History of coal mining

• 1. Ancient Origins And Early Extraction

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  In 25,000 to 23,000 BC, a settlement on Landek Hill in Ostrava, Petřkovice used black coal for heating. This site represents the oldest intentional use of coal documented by radiocarbon dating. By 3490 BC, surface mining and household usage appeared in China. The Greek scientist Theophrastus wrote about coal in his treatise On stones around 371 to 287 BC. Romans exploited major coalfields in Britain by the late second century AD. They used coal to heat public baths, military forts, and villas through hypocaust systems. Excavations revealed coal stores at many forts along Hadrian's Wall. A lively trade developed along the North Sea coast supplying Yorkshire and London. Bituminous coal was already used for smelting iron ore in the continental Rhineland. After the Romans left Britain in AD 410, records of coal use were scarce until the end of the twelfth century. An Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry from 852 mentions rent including twelve loads of coal. In 1183, a smith received land with the requirement to raise his own coal. By 1215, sea coal began trading in Scotland and north-east England where carboniferous strata exposed themselves on the seashore. Marco Polo described widespread coal use in Yuan dynasty China during the late thirteenth century. He noted it supported heated baths beyond what wood could achieve. Sir George Bruce of Carnock opened the first moat pit under the sea on the Firth of Forth in 1575. He constructed an artificial loading island with a forty-foot shaft connecting to two other shafts for drainage and ventilation.

• 2. The Industrial Revolution Boom

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  The Industrial Revolution began in Britain during the eighteenth century before spreading to continental Europe, North America, and Japan. Steam engines powered by coal drove massive expansion of deep shaft mining throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Annual coal output reached just under three million tons in 1700. Between 1770 and 1780, annual output rose to approximately six point two five million long tons. Output soared after 1790, reaching sixteen million long tons by 1815 at the height of the Napoleonic War. By 1830, production exceeded thirty million tons. In 1850, average mine output was about one hundred thousand tons with employment around sixty-four workers. By 1900, average mine output had risen significantly while employment grew to about fourteen hundred workers. The United States saw total coal output double every ten years between 1850 and 1890. Production went from four hundred thousand tons in 1850 to twenty-seven hundred million tons in 1900. Coal provided seventy-one percent of U.S. energy by the turn of the century. Belgium's coalfield lay near the navigable river Meuse allowing shipment downstream to ports. The Saint-Quentin Canal opened in 1810 enabling barge transport to Paris. By 1866, some Belgian pits reached depths of over one thousand meters. Nova Scotia's Foord Pit became the deepest coal mine in the world by 1866. At its peak in 1949, twenty-five thousand miners dug seventeen million metric tons of coal from Nova Scotian mines. China produced over two point eight billion tons of coal in 2007, representing approximately thirty-nine point eight percent of global production that year.

• 3. Labor Unions And Political Power

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  The Miners Federation of Great Britain formed in 1888 with six hundred thousand members by 1908. This union later became the National Union of Mineworkers. In South Wales, miners lived in isolated villages where they comprised the great majority of workers. They forged a community of solidarity under the leadership of the Miners Federation. The union supported first the Liberal Party then after 1918 Labour, with some Communist Party activism at the fringes. John L. Lewis led the United Mine Workers becoming the dominant force in U.S. coal fields during the 1930s and 1940s. He produced high wages and benefits for miners. UMW membership fell from sixteen hundred thousand in 1980 to only sixteen thousand in 2005 as mining became more mechanized. In France, labor unions emerged emphasizing safety issues in the late nineteenth century. There were one hundred seventy-five injuries per thousand workers per year in 1885. Deaths remained relatively low at two per thousand workers but major disasters always threatened. One thousand nine men died in the Courrières mine disaster of 1906. Campaigns for mine safety enabled miners to break from peasant psychology and create solidarity. Unions gained strength by setting up worker-elected mine-safety delegates. The national government encouraged the mine safety movement to limit strife in turbulent coal fields. Strikes remained very common throughout this period. Coal miners took the lead in political organization across many countries including Britain, Germany, Poland, Japan, Chile, Canada, and the U.S. Militant coal miners in Russia and Ukraine formed the mainstay of revolutionary forces that overthrew the Communist system in 1991.

• 4. Technological Safety And Innovation

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  Protection for miners arrived with the invention of the Davy lamp and Geordie lamp around 1830. These lamps allowed firedamp or methane to burn harmlessly within the light chamber without spreading combustion to outside air. Metal gauze or fine tubes prevented dangerous explosions while providing illumination. Early lamps offered very poor lighting quality. Great efforts developed better safe lamps like the Mueseler produced in Belgian pits near Liège. Wooden pit props supporting roofs were an innovation first introduced about 1800. Fires burned at the bottom of upcast shafts created air currents but were later replaced by fans driven by steam engines. In 1790, maximum depth of mines reached one hundred meters. By 1856, average depth in the Borinage was three hundred meters. Some pits reached depths exceeding one thousand meters making them among Europe's deepest. Belgium had high coal miner fatality rates due to gas explosions being a serious problem. The Courrières mine disaster caused death of one thousand nine miners in Northern France on March tenth 1906. The Benxihu Colliery accident in China killed fifteen hundred forty-nine miners on April twenty-sixth 1942. Mitsubishi Hojyo coal mine disaster occurred December fifteenth 1914 killing six hundred eighty-seven people representing Japan's worst mining incident.

• 5. Global Disasters And Human Cost

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  The worst single disaster in British coal mining history happened at Senghenydd in the South Wales coalfield. On October fourteenth 1913, an explosion and subsequent fire killed four hundred thirty-six men and boys. Only seventy-two bodies were recovered from the pit. Most explosions resulted from firedamp ignitions followed by coal dust explosions. At Hartley Colliery Disaster of 1862, no explosion occurred but miners became entombed when a broken cast iron beam blocked the single shaft. Deaths mainly resulted from carbon monoxide poisoning known as afterdamp. The Aberfan disaster in 1966 buried a school in South Wales when a huge slag heap collapsed. One hundred sixteen children and twenty-eight adults died in that tragedy. In China, unofficial estimates show up to twenty thousand miners die in accidents each year. Occupational pneumoconiosis rates among migrant workers reached ninety-eight point three one percent during a 2015 investigation of Hunan province. Only twenty point eight percent received compensation following workplace injuries. Health coverage and safety measures for migrant coal miners remain severely lacking in many Chinese mines. Media products like To the Light: The Dark Days of China's Coal Miners portray brutal working conditions though these films receive scrutiny from the Chinese government.

• 6. Environmental Impact And Decline

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  Coal consumption doubled every decade between 1850 and 1890 before beginning its decline due to environmental concerns. By 2010, coal produced over one-fourth of the world's energy. Since 1970, environmental issues have become increasingly important including health effects on miners and destruction of landscapes from strip mines. Mountaintop removal caused air pollution contributing significantly to global warming. Competition from oil natural gas nuclear power and renewable energy sources replaced coal dominance by the late twentieth century. Australia surpassed the United States as the world's largest coal exporter in 1984. One-third of Australia's exports shipped from Hunter Valley region where mining began nearly two centuries earlier. Newcastle became the largest coal port in the world after coal was found there in 1795. In January 2008, Tower Colliery in Hirwaun closed with loss of one hundred twenty jobs marking exhaustion of South Wales Valleys last deep pit mine. Kellingley Colliery operated until December eighteenth 2015 when coaling operations ceased losing four hundred fifty jobs bringing deep coal mining in the UK to an end entirely. Wyoming became largest coal producing state in 1987 using strip mining exclusively. Rapid drop in natural gas prices after 2008 created severe competition for U.S. coal mines approaching end of useful life.