Peak Coal Could Strike by 2011 – Reuters

A recent study predicts existing coalmines around the world will reach peak production as early as next year, with peak production levels cut in half by the turn of the century.

This runs counter to current estimates of global coal reserves, which researchers from the University of Texas in Austin and the University of California at Berkeley call overblown and and sometimes based on dated or unreliable information.

Tadeusz W. Patzek and and Gregory D. Croft, authors of the recent study published in the August issue of Energy, estimate coal production rates will decline after 2011, reaching 1990 levels by 2037.  The pair believe future mines won’t be able to reverse the trend.

In a National Geographic article published last week, Patzek contends that current estimates of coal don’t reflect the reality that hard-to-get, lower quality coal reserves may never be harvested because it is not economically or environmentally feasible. For example, proven coal reserves in Illinois are high, but production has dwindled over the last two decades, in part because the coal has a high sulfur content. Federal regulations that address acid rain make lower-sulfur coal from Wyoming and Montana more attractive.

This raised questions about the credibility of some coal reserve estimates, Patzek told National Geographic.

“The only estimate that’s credible is what actually comes out of the mines, and how you project that into the future,” he said.

The World Coal Institute in London estimates coal use will climb 60 percent over the next two decades, with reserves available for the next 119 years, National Geographic reported. The National Academy of Sciences predicts coal can meet the nation’s needs for 100 years at current rates of consumption. Coal supplies 40 percent of the world’s electricity; some estimate it is responsible for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The theory underpinning the report is based on the argument that coal production follows a bell-curve over time, similar to the method developed by Marion King Hubbert, who predicted that oil production in the U.S. would peak in the early 1970s. Coal production in the U.K. followed this pattern.

Reuters