From McDougall, 1982 to 500 million cubic feet in 1970. Increased
production drove down the prices for these new fuels and their use increased
rapidly (See Fig. 3). . Energy Source 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 Petroleum 29.8
45.7 48.6 49.4 48.1 Natural Gas 2.5 3.9 9.0 13.1 16.5 Coal and Coke 47.6 27.7
14.7 24.5 24.6 Hydroelectricity 20.1 22.7 27.7 24.5 24.6 Total BTU's (1012)
2493 3188 3671 4814 6328 Fig. 3 Sources of Canadian Primary Energy Consumption
(percentages) 1950-1970. From Doern, Toner 1985).
Another factor instrumental in the decline of coal use is its harmful
environmental effects and their associated costs in today's more
environmentally conscious society. Sulfur is a major environmental liability
problem for coal, and the sulfur content of coal can be as much as 3 per cent.
When this sulfur is burned along with the coal it produces sulfur dioxide
(SO2). This gas is toxic and can be severely irritating to the eyes and lungs.
In the atmosphere sulfur dioxide combines with water vapour to produce
sulfuric acid which is then removed through precipitation and it falls to
earth as acid rain.
There are presently methods available that are able to remove some of
the sulfur from coal prior to burning but the process is expensive and only
partially successful. Another alternative is burning low sulfur coal but more
often than not this coal is lower quality coal and more of it must be burnt in
order to get the same output of energy (Montgomery, 1990). It is also possible
to remove the sulfur gases after the coal is burnt but before it is released
to the atmosphere through the use of scrubbers but this is expensive and can
increase the cost of using coal by up to 25 per cent (Alm, Curhan, 1984).
Oil also contains sulfur but most of it is removed during the refining
process and by the time it is burnt it only contains about 10 per cent of the
sulfur that coal does. The burning of coal also produces a great deal of solid
waste. Ash left over from burning coal can amount to five to twenty percent of
the original volume. In the atmosphere it fouls the air and if it is captured
by scrubbers it still must be safely disposed of in some manner. Coal ash is
composed mostly of incombustible silicate materials but it also contains toxic
metals and even trace amounts of uranium.
If left exposed to the elements the fine ash weathers rapidly and the
toxic metals leach out posing a pollution threat to ground and surface water.
A single coal fired power plant can produce up to a million tonnes of solid
waste per year, all of which must be safely disposed of or treated at great
cost (Montgomery, 1990) Devco By the mid 1960's coal mining in Nova Scotia was
in serious trouble. With cheap imported oil and an expanding network of oil
and gas pipelines coal was becoming more expensive to use than its
alternatives. In 1963 the federal government established the Cape Breton
Development Corporation (Devco) to slowly wind down the industry and find
alternative employment and development opportunities for those affected
communities (Doern, Toner, 1985).
By 1971 Devco had cut mining employment by half. With Devco now in
charge and their agenda clear it looked like the end for the unprofitable coal
mining industry. Then the Arab oil embargo of 1973 quadrupled oil prices and
the interest in coal was rekindled around the world as every major oil
importing country gave high priority to reducing their dependence on foreign
oil. Output of coal by the industry increased slightly (see Fig. 4) but would
never again be as great as it was during the first half of the century. The
second oil price increase in 1976 rose oil prices by another 160 per cent and
the price of Cape Breton coal rose from eight dollars per tonne in 1967 to 52
dollars per tonne by 1984.
The company began to open new mines Lingan in 1974, Prince in 1976 and
in 1987 it began developing a new 600 million-dollar mine at Donkin, predicted
to be the largest underground mine in North America. The company was finding
new export markets and had just received a 33-year contract to supply the Nova
Scotia Power Corporation, which was scrambling to convert its generating
plants to coal. The future once again looked bright for the industry as the
Fig. 4 Graph showing the Nova Scotia coal output over the last century and a
half. Notice the peaks during the first and second world wars and the increase
during the 70's. Source: Statistics Canada. price of oil was 40 dollars (U.S.)
per barrel and was predicted to be 100 dollars per barrel by the end of the
century.
The analysts were wrong however, by 1999 the price was more like 15
dollars and the oil industry once again was on its way out (Cameron, 1999). As
mentioned before Devco was more of a regional development plan rather than a
business, else the Nova Scotia coal industry would have folded a lot sooner
than it had. Devco acted as a type of life support system for the Nova Scotian
economy effectively serving as a wealth transfer system transfering money from
the have provinces to have nots. As of 1995 Devco had managed to acquire 1.2
billion dollars in losses in just 27 years in operation (MacIsaac, 1995).
Devco actually turned a profit every year from 1993 to 1997 but those
profits were not enough to cover the companies non-operating costs such as
pensions, workers compensation, long-term liabilities, and decommissioning of
the mines. Finally in January of 1998 the federal government announced that it
was privatizing Devco and quitting the coal industry it had supported since
1967. In 2000 Devco was down to one working coal mine which Ottawa planned to
sell along with the rest of its coal assets by the end of the year. However
there is no guarantee that a private company will emerge to take over
operation of the Prince mine (Cameron, 1999).
The collapse of any regions major industry will have a serious impact on
the population. Regional net migration is affected by Push/Pull factors. Push
factors are those that cause people to leave an area. In the case of Nova
Scotia the major push factor is a lack of jobs available due to the collapse
of the coal mining industry and the recent moratorium placed on the cod
fishing industry. Things have gotten so bad that a 12 dollar an hour job in
the west has been sufficient to convince some people to leave the province
(Daily Commercial News, 2000). Pull factors are those that attract people to a
particular region. Recently the trend is a general migration westward towards
the booming economies of Ontario, and British Columbia (See Fig. 5). This
creates a more favourable economic climate for both regions as one gets relief
for it's social assistance programs and the other gets much needed labour.
Province Total In-Migrants Total Out-Migrants Net Migration Newfoundland
4779 8603 -3824 P.E.I. 1438 1233 +205 Nova Scotia 8260 9340 -1080 New
Brunswick 6484 7215 -731 Quebec 12295 19180 -6885 Ontario 41719 37660 +4059
Manitoba 13339 11267 +2072 Saskatchewan 11093 13309 -2216 Alberta 29412 29647
-235 British Columbia 37172 26510 +10662 Fig. 5 Interprovincial migration
January-June 1995. Source: Western Report Nov. 27 1995. The Future of the Nova
Scotia Coal Industry If the OPEC years have taught us anything its that our
reliance on foreign oil can leave us vulnerable to fuel shortages. Shortages
not only caused by embargoes, but since fossil fuels are a non-renewable
resource, from just depleting the worlds finite supply.
As seen in the seventies when the price of oil rose drastically,
interest in coal mining was renewed and such will be the case again. Coal is
the most abundant fossil fuel on the face of the earth (see Fig. 6) and its
use was only discontinued because the other, less abundant, fuels were cheaper
to transport. As our reserves of natural gas and oil deplete the law of supply
and demand states their price will go up until such a time where coal once
again becomes competitive in the industrial market. As well there are various
technologies that exist in order to change the form of coal so it is more
easily transported. Currently there are two processes; Gasification and
Liquefaction.
Coal gasification is a process for converting coal partially or
completely to combustible gases. After purification, these gases - carbon
monoxide, carbon dioxide, Fig. 6 Energy content of the world's initial supply
of recoverable fossil fuels is given in units of 1015 thermal kilowatt-hours.
Coal and lignite, for example, contain 55.9 x 1015 kilowatt hours of energy
and represent 88.8 percent of the recoverable energy. Source: Siever, 1978.
hydrogen, methane, and nitrogen - can be used as fuels or as raw materials for
chemical or fertilizer manufacture.
There are many techniques to accomplish this but all involve heating the
coal with steam in the absence of air. Currently the heat from burning this
gas amounts to only 15 to 30 per cent of what can be obtained with an equal
volume of natural gas (Montgomery, 1990). Coal liquefaction is a process that
involves first the manufacture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen gases from the
coal. Heating these gases in the presence of a certain catalyst at high
temperatures will cause them to be transformed into liquid hydrocarbons
(petroleum).
Currently these processes are uneconomical and only those countries,
which have no domestic oil or gas reserves, have made them viable. Germany
used this technique to produce synthetic diesel fuel during WWII and currently
South Africa has a coal liquefaction plant in operation making gasoline and
fuel oil (Miller, 1996). Summary In summary, the Nova Scotia coal mining
industry is not dead, it is only on standby until such a time as it becomes
economically viable. The same market forces and concepts that had given rise
to it, and led to its demise will eventually revitalize it.
Once the oil and gas reserves of the western provinces have been
depleted Nova Scotia may become one of the have provinces supporting their
failing industries. We may even see a shift in net-migration eastward. How far
off into the future this will take place no one knows for sure, but the worlds
hunger for fossil fuels is insatiable and it is only a matter of time.
Bibliography
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