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MuseLetter #179 / March 2007
by Richard Heinberg

Burning the Furniture

A soon-to-be-released study by the Energy Watch Group in Germany on the future of global coal supplies has implications so surprising and far-reaching that energy policymakers may take years to digest it. This essay is intended to help speed that process. The report’s central conclusion is that minable global coal reserves are much smaller than is commonly thought, and that a peak in world coal production is likely within only ten to fifteen years.

... Today coal provides for over a quarter of the world’s primary energy needs and generates 40 percent of the world’s electricity.

... Meanwhile, coal remains the most environmentally damaging of the conventional fossil fuels. While it produces a quarter of the world’s energy, it is responsible for nearly 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, principally carbon dioxide (CO2).

... The report concludes: “the present and past experience does not support the common argument that reserves are increasing over time as new areas are explored and prices rise.” This argument is supported by the fact that even the world’s in-situ resources of coal have dwindled from 10 trillion tons of hard coal equivalent (hce) to 4.2 trillion tons in 2005—a 60 percent downward revision in 25 years.

... If the EWG report is right that the global coal peak will occur around a decade after the petroleum/gas peak, this probably implies a 10-year interval, starting around 2010, of relatively slow fall-off in total energy from fossil fuels, followed by a gradually accelerating decline.

... Taking into account regional gas constraints and a likely near-term peak in global coal extraction, it is perhaps more appropriate to speak instead a broad-spectrum energy crisis with implications for electricity generation, space heating, and agriculture as well.

... there is arguably no credible scenario in which these could grow fast enough to offset projected declines in any one of the three principal fossil fuels, much less all three together.

...Planned, strategic curtailment of energy use will of necessity be the primary adaptation strategy. This has enormous implications for every aspect of modern economies.

... a report by the Institute for Policy Research, “High Stakes: Designing Emissions Pathways to Reduce the Risk of Dangerous Climate Change,” concludes that in order to have a high degree of confidence of keeping average surface warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, carbon emissions must be reduced 70 to 80 percent below present levels by 2050). Even the 2 degree target is somewhat arbitrary:

... Climate advocates can make the argument that, even if society finds steep voluntary cuts in the use of coal and other fossil fuels to be economically onerous, there is really no alternative: declines in production will happen anyway, so it is better to cut use proactively and systematically than wait and be faced with shortages and price volatility later. The findings of the 2005 DOE-funded Hirsch report (“Peak of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management”) regarding society’s vulnerability to peak oil apply also to peak coal: time will be needed in order for society to adapt proactively to a resource-constrained environment. A failure to begin now to reduce reliance on coal will mean much greater economic hardship when the peak arrives.

... The new information about coal helps: it tells us that even if the economic price for carbon reduction is high, we have no choice but to proceed. There really is no “business-as-usual” option, even ignoring environmental impacts, given the resource constraints.

... If there is no credible way of replacing fossil fuels with other energy sources in order to meet the emissions reduction trajectories being proposed, this probably implies real economic pain. Unlike emissions, high energy prices are something everyone can understand.

... In other publications I have advocated a Depletion Protocol for oil as a policy tool to enable societies to better adapt to the impending peak in global petroleum production. Depletion protocols for gas and coal, while not as critical (since these fuels are not traded globally to the same extent as oil), could also help with the difficult process of adaptation.