Charcoal Making - The Forgotten Industry

Charcoal Making - The Forgotten Industry - Documentary

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A short documentary about charcoal making and how charcoal piles were built hundreds of years ago in the area surrounding the mines in Røros, Norway. Charcoal making was a necessity to produce coal used for the copper mines in Røros.
A charcoal kiln is a facility for production of charcoal. The production of charcoal has been going on for thousands of years, and is related to the extraction and processing of metals.
The documentary is made by Heliks, on behalf of the museum in Røros (Rørosmuseet) and Nørdalen educational and cultural trail (Nørdalen Natur- og Kultursti).
The history of charcoal production is a captivating journey that traces the evolution of technology, human ingenuity, and our ever-evolving relationship with the environment. The production of charcoal can be traced back thousands of years, with its origins shrouded in the mist of time. Ancient civilizations discovered that subjecting wood to high temperatures in a controlled environment would drive off volatile compounds, leaving behind the rich carbonaceous material we now know as charcoal.
Charcoal generates more heat than wood and was often used for smelting. For a long time, it was the only means by which one could achieve high enough temperatures to smelt iron. In addition, it’s also lighter than natural timber, and therefore easier to transport. Due to these characteristics, charcoal was an important part of the economy in early modern times.
The means of production has varied throughout history, and some examples are the charcoal piles or clamps, the more permanent structures known as kilns, and the modern method of dry distillation using retorts. All follow the same principle, however. In the area surrounding the Norwegian mining town Røros, the charcoal piles were the preferred method of production. Enormous amounts of wood were needed to produce enough charcoal for the Copperworks in Røros, so the king decreed that all pine forest within a 45 km radius of the mine “Gamle Storwartz”, an area known as “Circumferensen”, were to fill this purpose. The Copperworks also seized vast forest areas outside the circumference. In addition to the pine forest, the Copperworks in Røros also had the rights to all the minerals, the waterways, and the available workforce within the circumference.
Not only did the Copperworks need wood for charcoal production and smelting, but it was also used in the mining process itself. Access to wood quickly became an issue and transportation costs increased as the areas closest to the works were deforested. To remedy this, several smelting huts were built in the district, because it cost less to transport the ore to places where there was still access to wood. It’s estimated that during the first 250 years of the Copperworks’ operation, about 12 million m3 of wood was cut down, that’s an average of about 50 000 m3 per year. The Copperworks’ struggle to get ahold of enough wood finally ended in 1880s, when they could start using coke transported with the new railroad instead.