[ExI] THE END for fossil power

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 3:59 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 11:49:45PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:21 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > Science has been slow to embrace Peak Oil, but they're
>> > there now. (How long will it take for them to admit
>> > Peak Coal?)
>>
>> I should expect hundreds of years. The US has something like 400 years
>> of coal reserves, and China has a lot too.
>
> Try around 2025.
>
> http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2396

"The general consensus view on coal supplies has long been that we
have hundreds of years of the stuff left"

The articles you provided indicated that we were close to peak coal,
but it also showed a slowly tailing off supply. What I'm saying is
that after peak oil most charts show the supplies falling off rather
precipitously, but with peak coal there was a significant amount of
coal available for a significant amount of time afterward. So peak oil
is a much greater problem than peak coal (assuming they are even right
there, which I'm not particularly giving in on yet.)

Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is
that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact
that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The
other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going
through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers
on China's usage, and reserves before commenting further... it is
interesting though.

-Kelly