Peak Coal as Early as 2025

April 24th, 2008 by Sarah Lozanova

With dwindling fossil fuel supplies, coal has been viewed as the energy source of last resort. This outlook is changing as estimated global coal supplies seem to have been severely inflated. Is coal’s future in doubt?

Many experts are saying yes. Professor David Rutledge of CalTech believes that world coal reserves are grossly overstated and could be substantially exhausted this century. This is in stark contrast to earlier forecasts.

Coal Reserves Inflated

In the last 20 years, official coal reserves have fallen by 170 billion tons. To put this number in perspective, global coal consumption in 2007 was 6 billion tons. Reserves figures are dropping far more quickly than actual extraction.

The European Commission’s Institute for Energy in 2000 estimated global supplies of coal to last 277 years. In 2007, that number was lowered to 155 years.

This forecast may sound like plenty of time to adjust to meeting our energy needs in from other sources, but how accurate are these numbers really? The National Academy of Sciences Report on Coal, from June 2007 isn’t very encouraging.

“Present estimates of coal reserves are based upon methods that have not been reviewed or revised since their inception in 1974, and much of the input data were compiled in the early 1970’s. Recent programs to assess reserves in limited areas using updated methods indicate that only a small fraction of previously estimated reserves are actually minable reserves.”

To make matters worse, some countries, such as Vietnam and China have not changed their official reserves figures for decades. This seems suspicious because billions of tons of coal have been mined during this period.

New Coal Discoveries Unlikely

While oil lurks below the surface and can be hard to detect, coal fields can be identified by outcrops. This means that the locations of coal reserves are known and new coal discoveries are unlikely.

Coal Reserves and Policy

A 2007 report issued by Energy Watch anticipates global coal reserves to peak as soon as 2025. Policy-makers have been using forecasts issued by the International Energy Agency, which relies on official reserves figures. It is certainly hard to create effective policy when reserve estimates vary so widely.

Good or Bad News?

When taking climate change and air quality into account, smaller coal reserves are probably good news. Supply constraints may cause the market to adjust without the need for climate change policy alone to decrease coal consumption.

Many people fear that declining supplies of oil could cause an increase in the use of coal as a last resort. Perhaps coal is not a good last resort.

Sarah Lozanova is a freelance writer that is passionate about the new green economy and is a regular contributor to environmental and energy publications and websites, including Energy International Quarterly, ThinkGreen.com, Triple Pundit, Green Business Quarterly, Renewable Energy World, and Green Business Quarterly. Her experience includes work with small-scale solar energy installations and utility-scale wind farms. She earned an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio Graduate School and is a co-founder of Trees Across the Miles, an urban reforestation initiative.

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