May 10
Coal Worker's Pneumoconiosis ◼ The lungs remember what the industry forgot
Coal Worker's Pneumoconiosis ◼ The lungs remember what the industry forgot
04-07-25 | English coal miner. MisterLemonzMen.tumblr.com/archive
Glenn Ligon Mirror #7 2006 Acrylic, coal dust, screen print, gesso and oil stick on canvas 213.4 x 152.4 cm
[Request Time] Coal Dust & Dusty Diamond OCs.
Character concept by requester, @apgsquared-blog
Art by me :D
Coal mine dust hastens Arctic snow melt
Dust released by an active coal mine in Svalbard, Norway, reduced the spectral reflectance of nearby snow and ice by up to 84 percent, according to new University of Colorado Boulder-led research.
The study illustrates the significant, localized role that dark-colored particulates—which absorb more solar radiation than light-colored snow and keep more heat closer to the Earth’s surface—can play in hastening Arctic ice melt.
The study was published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.
Unblemished snow and ice have a very high spectral albedo, a measurement used to indicate how effectively a given surface reflects solar energy. Over time, airborne black carbon particles (from soot or automobile emissions, for example) or other mineral dust can travel long distances in the atmosphere and settle on snow and glaciers, lowering the overall albedo.
To study the localized effects of coal dust on an area with high spectral reflectance, CU Boulder researchers focused on an active coal mine in Svalbard, Norway, located on a sparsely populated island north of the Arctic Circle. The researchers collected snow and ice samples from four sites at varying distances from the mine, with some samples being visibly dirtier than others.
The researchers then measured the light absorption capacity of each sample, adjusting for environmental factors such as snow grain size and location relative to the mine. Overall, the study concluded that coal dust had a strong but localized effect, reducing the albedo in the immediate area by up to 84 percent.
The findings may provide a foundation for similar research using satellites and remote sensing techniques in far-flung areas.
Read more here.
Provided by the University of Colorado, Boulder
Curtis Bay residents denounce proposed Maryland regulations for CSX coal terminal
At the Railway’s Mercy
Nearly everybody including me, who lived beyond Brisbane’s boundaries, relied on trains for transportation. Trams didn’t run outside the city’s perimeter. Whilst motor vehicles had increased in number since the fifties, regional roads were still built for horse and cart traffic. This reliance made the Railway a powerful organisation. Such monopoly, its’ executives believed would continue forever.
The Railway treated its employees, passengers and freight customers alike with condescension. It transported almost everything everywhere on its own timetable: the living, their animals, the dead and anything these needed for their existence and business. It brought mail from all corners of the state to the General Post Office in Brisbane for sorting and onward travel. People accepted their deliveries would arrive whenever and in whatever condition these eventually did, having passed through multiple pairs of hands.
The Railway’s lines crisscrossed the length and breadth of the state. Even tinpot communities of a few hundred people had stations manned with staff and permanent track maintenance crews. The Railway’s costs to operate as well as to maintain its infrastructure and to build more greatly exceeded the normal person’s comprehension. Notwithstanding its volume of traffic, it didn’t earn a profit with the deficit of thousands of pounds footed by the taxpayers. They didn’t complain. Accordingly, the Railway saw no reason why it should change its antiquated, inefficient practices.
Every week day, I joined the thousands of its passengers. Those days that I began my journey at Bethania Station, I waited for a suburban rattler pulled by a PB15 steam engine to arrive at 6.25 am. Usually, the train came on time as it should have given that the station was its first stop. I stepped up from the low platform on to a carriage’s running board and grabbed the metal handles to climb into one of the train’s six second class carriages.
Inside, I looked for the least dirty seat and brushed the coal dust from it. Some people sat on the advertisement section of their newspapers. I wasn’t sure which was worse on one’s backside, a coal smudge or an advertisement for unmentionables. A few men smoked cigarettes and pipes even though the carriage may have been designated as nonsmoking. Smoke was both outside and inside; there wasn’t any difference. At least the nicotine smell cloaked the unwashed smell of some passengers. The ticket snapper soon came along with the hope I was a fare evader. This was not so and never so! The guard leant out from the rear carriage and waited for the station master’s hand signal. Upon receiving this, he waved his green flag and blew his whistle. The engine driver released the mighty steam engine’s brakes and engaged its drive wheels. The train lurched forward and began its slow thirty-two kilometre journey to South Brisbane Station.
As a child, I loved train rides to Brisbane. As a young man, the opposite applied. The route rarely varied so the daily scenes outside the carriage window didn’t either. After thousands of journeys, I barely glanced at them anymore. The constant clicky clack of the train’s steel wheels numbed my mind into a state of lethargy. I usually battled to stay awake as one never knew what crooked characters were passengers too. Everybody generally was suspicious of everybody else unless they knew them. Consequently, I didn’t engage in conversations with strangers. Whilst some people hid behind their newspapers, I didn’t take out a text book from my bag. The train’s constant noise and movement as well as passenger interruptions made concentration difficult.
The journey was like a trip through history. The train chugged through open country, over the Logan River and across the biggest bridge between Brisbane and Bethania. Supposedly, steam engines faster than the PB15 were too heavy to cross the aging timber bridge. The train stopped for a passenger at Loganlea sometimes. This small farming hamlet existed as it did last century. Onwards, the train steamed into the current century to Kingston, the area’s commercial hub where a prosperous butter factory operated and a once illustrious gold mine had existed. Despite the fixed gold price, the mine hadn’t turned a profit. Rumours lingered from its heyday that the miners themselves had pocketed the gold and become rich. Alas, they left behind an environmental debacle for the politicians to resolve. Next, at Woodridge, the train filled up with workers. The place was posh in name only. The government had encouraged migrants to settle there; yet had failed to plan a town or services for them. This failure would condemn it and its residents to future impoverishment.
I absentmindedly watched more stations flit by. At Runcorn, the foundations of the wartime military warehouses were still visible. Later, the Bradford Kendall heavy machinery foundry would be built on them. During World War Two, the surrounding suburbs had been the military’s manufacturing hub for equipment and armaments. Onwards, the train chugged to Rocklea which perennial floods attempted to wash away. It then picked up speed and ran express to South Brisbane. At Moorooka, I glanced at the interstate goods yards, colloquially called Clapham Junction, where a long line of retired Bayer Garrett steam engines had been parked on a track indefinitely. During the war, troops had erected a tent city close to here. As the train passed Park Road Station, Boggo Road Gaol loomed above with its gloomy Victorian architecture, home to the perpetrators of heinous crimes. At least, they saw the sunlight whilst working in the gardens.
The steam train thundered through the only tunnel on the route. Anyone who forgot to raise the rattly glass windows beforehand ended up covered in soot and coal dust. After nineteen stations, the train screeched to a halt at South Brisbane Station and disgorged hundreds of passengers. A mass of bodies charged down the stairs to the street. People boarded trams to the City or walked instead past the fish board, along the polluted Brisbane River and its docks then across Victoria Bridge. The smell was nauseating.
Unfortunately, the whole return journey awaited me if I wasn’t at college that night. I couldn’t believe that people endured this monotony for the duration of their working lives. I wasn’t yet eighteen and had already decided I didn’t like adult life or the big city very much. I also yearned for some respite from the Railway’s and its schedule’s control over my daily existence. My childhood romance with it was waning.
The Courrières mine disaster, Europe's worst mining accident, caused the death of 1,099 miners in Northern France on 10 March 1906.
It is generally agreed that the majority of the deaths and destruction were caused by an explosion of coal dust which swept through the mine. However it has never been ascertained what caused the initial ignition of the coal dust.
Two main causes have been hypothesized:
An accident during the handling of mining explosives.
Ignition of methane by the naked flame of a miner's lamp.
A group of 13 survivors, known later as the rescapés, was found by rescuers on 30 March, 20 days after the explosion.
They had survived at first by eating bark from the crossbeams, later by eating a rotting mine horse. They avoided dehydration by drinking the water dripping from the walls.
The two eldest (39 and 40 years old) were awarded the Légion d'honneur, the other eleven (including three younger than 18 years of age) received the Médaille d'or du courage.
A final survivor was found on 4 April.