BRITAIN’S COAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27391, 17 May 1950, Page 6

BRITAIN’S COAL

Value Of Nationalisation TECHNICAL POINT OF VIEW The nationalisation of Britain’s coal resources had been a good thing from the technical standpoint, said Professor D. W. Phillips, who occupies the chair of mining engineering at the Sydney University of Technology, in an interview with the Daily Times last night. The move had resulted in the best brains in the industry being placed in a position where they could control the whole industry, Professor Phillips said. Problems were coordinated and attacked on a national basis, and the same standards of efficiency were applied to all pits. Professor Phillips was until eight months ago chief safety engineer to the National Coal Board in control of the industry in Britain. He arrived in Dunedin last night to take part in the first Coal Mining Conference to be held in the Dominion. The conference begins at the Otago School of Mines today. _ . , , The nationalisation of the industry had also brought about the closing of a number of uneconomic pits, Professor Phillips said. Production was therefore able to be concentrated on the larger units. . , The hazards of the industry were being attacked on a national basis. The disease caused, by dust, pneumoconiosis. was being combated by laying dust in mines as it was produce. An attempt was also being made to utilise those mines which were norrhally uneconomic. There were experiments in progress in the United States and Britain on the gasification of coal on the pit site, but it would be some time before the experiments reached the industrial stage. The advent of atomic power would make coal valuable for its derivatives. It «eemed to him a waste that so many valuable materials were at present going up the chimney, but if coal was replaced as a fuel in the .future, it was still one of the richest sources of benzol, tar, alcohol and many other things. Atomic power would certainly not make it unnecessary.