fuels for coal. Electricity is generated in three main ways: oil, coal and nuclear. In 1983 the split was 7 per cent, 73 per cent, and 18 per cent respectively. This ratio roughly held until March 1984. In April oil burn shot up. The CEGB burnt almost as much oil in a month as it usually does in a year.
Wiel machinery will be shut off is sensitive to ty, current stocks, tneir usability and future deliveries. (Production is less relevant; deliveries to power stations from either current output or the 20 million or so tonnes of pit head stocks Most commentators agree that the CEGB is currently using nuclear and oil capacity to the hilt. Walker confirmed this on Weekend World on 22 July. Our calculations also bear it out and it would indeed be surprising if the board Assuming electricity consumption in June and July ran at last year's level, and a maximum oil and nuclear burn, we can calculate weekly deliveries to DOwer stations at approximately quarter of a million tonnes. This is well down on May's delivery agreement between the NUM and rail unions over a tighter boycott of coal should have reduced that figure since July.
If deliveries continue at this rate, ana we assume, as ao most commen• tators, that some five million tonnes of CEGB stock are unusable, nothing else much changes we will all be dinina cadelight come Novem ber.
Inings
change. The government knows the score. It is doing its own calculations chief worry. But riding out the strike also costs money. The biggest item is additional National Coal Board losses. City analysts put these at £34-35 million a week. Switching away from coal costs the CEGB British Steel's losses are up by some f5-8 million a week and British Rail's by around t5 million. figures. The government also revenue from week), and forks security benefits (f1 week). Policing the strike costs around is £70-79 milion a week, or around f4 billion a year. that is well over a quid for every woman, probably total subsidy disasterous car operation in the North of Ireland.
we go! e miners strike about £3.5 million. This hit the balance of payments, and so undermined confidence in sterling, The government responded to the resulting collapse in the pound by jacking up interest rates costing the averave mortuate (with a f20,000 mortgage) £40 or so a month.
So how do the National Board, the government and Fleet Street commentators usury not acceeding 1o the NUM's demands? They deploy several arguments.
that the destructive. Ian MacGregor has suggested that the dispute many pits as he's demanding, since pits deterioralng through maintenance.
The strike is certainly taking a toll on the mines. But MacGregor may be worried about which pits are suffering most. The pit deputies union NACODS argues that the more profitable the pits, the greater the destruction. machinery has moved along a seam, the more susceptible it is to collapse.
A second argument is that taxpayers cannot be expected to 'uneconomic' pits. This idea is holes. On official figures the NCB subsidy runs at some f500 million a year.
bavel Coal is selfwill close Black The faster subsidise apparently Socialist Action 31 August 1984