Mining Remains Important Despite Recent Job Losses

Many materials mined around the world (coal, limestone, copper, gold, silver, iron ore, etc.) have a wide variety of uses. These uses include building and highway construction, cell phones, cooking utensils, and even solar panels and wind turbines.

Steve Gardner (2015 SME President) spoke today (April 21, 2016) in Lexington, Kentucky about the importance of mining and the current situation of mining around the world. Among other things, Gardner noted that drops in commodity prices, environmental regulations, etc., have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs around the world although mining is important and will continue.

According to a January 8, 2016 Mining.com piece over 100,000 mining/mining support jobs were lost in the U.S. alone in 2015.

Coal Mining
Coal mining may be especially impacted as most folks in Kentucky where I live probably know due to the number of mines shut and miners put out of work in recent years, and as a February 1, 2016 Kentucky.com article noted. Furthermore, a February 22, 2016 Reuters article stated that China (the world's largest coal consumer) plans to close over 1,000 of its own coal mines this year.

Coal mining will continue. However, as I see it, coal mining may never rebound to its levels of a few years ago. It's unfortunate for miners though that its decline has happened so fast with environmental regulations, cheaper natural gas, lower oil prices, and renewable fuels, along with a recession all impacting it negatively.
 
Concluding Thoughts
Though I strongly favor reasonable environmental regulations and am glad for many major improvements made that reduce pollution from coal-fired plants in the U.S., automobile exhaust, etc., let's not forget that mining and materials mined fueled the Industrial Revolution and remain important now and will in the foreseeable future.

I am impressed with worldwide efforts to improve safety and environmental standards and to explore alternatives to fossil fuels. It's also great to reduce unnecessary energy consumption and to avoid buying or making unnecessary products. But try to think a bit about all the products that you (or others) own and use daily and think about how many materials had to be mined to produce them.

Let's try to keep things in perspective. Mining is important and will remain so for many years to come as I see it.

Disclosure: Although I am not a practicing mining engineer, I do hold a mining engineering degree from the University of Kentucky, worked two summers in the mining industry during college, and some of my relatives worked in the mining industry, including both my father and paternal grandfather who worked as mining engineers. I wrote this article after hearing Steve Gardner speak this evening. Though I didn't hear all of his talk, I got there in time to hear most of it, and this article is based on my own knowledge and research as well as his talk.