Nemesis
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This can't help the industry to carry on...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6583173.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6583173.stm
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Welsh slate - possible shortage?
- Thread starter Nemesis
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skier-hughes
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Can't see there being any shortage of slate.....
Just another Enron...... but nipped before it can cause too much damage.
Just another Enron...... but nipped before it can cause too much damage.
plumbers mate
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There is no shortage of slate - but Welsh slate is expensive and sadly it's cheaper to import it from as far away as China.
I would rather pay extra for welsh slate though (I know ex quarrymen, I know the damage that cheap imports have done to the industry and the towns in North Wales)
Plenty of first quality slate is available as well as the ground up waste that you buy in a small bag at B&Q for a fiver to spread around your garden when a friend of mine gets something like £10 a ton for "making" it.
The McAlpines stuff from Penrhyn isn't always slate as we know it - it's ground up waste mixed with a glue and made into tiles - it's slate but they are not slates.
If you ever get a chance to visit that quarry, take it - it's a phenomally awesome place.
The problems at Penrhyn have had a big knock-on effect further south in Blaenau Ffestiniog - a town which owes it's existance and now its decline to slate. Men there have been paid off too.
That is on top of vandalism. The other quarry in Blaenau, which depends on a water supply from small lakes on the mountain top, has laid people off because the valves for the water supply to the dressing mills were damaged and the lakes were drained - in the driest spring for ages when Blaenau's average of 9ft of rain per year has failed.
Even nature has turned against them.
I would rather pay extra for welsh slate though (I know ex quarrymen, I know the damage that cheap imports have done to the industry and the towns in North Wales)
Plenty of first quality slate is available as well as the ground up waste that you buy in a small bag at B&Q for a fiver to spread around your garden when a friend of mine gets something like £10 a ton for "making" it.
The McAlpines stuff from Penrhyn isn't always slate as we know it - it's ground up waste mixed with a glue and made into tiles - it's slate but they are not slates.
If you ever get a chance to visit that quarry, take it - it's a phenomally awesome place.
The problems at Penrhyn have had a big knock-on effect further south in Blaenau Ffestiniog - a town which owes it's existance and now its decline to slate. Men there have been paid off too.
That is on top of vandalism. The other quarry in Blaenau, which depends on a water supply from small lakes on the mountain top, has laid people off because the valves for the water supply to the dressing mills were damaged and the lakes were drained - in the driest spring for ages when Blaenau's average of 9ft of rain per year has failed.
Even nature has turned against them.
Flyfisher
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I visited a Blaenau Ffestiniog quarry many years ago and you're certainly right about the awesomeness of the place.plumbers mate said:If you ever get a chance to visit that quarry, take it - it's a phenomally awesome place.
A friend is working on a new kitchen and wants a limestone floor. Apparently the cheapest source is India these days. The same friend runs a manufacturing business and sources a number of components from Italy. He asked his manufacturing director to investigate sourcing things cheaper from China but was told that would lead to all sorts of quality problems because of 'back street' factories with old fashioned equipment. So he went over to have a look himself.
He told me he had never seen such a large, modern and thoroughly up to date factory, far better than their existing european suppliers. He's now looking to supply all his components from China.
Nemesis
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There have been quality problems with roofing slate from China.
That's apart of course from the emissions etc problems with shipping, for those who care about such things.
That's apart of course from the emissions etc problems with shipping, for those who care about such things.
Flyfisher
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Economics is a hard taskmaster. Many people are clearly concerned more about price than distance, and that's assuming they actually have a choice. How far around the world were the parts for your computer shipped?
plumbers mate
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Mines a work's computer - one I use most can be used by half a dozen people per day.
Some of the open access machines for students can have over 50 different people log in to them per day.
The one I have at home is a "no longer needed because spec is too low" one from work.
So my computing conscience is clear.
Anyway we do make slates in the UK, but we don't make computing components.
(Penrhyn Quarry is a ginormous hole, not a mine like the Blaenau ones.)
Some of the open access machines for students can have over 50 different people log in to them per day.
The one I have at home is a "no longer needed because spec is too low" one from work.
So my computing conscience is clear.
Anyway we do make slates in the UK, but we don't make computing components.
(Penrhyn Quarry is a ginormous hole, not a mine like the Blaenau ones.)
Flyfisher
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I wasn't pointing any fingers, just acknowledging the reality that it's pretty much impossible to avoid using stuff that has been shipped from around the world. Faced with that impossibility, people generally ease their conscience by claiming they are minimising such consumption, but minimising is not the same as eliminating so, of course, the trade continues.
As for computing components not being made in the UK, that's because people won't pay the higher prices. Give it a few more years and, sadly, the same might be true of welsh slate. People will then be able to buy Chinese slate with a clear conscience because there won't be any sources of UK slate.
Also, using NT's theory that 'money = energy', if it costs less to buy slate from China then it might actually be more energy efficient in overall terms. Sure, there are additional shipping costs (money and energy) but perhaps the carbon footprint of the average welsh slate miner is higher than the average Chinese slate miner? Ecological energetics is a complex and sometimes curious science.
As for computing components not being made in the UK, that's because people won't pay the higher prices. Give it a few more years and, sadly, the same might be true of welsh slate. People will then be able to buy Chinese slate with a clear conscience because there won't be any sources of UK slate.
Also, using NT's theory that 'money = energy', if it costs less to buy slate from China then it might actually be more energy efficient in overall terms. Sure, there are additional shipping costs (money and energy) but perhaps the carbon footprint of the average welsh slate miner is higher than the average Chinese slate miner? Ecological energetics is a complex and sometimes curious science.