Analyses conditions in the coal mining sector which precipitated the strike. Discusses the mobilisation, organisation and maintenance of the strike, the strike settlement and its aftermath.

This book analyzes the international seaborne steam coal trade and investigates resource economics and market structures of the global coal market. It develops a model to analyze pricing structures which are based on the cost minimization principle.

Social science research is emerging on a range of issues around large and small-scale mining, connecting them to broader social, cultural, political, historical and economic factors rather than purely measuring the environmental impacts of mining. Within this broader context of global scholarly attention on extractive industries, this book explores two specific contexts: the cultural politics of coal and coal mining, within the context of one particular country, India, which is the third largest coal producer in the world. Both contexts are special; with its separate Ministry, coal occupies pride of place in contemporary India, shaping the energy future and influencing the economic and political milieu of the country. The supremacy attributed to coal mining in contemporary India represents how ’coal nationalism’ has replaced ’coal colonialism’ in the country, turning this commodity into an icon, a national symbol. In recent years the extraction of coal in forest-covered resource peripheries has dispossessed and pauperised many tribal and rural communities who have used these resource-rich lands for their livelihoods for generations. The combustion of coal to produce electricity constitutes the compelling need, and the factor that prevents the Indian state from fully engaging with the impending realities of a climate-changed future. All these reasons make the timing of this book of crucial importance. In particular, The Coal Nation explores the complex history of coal in India; from its colonial legacies to contemporary cultural and social impacts of mining; land ownership and moral resource rights; protective legislation for coal as well as for the indigenous and local communities; the question of legality, illegitimacy and illicit mining and of social justice. Presenting cutting-edge multidisciplinary social science research on coal and mining in India, The Coal Nation initiates a productive dialogue amongst academics and between them and activists.

How prisons became economic development strategies for rural Appalachian communities As the United States began the project of mass incarceration, rural communities turned to building prisons as a strategy for economic development. More than 350 prisons have been built in the U.S. since 1980, with certain regions of the country accounting for large shares of this dramatic growth. Central Appalachia is one such region; there are eight prisons alone in Eastern Kentucky. If Kentucky were its own country, it would have the seventh highest incarceration rate in the world. In Coal, Cages, Crisis, Judah Schept takes a closer look at this stunning phenomenon, providing insight into prison growth, jail expansion and rising incarceration rates in America’s hinterlands. Drawing on interviews, site visits, and archival research, Schept traces recent prison growth in the region to the rapid decline of its coal industry. He takes us inside this startling transformation occurring in the coalfields, where prisons are often built on top of old coalmines, including mountaintop removal sites, and built into community planning approaches to crises of unemployment, population loss, and declining revenues. By linking prison growth to other sites in this landscape—coal mines, coal waste, landfills, and incinerators—Schept shows that the prison boom has less to do with crime and punishment and much more with the overall extraction, depletion, and waste disposal processes that characterize dominant development strategies for the region. Schept argues that the future of this area now hangs in the balance, detailing recent efforts to oppose its carceral growth. Coal, Cages, Crisis offers invaluable insight into the complex dynamics of mass incarceration that continue to shape Appalachia and the broader United States.

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! Did you know that most of the energy we use comes from coal, oil, and natural gas? How do workers collect these fossil fuels? And what effects do these fuels have on the environment? Read this book to find out all about coal, oil, and natural gas.

The hard coal industry in western Europe has been in decline for many years. This study examines its future prospects and finds no reason to believe that the trend will be reversed. The author shows how the manner and rate of this decline will continue to be determined as much by political as by economic factors, including the politics of environmental controls and market liberalization, where developments have been increasingly unfavourable to coal. A centrally directed policy by the European Union to protect indigenous coal production has never seemed likely, with the policies of member states showing wide divergences. Above all, there has been a marked contrast between the UK policy of rapid contraction of its relatively efficient industry, and the German policy of continuing massive subsidization of its very high-cost industry, with slow adaptation by consensus. This great anomaly cannot be understood without looking at the politics.