My grandfather was a coal miner.
He started working in the mines in 1902, as soon as he turned 16.
There weren't any other jobs in Palo Pinto County, Texas, even then, for a young man with a third grade education, but that was as far as Texas public education went.
Labor saving devices consisted of mules, who became blind in the perpetual darkness of the mine shafts.
My grandfather lost his job in 1917.
Why? Technology.
In 1917, the mine's only customer, the Texas and Pacific Railroad,began converting its steam locomotives from coal-fired to oil-fired. Over the next year, the coal mines shut down all nineteen shafts at the Thurber mine.
That's not all.
In 1916, the US Navy took delivery of its first oil-fired battleship and never built another coal-fired one.
In one fell swoop, the Navy got rid of its biggest logistical and strategic problem and saved money at the same time. No longer did they have to worry about coaling stations. After entering World War I in 1917, the US Navy quickly addressed underway refueling.
The first operational underway replenishment was achieved by the United States Navy oiler USS Maumee. Following the declaration of war, 6 April 1917, she was assigned duty refueling at sea the destroyers being sent to Britain. Stationed about 300 miles south of Greenland, Maumee was ready for the second group of U.S. ships to be sent as they closed her 28 May. With the fueling of those six destroyers, Maumee pioneered the Navy’s underway refueling operations under the direction of Maumee's Chief Engineer Chester Nimitz,
thus establishing a pattern of mobile logistic support which would
enable the Navy to keep its fleets at sea for extended periods, with a
far greater range independent of the availability of a friendly port.
After WWI most navies pursued the refueling of
destroyers and other small vessels by either the alongside or astern
method, convinced that larger warships could
neither be effectively refueled astern nor safely refueled alongside,
until a series of tests conducted by Rear Admiral Nimitz in 1939-40
perfected the rigs and shiphandling which made the refueling of any size
vessel practical.
Japan continued to use astern refueling of small ships, which slowed down her surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The US Navy had already perfected the alongside method, which proved crucial to operations in the Pacific. The Soviet Union also continued to use the astern method.
From 1923, about the time my grandfather came out of the mine shafts for the last time, coal mining entered a long period of decline:
1923 704,793
1943 418,703
1953 293,106
1963 141,646
1973 148,121
1983 175,642
1993 101,322
2003 71,023
2010 86,195
2011 88,000
2013 80,396
2014 74,931
I'm pretty sure my grandfather didn't know about the effect that changes in battleship design had on the market for coal, but since coal mining was the only job he knew, he went looking for another one. He found a coal mine in Tulsa, Oklahoma, beneath what is now the state fairgrounds. By 1923, he decided it was too dangerous in the mines and became a chauffeur instead.
In 1917, reductions in coal mining reflected replacement of coal by oil for many heavy energy users.
The current reduction in coal mining may stem from a similar cause. The New York Times recently reported: "The most immediate challenge to the coal industry is the hydraulic fracturing revolution that has produced a glut of natural gas over the last four years, making the fuel cheaper to burn and stimulating a relentless switch by utilities away from coal." Regulation changes may have little to do with it.
Nevertheless, it matters little to miners who have lost jobs.
Maybe we need to think more creatively about what miners do or can do.
For example, can miners operate heavy equipment for other purposes than removing coal from the ground? What can miners build that needs building? What can miners dig that needs digging?
Government planners, scientists and economists should be able to foresee where the world is going and how to use existing skills to go there. We should be able to foresee what skills will be needed in the future and to develop them.
By and large, such planning tasks are beyond the ability of private businesses worried about quarterly profits.
We need a long term vision.
We once had such people.
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