Now the correct answer. The process above is called Strip Mining and the machine doing it is Bucket Wheel Excavator. The experimental prototypes appeared in early 20th century but really took off around 1970. There are more technicalities a professional miner will be able to point out but for the purpose of this article they are not important.
These technological and other developments revolutionised mining. If before a lot of people had to work together in small pits or underground shafts to painstakingly collect a few pieces of coal every day, then with BWE a small crew can easily extract tons upon tons of coal every day. Coal, that was very hard and sometimes dangerous to mine, suddenly became cheap easy and abundant.
However new methods of mining did have a certain negative effect. Just like any other technological breakthrough, it did make obsolete the methods that were used before. In this case old mines, using more traditional methods of mining, became unable to compete with new much more productive and cheaper ones.
Already in 1973 government of UK considered closing some of their mines. The miner's strike did put an end to this plan, and miners even got a pay rise. However, that made traditional mining even more unprofitable than it was before. Combined salaries of miners were much higher than the price Coal Board could get for the coal they could mine. That was not sustainable. As time went it only got worse.
Eventually government struck back. Charismatic Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher first convinced the public the cuts were necessary and then went after mines. She closed the already unprofitable ones and promised to gradually close the rest as they gradually deplete. Miners fought back with strikes and protests, but this time government was prepared. They stockpiled coal in advance, and this time had access to significant amounts of imported coal.
Fundamentally miners lost precisely because their mining was no longer as essential to economy as it once was. Early 1900s of peak coal when without its mines and miners UK would just stop were long gone. Now miners and their mines were history, a different kind of mines that used heavy machinery like BWE were now making more than enough coal to heat not just UK but the world, cheap and easy.
Now to the second part of the question. Why it collapsed USSR. BWE sure is big but not big enough to destroy the superpower armed with nuclear weapons, right? Turned out BWE could and did destroy a superpower armed with nuclear weapons.
Unlike UK, where Thatcher government could alter laws and close mines, Soviet system had workers protections enshrined on nearly constitutional level. That gave workers unparallel job security that USSR liked to brag about both to its public and abroad, never failing to mention how Soviet worker cannot be fired on a whim of some greedy capitalist boss. In times of economic stability and absence of dramatic technological changes it worked well, but when technological change required that some industries be completely re-imagined, it was an unacceptable impediment.
Since Soviet Socialist ethos prevented them from just firing workers, they decided to fight the economy instead. Ever since early 80s successive governments tried variety of measures to improve productivity and stave off economic collapse and bankruptcy. One year they will toughen measures, institute strict accountability and tell people work harder or else? When that did not work, they will try the other way and instead allow private enterprise. A year later Gorbachev will go on a global charm offensive to get loans to democratise USSR and prop up the economy while at it.
Despite best efforts, Gorbachev policy experiments have not managed to beat the economy. Late 80s were characterised by shortages of food and other basic goods. Finally, USSR itself collapsed in 1991. Economy won. All that showed that if a country will not adapt to an economic change, it will be swept away by an economic storm even if it's a superpower armed with nuclear weapons.
The final question. How that relates to a War in Donbas. Simple, the people do not get the economy. Even in relatively economically savvy UK, if you ask anyone from a mining town why mines closed. they will squarely blame it on Thatcher. Most will say it her sheer malice and evil nature that make her close mines, hurt workers and steal children's milk from schools. Even complex in depth explanation by YouTube pundits often cite neoconservative conspiracy to enrich the rich by robbing the poor. Hadly anyone will quote Bill Clinton's famous "it's the economy stupid".
That should be no surprise than their colleagues in Ukrainian Donbas also do not blame the economy for their troubles. If an average erudite from Chto Gde Kogda will not be able to get that one, what can one expect from a miner that goes down the dusty shaft every working day. Not the most conductive environment for intellectual development.
Back during Soviet times miners would blame Gorbachev and Soviet government. Most actually supported Ukraine's independence for that simple reason, thinking it will make mining great again. However, after independence they would soon start blaming new government in Kyiv that old underground shaft mines do not pay as much as they used to during 70s. Eventually this sentiment gave rise to Soviet nostalgia and pro-Russian irredentism. Miners forgot how they thought separating from USSR will solve the mining problem, now they thought re-uniting with Russia will solve it instead.
Hawks in Russia, overrepresented both in government and among the general population compared to other countries, saw it as a call for action. To "liberate" the miners from government in Kyiv. Concerns for Russian language, culture, EU, NATO and other things further added to the casus belli. In actuality Ukraine was and still is very reasonable in phasing in use of Ukrainian language instead of Russian one. It natural that every country would expect its residents and citizens to be able to communicate in its national language. Even that however offended Russian hawks as they see Russian language and its continued usage as some sort of unalienable right of Russophones of post-Soviet states.
Russian government made things worse by either deliberately exacerbating or downright inventing obstacles Russian speakers face in Ukraine, giving hawks more reasons to call for action. At first, they simply wanted cheap distraction from domestic problems for Russian public. However, the lies they told eventually grew so large, it became impossible to not act on them. After certain point refusing to do so would either mean Putin is too weak or cowardly to do anything. Admitting that all Russian TV has told them about Ukraine was a lie (which it was), including life footage of abuse that was staged or fabricated, was not good either as that will make people question other things Putin and Russian TV ever claimed or showed.
A war ensued and as of writing this text the end it nowhere in sight.
However, while war is often seen as univocally bad thing, there is one silver lining that can actually produce something good from all that destruction. It will open Donbas area to a more modern methods of mining.
Most of Donbas mining was in underground shafts. These take very little space on the surface, so mining towns were built all around mines. The density of build-up makes it impossible to convert the area into open pit or strip-mining area, where heavy machinery will fit and be able to work, without destroying the mining towns themselves.
Now that war brought destruction in the area and Russia literary levelled several towns like Bakhmut with the ground, that surface mining could become feasible.
If Ukraine will begin shelling the annexed areas controlled by Russia the same way Russia shelled Bakhmut, soon the entire area will be rubble. War will give convenient excuse to do this to this area. Most of the population has already fled and a lot of housing is already damaged beyond repair. There is no reason to not finish the job.
Profits from surface mining will be able to bring prosperity to Ukraine and fix the damage war has done to it. At the same time there are hardly any downsides left as most towns are already damaged beyond repair and most people have fled. So, it's time to make lemonade out of proverbial lemons that life gives sometimes. The country will be richer from it.
No comments:
Post a Comment