Peak coal immanent
August 9th, 2010An analysis of coal production by Tadeusz Patzek at The University of Texas at Austin and Gregory Croft at the University of California, Berkeley concludes that the global peak of coal production from existing coalfields will occur close to the year 2011. The study was published in Energy, the International Journal.
After 2011, the production rates of coal and CO2 decline, reaching 1990 levels by the year 2037, and reaching 50% of the peak value in the year 2047. In other words, the peak of global coal production from the existing coalfields is imminent, and coal production from these areas will fall by 50% in the next 40 years.
The CO2 emission estimates used for government policy decisions assume unlimited coal and fossil fuel production for the next 100 years, an unrealistic premise that skews climate change models and proposed solutions. Co-author Tad Patzek observes:
The IPCC carbon estimates, which are used by all major decision makers, are based on economic and policy considerations that appear to be unconstrained by geophysics.