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Energy and Expansion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

G. F. Ray
Affiliation:
National Institute
F. T. Blackaby
Affiliation:
National Institute

Extract

Few industries can have had such a reversal of expectations in so short a time as the coal industry. In April 1956 the National Coal Board, looking at the prospects for the next ten years, could say confidently: ‘Even in the longer term, the problem of over-production for the coal industry can scarcely arise’. Over the next four years, total coal production fell 7 per cent, and coal stocks more than doubled.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1960 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

This article is summarised on page 36

References

page 26 note (1) Investing in Coal, National Coal Board, April 1956, page 13.

page 28 note (1) There is now an index of vehicle miles travelled on roads in Great Britain; it begins, however, only in 1958. It is not satisfactory to use the number of vehicles registered as a measure of output, since there is reason to think that the number of miles travelled by the average vehicle each year has been falling.

(2) See the appendix to this article, page 38, for a description of the indices used.

(3) For the change in pattern in manufacturing industry itself, the figures show the difference in fuel consumption which there would have been if, in each industry, production had moved in the same proportion as the total index of manu facturing production. For the change in pattern between manufacturing industry and the rest of the economy, the figures show the difference that would have been made if the index of manufacturing production had moved in the same proportion as the index of national output.

page 29 note (1) The consumption of coke per ton of pig iron produced in blast furnaces has fallen from 0.99 tons in 1956 to 0.95, 0.90 and 0.84 in the three subsequent years (Economic Trends, June 1960.)

page 33 note (1) This is measured here, for each year, by the amount of additional coal which would have been used if the percentage of oil in fuel consumption in each sector had stayed the same as in the previous year. See Appendix, page 39.

(2) See Appendix to the article, table 14.

page 35 note (1) Ministry of Fuel and Power Statistical Digest, 1953, Steam and Power Survey, table 17.

(2) See page 33.

page 36 note (1) See Appendix to article for the full set of assumptions.

(2) Weekly Hansard, no. 343, col. 2061 (13 February 1956).

(3) Weekly Hansard, no. 465, col. 1559 (23 July 1959) … ‘I still think that it is reasonable to take 300 million tons as a rough figure for the total energy demand in the middle 1960's’.