Mongabay – Peak coal to follow peak oil?

Governments have greatly overestimated global coal reserves according to estimates presented by a geologist at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

David Rutledge, a professor of engineering at Caltech, estimates economically recoverable coal reserves at 400 billion tons worldwide. By comparison, governments claim 850 billion to 998 billion tons of recoverable coal.

While environmentalists may be pleased to hear that there is less coal to dig up and burn, other scientists at the AGU meeting said that there is still enough coal to boost atmospheric CO2 concentrations to unsafe levels. Further, unconventional fossil fuels like methane hydrates, tar sands, and oil shale are other carbon-intensive energy sources ripe for exploitation.

Mongabay