News on Screen

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 16th Year

Issue

Issue No.

7

Date Released

Mar 1963

Length of issue (in feet)

946

Stories in this Issue:

• 1. MORE POWER
• 2. SELF RESCUERS
• 3. BRETBY MAGIC
• 4. SIGN OF THE TIMES

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: Richborough power station.
NCB Commentary - Out of this quiet water two thousand years ago came the Romans. On the Kent shore, where they landed, they built Richborough Castle - for five hundred years their power lasted, and not until the walls crumbled did the long boats of the raiding Vikings bring new invaders from the sea.
Today, a little way indeed, there is a new source of power. The Central Electricity Generating Board’s new Richborough Station. Built at a cost of £18 million it will have in the end a capacity of 360 megawatts - that’s enough power to run 360,000 single bar electric fires - a most warming thought.
A modern power station may look complicated but it is one of the most efficient ways of converting the energy in coal into power which can be taken instantly to where it is needed.
The coal-fired boilers make high-pressure steam for the turbines which drive the generators.
Michael Faraday certainly started something back in 1831.
In full commission Richborough will take about 600,000-tons of coal a year from the pits of the Kent coalfield.
As we all know, Britain needs power stations. By firing them with coal we need depend on nobody overseas. Our own miners and electricity workers convert our own national raw material into the power we need.

Keywords

Mining; Fuels; Energy resources

Locations

Kent; England

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The British National Film Catalogue   Vol.1 1963, p.55
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963

Credits:

Camera

John Reid

Commentator

John Slater

Sponsor

National Coal Board

Production Co.

National Coal Board Film Unit

Cutter

Rhonda Small