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'No Smoking' was a popular title for Mining Review items. In June 1950 (3rd Year No. 10) it covered plans for smoke abatement in Coventry. In February 1956 (9th Year No. 6), it looked at the development of a new smokeless fuel, and this is also the subject of this 1964 newsreel. It returns to Coventry, to look at the Homefire plant in the Warwickshire countryside, which would become Britain's leading manufacturer of smokeless fuel. As the newsreel explains, the Homefire process uses small coal (coal reduced to tiny lumps), which is thoroughly washed and then crushed and dried. Because the particles are so small, it effectively behaves like a liquid under certain conditions. This property is exploited by the process, which by blowing heated air through the coal removes the smoky, tar-laden vapours, resulting in a powder called char. This is pressed into hexagonal 'briquettes', a shape designed to offer more efficient stacking and less chance of rolling out of the fireplace onto the floor. When this Topical Budget item was first screened, the Homefire plant had only just been opened. It would continue to produce smokeless coal for another 36 years before closing for good in 2000. Michael Brooke
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Complete item (1:59)
