Coal.Global An exhibition of the Ruhr Museum Essen Director Heinrich Theodor Grütter Concept and project management Ulrike Stottrop Co-concept Stefan Siemer Academic/scientific team Carsten Berndt, Ute Eickelberg, Heidi Feldt, Michael Lorenz, Udo Scheer, Jens Scholten, Christoph Schurian Research Tansel Dogan, Ajoy Konar, Joanna Koczor, Jie Mao, Nguyen Thi Hoai Nga, Sergey Ponomarev Exhibition design Atelier Ursula Gillmann, Basel Media jangled nerves, Stuttgart Design of brochure Karsten Moll Copyright Foundation Ruhr Museum, 1. Edition 6/2012 – for internal use only – Coal.Global Fossil coal is one of the world’s oldest sources of energy. Although it was formed millions of years ago, it is only 180 years since the exploitation for industrial purposes began. And it is still a fuel with a future. A scenario pub- lished by the International Energy Agency (IEA) foresees that, up to 2035, fos- sil fuel – oil, coal, and natural gas – will make up the lion’s share (74%) of global energy consumption. Electricity production alone will amount to 55%. And global reserves of coal are much larger than those of oil and natural gas. Fossil coal seems to be available in such rich amounts that there are still no agreed international standards by which reserves and resources can be calcu- lated. Nevertheless, regarding the geological timesscale the solar power transformed by plants into biomass over millions of years will be exhausted within a few generations and the landscape of mining areas will be altered in geological dimensions. The exploitation of coal reserves all over the world entails the creation of global markets and streams of raw coal. In this process production has become decoupled from consumption and former producers have long since become consumers. If coalmining was the motor behind the massive industri- alisation in the 19th century and the rise of the west, so, in the 20th century, we are now witnessing how coal is becoming a model for the global flow of raw materials and the creation of new industrial centres. Within a close connection of natural and cultural history the exhibition aims to examine and question the role of coal in the creation of a hitherto globally dominant model of present-day society based on the burning of fossil fuels. To what extent can we transfer this model from Europe to other countries? Will the wealth derived from coal resources lead to industrial development and prosperity in the new coal countries? What are the consequences for the envi- ronment and social cohesion, say, when coal mining gorges away farmland and leads to massive migration and urbanisation? Will states distribute the wealth from coal in a socially acceptable way? Above all, are new deposits of coal still formed? COAL.GLOBAL 3 The Exhibition Site At the centre of the exhibition is the Earth, the planet of raw materials, an interactive globe on which statistics, maps, films and interviews can be called up. The niches and cabinets display various themes which, in their totality, illustrate the many different aspects of coal. Visitors will travel around the world to contemporary coalfields from Indonesia to Spitsbergen, and from Wyoming to Siberia. Here they will have fascinating encounters with all types of »coal people« and will experience the variety and asynchrony of the world of coal. On the one hand, hypermodern mining and gigantic technology embedded in highly rational, globally synchronised production and trans- portation chains, on the other hand a seemingly atavistic form of mining based on the (self-) exploitation of pit workers with massive consequences for people and the environment. It has been a great challenge to collect and select the right exhibits to make up a global view of the present situation in the world of coal. Here new media Colliery and coking plant Zollverein aerial photo 2005 play an important role. Alongside photos and films visitors can also find clas- sical three-dimensional exhibits: selected fossils, coal from all over the world, mining tools and mementos belonging to people working in the industry. All these throw up associations with people’s diverse experiences of “black gold“. Staircase of the Ruhr Museum in the coal washing plant (from above) Coal washing plant at the UNESCO world cultural heritage Zollverein The Exhibition Team The exhibition has been conceived by a team of scholars from the Ruhr Museum under the leadership of Ulrike Stottrop. The team has been advised and supported by a huge number of international scientists, geologists, palaeontologists, sociologists, historians and experts from the world of busi- ness. Major international coal industry and coal trade associations as well as the IndustriALL Global Union have also agreed to cooperate. The exhibition has been designed by the renowned designer Professor Ursula Gillmann from Basel in Switzerland. She was recently responsible for the new permanent exhibition in the Basel Historical Museum. The audiovisual media in the exhibition have been produced by “jangled”, a firm based in Stuttgart. The firm also designed the media for the Ruhr Museum and the Visitor Centre Ruhr which has welcomed more than 3 million visitors since it was opened in the Cultural Capital Year, RUHR 2010. A catalogue will be published to accompany the exhibition. We are also plan- ning a large programme of related events including talks, film programmes and symposia. In 2013 the Zollverein Foundation is planning to make »Coal.Global« a major theme throughout all the Zollverein sites. 6 The Exhibition At the centre of the exhibition is the Earth, the planet of raw materials, an interactive globe on which statistics, maps, films and interviews can be called up. The niches and cabinets display various themes which, in their totality, illustrate the many different aspects of coal. Visitors will travel around the world to contemporary coalfields from Indonesia to Spitsbergen, and from Wyoming to Siberia. Here they will have fascinating encounters with all types of »coal people« and will experience the variety and asynchrony of the world of coal. On the one hand, hypermodern mining and gigantic technology embedded in highly rational, globally synchronised production and trans- portation chains, on the other hand a seemingly atavistic form of mining based on the (self-) exploitation of pit workers with massive consequences for people and the environment. It has been a great challenge to collect and select the right exhibits to make up a global view of the present situation in the world of coal. Here new media play an important role. Alongside photos and films visitors can also find clas- sical three-dimensional exhibits: selected fossils, coal from all over the world, mining tools and mementos belonging to people working in the industry. All these throw up associations with people’s diverse experiences of “black gold“. View from the entrance into temporary exhibition Coal.Global, design Studio Gillmann COAL.GLOBAL 7 Layout thematic sub-groups of the coal.global exhibition, design Studio Gillmann 8 The exhibition themes Unimaginable Long Period –Coal from Millions of Years For scientists the resource coal and associated rocks allow a detailed view into the history of our planet. Such stores of knowledge are used by geologist and palaeontologists as starting points for different types of reconstruction. Which biological substances generated coal? Which were the first life-forms to be able to survive on land? We still do not know when the first photosyn- thetic organisms permanently settled in a terrestrial habitat. It is highly prob- able that this occurred sometime during the Silurian after the oxygen content in the primordial atmosphere assembled a shield of ozone to protect the Earth from the ultra-violet rays of the sun. With the help of international loans of plant fossils from the Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary, examples of the biologi- cal producers of coal will be presented. Using particularly impressive objects Tongue shaped fern ‘Glossopteris, Permian, New Soouth Wales (Australia) Collection of the Ruhr Museum Cuticles of a fern leaf, Institute for Paleo-Botany, University of Münster from the collection of the Ruhr Museum we shall reveal the plant principles and biological structures which enabled them to take root on land so success- fully in the course of the Earth’s history. It is fascinating to observe the methods and materials used by palaeobotani- cal scholars in their research work. Plant cuticles, layers of wax which protect the tissue cells of plants from drying out, have an astounding potential for preservation. One thousand times magnified microscopic images of plant debris bring the sunken forests in close-up before the eye and reveal the characteristic cell patterns of different types of plant species, even including their breath openings, hairs and glands. Whereas palaeobotanists look for their answers in remnants of fossils, molec- ular biologists, biochemists and engineers study plants which are still living today. In doing so they aim to replicate the process of photosynthesis and use it as a highly effective potential source of energy. 10 Planet of coal – coalfields of the Earth Whether biomass decays or accumulates in swamps and moors to later become peat, brown coal or bituminous coal depends on whether the subsoil subsides. Here, alongside photosynthesis, the planet Earth brings a further decisive driving force into play to create coal: plate tectonics. The rigid outer- most crust of the planet, the lithosphere, is a mosaic of many different individ- ual plates which move over the molten mantle, either colliding, scraping past each other or drifting apart. Collisions were decisive in forming coal reser- voirs like those in the Ruhrgebiet and the Appalachians (USA) with their slant- ing to steeply dipping, irregular and relatively thin seams. In contrast the coal- fields and coal basins of South Africa and India, the huge Tunguska basin in Siberia and the majority of the coal reservoirs in China were created in large basins of continental plates on the crust of the Earth.