Science Magazine on peak coal
Robert Frederick, Science Magazine podcast (transcript and voice)
[Starts on page 9 of the 18-page transcript]
Host – Robert Frederick
In related news, coal production may be nearing its peak. According to the World Coal Institute, coal is the largest source of energy for the world's electricity and, at current production levels, there are proven reserves to last 133 years. But as Science news writer Dick Kerr reports, new analysis suggests that coal production may peak as early as 2020, raising questions about when alternatives to coal might become available and about how bad greenhouse warming might get from burning the remaining coal. Here's Dick Kerr.
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How Much Coal Remains?
Richard A. Kerr, Science via Environmental News Network (ENN_
The planet's vast store of coal could fuel the world economy for centuries--and fiercely stoke global warming--but a few analysts are raising the prospect of an imminent shortfall
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To a geologist, gauging how much coal the world has left to burn is a fairly straightforward, if daunting, business. Millions upon millions of drill holes have revealed where the coal is. So geologists can just evaluate each seam's quality and the cost of extraction. Add up all the coal worth mining and you've got lots and lots--within the United States, a century or even two of U.S. consumption; globally, 150 years' worth for the world.
But there's another, emerging approach to assessing coal resources that yields more sobering results. Rather than go into the field, these analysts go to the record books to see how fast miners have been producing coal of late. By fitting curves to that production history, they come up with a number for the total amount of coal that will ever be mined and a date for the greatest production, the time of "peak coal," after which production inevitably declines.
Early results from this curve-fitting analysis of production history show much less coal being mined than geologists ever expected and a peak in coal production looming as early as a decade from now.
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