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coal industry

Read more about the article When Killingworth Colliery blew up
Killingworth Colliery before the explosion. From an old postcard.

When Killingworth Colliery blew up

Thanks to Brian Robert Andrews for correcting and informing this text. At 5.25am on December 7, 1910, people who lived near Killingworth, NSW, were awoken by a huge, ground-shaking explosion. As they looked outside, they saw a great black cloud of dust over the area of West Wallsend-Killingworth Colliery and immediately guessed what had happened. The colliery had exploded, hurling dust and debris about 300m into the air. Fortunately the mine was not working at the time. It had been in care and maintenance for two months, and the deputies and maintenance men who were due…

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Read more about the article Coal pile to the moon

Coal pile to the moon

To the moon, with plenty left over. That’s how far the coal mined from the Hunter Valley in NSW during the decade up to 2010 would have reached, if it had been stacked into a two-square-metre pillar. I did that calculation when I was working as a reporter at The Newcastle Herald, the newspaper serving the city of Newcastle. Newcastle is the second city of NSW and lies at the mouth of the Hunter Valley. It is often reputed to be the world’s largest coal port, in terms of volume. My figures didn’t count the coal…

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Young people are right to be anxious

“I want children growing up in Australia to feel positive about their future, and I think it is important we give them that confidence that they will not only have a wonderful country and pristine environment to live in, that they will also have an economy to live in as well. I don’t want our children to have anxieties about these issues.” Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, urging young Australians to stop worrying about climate change. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So the Australian government wants its young citizens to feel positive about the government’s approach to the environment…

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