study on the subject to date, Writers and Miners investigates the vexed political and creative relationship between activists and artists and those they seek to represent.