Mar 17 2009
Is Coal Running Out?
A new podcast I listen to is from Science Magazine. It’s pretty good for a strictly science podcast, and it covers a lot of topics. A recent show discussed something I hadn’t really thought about much before — the invitable end of coal, aka Peak Coal. Like other forms of fossil fuels, coal is finite and one day it will run out. When that will happen, according to Science Magazine, is sooner rather than later, which was surprising to me. But in fact, the best thing about coal is that it will run out, which people in the coal industry don’t seem to be considering either. Unfortunately, clean sources of energy like lithium and uranium will also run out — unless we find ways to mine it on another planet or the moon. Obviously, many things in our small universe are finite. That goes also for oil and gas, no matter how many bazillions of gallons of it are claimed that we have. The big question is, do we want to pollute the planet as it runs out, or just leave it where it is, underground, and use something else? We could use an “infinite” form of energy instead, like wind or solar, instead of coal. Geotheormal energy is also infinite, or at least it will last as long as the earth itself lasts.
Reserves of coal could last about 130 years, or they may peak as early as 2020 and taper off slowly, depending on how much the world still depends on coal in 20 years. How bad would greenhouse warming get from burning the remaining coal?
It’s hard to estimate exactly, but one scientist feels it might not be as bad as people thought, because coal might peak and run out sooner than previously thought. The new approach is sobering — early estimates suggest that we could run out sometime this century, at least. How are the estimates being made? Holes are drilled and then geologists and research assessment people are brought in to determine how much is left and whether or not it would be worth it to get it out of the ground. One question they ask is how much coal has been produced in the last 100s of years? They take that data and through simple plotting of historical production, they determine how much coal is ever going to be produced from a particular region. Great Britain reached its peak, for example in 1913. There isn’t much time left for UK coal production at all.
