CRF Newsletter - No. 36 -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 10/14/2002
Last Visited: 5/28/2004
All the more reason to be enormously grateful to Professor Jim Williamson, who very kindly gave permission for an abridged version of his BCURA lecture to be included.
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Although, if Professor Williamson suffered from such sentiments, it did not show.He certainly got into the spirit of the venue and at times it almost felt like we were being treated to one of the popular Christmas Lectures.I was later told that this was the first time for ‘live chemistry experiments' to feature in a BCURA Coal Science Lecture; and the flames, smoke and controlled mini-explosions were a big hit with the audience.But before I convey the wrong impression, the lecture was anything but trivial.It took us from the historical perspective on coal use, through all the recent and current environmental issues to the future prospects for coal.Prof. Williamson has kindly granted permission to include a shortened version of his excellent lecture in the Newsletter:
"Recent Advances in Coal Science and their Applications", by Professor Jim Williamson, ICSMT
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....Tim Williamson, policy officer of the National Society for Clean Air, said the killer was no longer smoke from domestic fires but car fumes.Government estimates are that 24,000 people a year had their lives shortened as a result of air pollution. …….In 1950 there were 4m vehicles registered in Britain, half of them cars; now there are 28m vehicles, 85% of them cars.Coal provides only 15% of energy for home heating.
"We have defeated one problem only to create another, and like the government of 1952 this one has yet to come to terms with the problem," Mr Williamson said "