The price of aspirin.
Were you to overhear conversations in any coal mining community, at some time you would come across a discussion about the price of coal. What you were listening to was no discussion about economics, but rather an oblique reference to the hidden costs of injuries and deaths resulting from...

The Making of an Industrial Society, Whickham: 1560-1765.
The debt owed to the coal industry for Britain's industrial revolution has been recently reprised by E. A. Wrigley, who notes that "It was not from the soil but from beneath the soil that the raw materials of a new economic age were drawn."(1) A single collier's toil furnished "a...

Australia: wealth and despair.
The Australian economy is doing well but many Australians are not. This is the best way to sum up the country's prevailing mood. There is great despair amid great displays of wealth. This article deals with three issues: the good news on the economy, the social indicators that show...

Notes from underground; some surprising lessons about productivity and job satisfaction from the coal mines.
Some surprising lessons about productivity and job satisfciction from the coal mines. The stereotype of underground mining is that it is dirty, monotonous, brutal, exceedingly hazardous, low-paying work done by illiterate gnomes with no alternatives. Dirty and physically strenuous I'll concede, but the rest ranges from exaggerated...

FUTURE COAL MARKETS DRIVEN BY NATURAL GAS PRICES/CAIR.
Prices for natural gas in the future will have a profound impact on the markets for U.S. steam coal, according to a new long-range forecast of the coal and electricity industries by Hill & Associates, a leading consultant to those industries. The forecast also analyzes the considerable impact that...

NPC seeks negotiated deal for Pagbilao coal.
Byline: MYRNA M. VELASCO State-run National Power Corporation (NPC) is pursuing another negotiated deal with Indonesian coal supplier PT Andalan Tiga Berjaya to meet the September 26-October 4, 2007 coal supply for the 700-megawatt Pagbilao power plant in Quezon. This, after NPC's scheduled coal bidding...

US fund group invests in Antique; Buys 5.03 percent stake from Semirara mining firm.
CEBU CITY -- The world's largest mutual fund group, Boston, Massachusetts-based Fidelity Management and Research Co. (FMR), has acquired a 5.03 percent stake in the Philippines biggest coal producer, Semirara Mining Corp. FMR, with $ 1.2 trillion in assets under management in more than 300 mutual funds,...

NEWS IN BRIEF; P/$ rate closed at P49.69 to $1.
The peso rate closed at P49.69 to the US dollar last Friday at the Philippine Dealing System of the Bankers Association of the Philippines. The weighted average rate stands at P49.719. Barangays to get R35-B IRA Barangays will get a hefty P35-billion share from next...

FORDING ANNOUNCES HIGHER COAL PRICES.
Fording Canadian Coal Trust (TSX: FDG.UN, NYSE: FDG), Calgary, has announced that the Elk Valley Coal Corporation (EVCC) has made substantial progress in annual price and volume negotiations with its export-coal customers for the coal year commencing April 1, 2004. Sufficient settlements have been achieved in all...

GREEN GOES MAINSTREAM.
Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard Thomas Brex is on top of the world now that he's on the roof at a massive construction project at Goodpasture Island Road. He sought a purposeful career in renewable energy. He enrolled in the two-year energy program...