Changing lifestyles in Europe: The Coal and Steel Industry
Changing lifestyles in Europe: The Coal and Steel Industry
Introduction
If you look on a map of global population density, you can see four or five major concentrations of people: East Asia, South Asia, North America and Europe. Many of the cities that developed in Europe grew on coalfields as a result of the industrial revolution. But today the factor coal become more and more unimportant and the people in the coal industry are facing huge problems. The highest rates of unemployment can be found in former coal and steel making communities. Their mines and steel works are now closed or at least reduced in size.
You now might think that the global community is using less coal or steel, but in fact they are still produced in huge quantities. It’s just that the importance of European coalfields is getting smaller and smaller, as new energy sources such as oil, gas, wind and solar power and new materials such as aluminum, glass and plastics. Such changes have affected the lives of many European people.
Coal: Black Gold
There are three different types of coal. Black coal is the oldest and most efficient form of energy. Brown coal has only about half the energy of black coal, and Peat (Torf) contains only very little energy and is used only in very few isolated houses in Europe, with no access to any electricity network.
In the nineteenth century black coal was the most important source of energy in western countries. Steam engines were now in use and it also helped to develop blast furnaces on which the iron and later steel was based. Iron was the main industrial metal in Europe until the 18th century, because steel was only produced in small quantities because the methods were expensive and complex.
In 1709 Abraham Darby produced coke from coal, which was able to burn at higher temperature. Then developments in the steel industry were rapid after the 19th century industrial revolution, so it was now cheaper and easier to produce steel. There were famous inventors such as William Kelly, Henry Bassemer (converter) and the two German brothers Siemens. The Bessemer Converter is a bowl which converts iron into steel. It was then used for all kinds of large-scale work. Steel had become the main factor of industrialization. The railways and by 1880 even buildings were made of steel.
The World Coal Industry today
Coal is found throughout the world, but the...