An 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.

Gregor Macdonald has posted this chart at The Oil Drum which neatly shows the headwinds facing the U.S. “economy”.

It’s not going to get any prettier in the future. We’re going to have to figure out what prosperity could look like in an environment where energy is going to become an ever more precious commodity.

Last year governments world-wide provided $43 – $46 billion of support to renewable energy through subsidies such as tax credits, guaranteed electricity prices known as feed-in tariffs, and alternative energy credits.

Sounds pretty good, right?

But not so fast. In 2008, governments provided $557 billion in subsidies to fossil fuels.

An analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that the global direct subsidy for fossil fuels is at least ten times the subsidy for renewables.

The July 2010 edition of Oilwatch Monthly reports that both crude oil and liquid fuels production continue their slow decline from peak levels. The charts below taken from the report are posted at The Oil Drum.

Oil consumption in the twenty-seven countries of the European Union peaked in 2006 and has since been declining at a rate of 3% per year. Oil consumption in the transport sector in the EU began to decline in 2008, dropping 1.4% from 2007. Oil consumption in road transport fell, offsetting a continuing but slowing rise in air transport consumption.

Usings less oil than the U.S. does not mean the EU is less prosperous than the U.S. EU nations consume only 60% of the oil as the U.S., but  the gross domestic product of the combined 27 EU nations exceeds that of the U.S. by 15%.

China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest consumer of energy, according to data from Paris-based International Energy Agency. The IEA said China consumed the equivalent of 2.25 billion tons of oil last year, slightly above U.S. consumption of 2.17 billion tons. The measure includes all types of energy: oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable energy sources.

This chart is posted at The Daily Reckoning:

As this chart posted at The Daily Reckoning shows, China has a long way to go to catch up with U.S. per capita energy consumption:

40% of the world’s population – China and India – uses two barrels of oil per person per day. In the US, we use 25.

China dismissed the IEA’s analysis, saying the IEA data on China’s energy use is unreliable. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said in a report in February that China’s energy consumption last year stood at 3.1 billion tons of standard coal equivalent, or 2.132 billion tons of oil equivalent. Even by China’s reckoning, China is fast approaching U.S. energy consumption levels.

In June, China consumed approximately 9.4 million barrels each and every day. Of this total, they imported 5.44 million barrels. Between them, China and India together now consume about 28 million barrels-per-day, nearly 33% of the world total.

But while China’s oil consumption is rising and China is busy locking up future oil supplies around the world, U.S. oil consumption is declining – and improved efficiency has nothing to do with it. Oil consumption has likely peaked in the United States because our economy is trashed and likely to remain so. In 2007, the last year before the crash, American oil consumption often exceeded 21 million barrels per day. Those days are over. U.S. consumption is now bouncing around 19 mbd, a decline of ~10%.

Rural life is extremely energy intense, especially in terms of oil. Exurban living – people living “consumer lives with prettier views” – depends on very long supply lines. Alex Stefan at Worldchanging explains why the exurban lifestyle is not only not “green”, it is at risk in an environment where energy prices can go nowhere but up.

[W]e know that big, dense cities are greener; that the energy used in shipping food is a small portion of its overall impact, that transit is more energy efficient than driving (and indeed, that cars are the largest contributor to climate change), and that the benefits of urban living in compact, walkable, wired communities can extend far beyond living in smaller homes, served by more efficient infrastructure and not owning a car, to include a dramatic overall drop in one’s environmental impact. What’s more, we know why these things are so[.]

Unfortunately for people living in rural areas, we know a lot more about how to live a prosperous-yet-low-impact urban life than we do about how to live a rural life of equal prosperity with a small ecological footprint. Rural areas are poorer than urban areas, and offer fewer opportunities. Envisioning how people in rural areas  will be able to prosper and live decent lives  in an environment bereft of cheap and abundant energy is a challenge that has yet to be faced.

Luis de Souza at The Oil Drum: Europe writes that, rather than thinking of electricity generation load regimes as “base load” and “peak load”, it’s more accurate and useful to think in three categories: base load, intermediate load, and peak load. Electricity demand is not constant, but varies over the course of the day and over weeks and months. Variability of demand over time can be foreseen rather well: the daily, weekly, and seasonal fluctuations are very pronounced and predictable. Thus, the bulk of load-following can be planned long ahead, making it a scheduled form of operation. For the power plant operator, scheduled operation also means that the plant’s average load factor, even if well short of 100%, is rather stable and predictable.

The three-part scheme can be laid out as follows:

1. Base load: plants operated at constant power output, at maximum whenever possible
2. Intermediate load: plants operated with slow variation in power output on regular schedule to follow expected variation in demand, to cover the gap between expected demand and expected base load
3. Peak load: plants operated with fast variation, responding to minute peaks in demand above or below the pre-planned part of supply

. . . and is illustrated in this graph:

If the majority of the lifetime costs of a power plant are upfront investment costs, then the unit costs of electricity produced will be the lower the more the plant is operated and the operator will want to operate it at maximum whenever possible (the very definition of base load).

In the lifetime costs of both wind power and photovoltaics, fixed, up-front investment costs dominate, so these renewable sources operate as part of base load. But unlike conventional base load, wind and solar are intermittent sources: power output depends on weather, time of day, and season. Distributing these sources over a grid spread out over a larger geographical area can reduce weather-related intermittency, but can’t make it go away.

De Souza’s piece examines ways of de-carbonizing base load and intermediate load, including hydro and pumped hydro, biomass, demand management, natural balancing, solar thermal with storage, nuclear, stimulated geothermal, and distributed storage (including flywheels, batteries, capacitors, fuel cells, etc). His conclusion? None are completely satisfactory -and probably most will be needed.

Since peaking in 2006, world nuclear power generation has fallen each year, as shown in this graph posted at The Oil Drum.

Aging nuclear facilities in the developed countries could mean this pattern will continue. The only group of countries showing an increase in nuclear power generation in 2009 was the “Remainder” group, which includes China, India, and many developing nations.

Gail the Actuary suggests growth in nuclear generation may be limited to a few countries which are able to finance new reactors – perhaps China and some other Asian nations. As old reactors are taken off line elsewhere, total nuclear electric generation may continue to decline.

Would any nuclear power plant ever get financed and built in the U.S. without federally funded support and federal limits on industry liability in case of an accident?

The Land Institute near Salina, Kansas has been crossing selected strains of wild intermediate wheatgrass grain with annual wheat varieties to breed a commercially practical perennial grain. Gene Logsdon at OrganicToBe.org reports that pancakes made with flour (trademarked Kernza ™) from the resulting grain is pretty tasty.

The flour makes a light dough and the pancakes taste just a tad sweeter than ordinary wheat flour.  * * * It is exceptionally high in some nutrients known to be important to human health and deficient in many modern diets: Omega 3 fatty acids, calcium, lutein, and betaine. It is particularly high in folate, important for preventing stroke, cancer, heart disease and infertility. Folate is also believed to be important for maintaining good mental health in old age.  My mind generally glazes over when reading about nutrient values of various foods so that folate might come in handy. To me the important thing is that for once something that is good for me tastes good too. Kernza ™ does not have enough gluten in it to use alone for leavened breads, but as more and more crosses are made with it and regular wheat, all things are possible.

Being able to grow grain without plowing up millions of acres of soil every year would cut down on erosion and help build soil tilth while enabling farmers to cut way back on fuel and greenhouse gas emissions – saving farmers both time and money in the bargain.

But the search won’t be over until researchers come up with a good perennial bread flour.

Gail the Actuary (Gail Tverberg) has a thought-provoking post at The Oil Drum about the Energy Information Administration’s new Energy Outlook 2010.

Any clouds on the horizon? Not according to the EIA. This graph shows projected energy consumption out to 2035.

Peak oil? Not a chance.

The growth in liquid fuel supplies is to be spurred by increased demand. Ask, and it shall be yours.

Here’s the most amazing projection: after steady declines for nearly 40 years, U.S. oil production is going to resume a growth track!

The odds of this scenario actually coming to pass were about nil – even before the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. This is magical thinking at its most absurd.

If the EIA’s projections were to play out, what would that mean for efforts to stop global warming? Apparently, no one at EIA is even asking.

We ought to establish a new category here – for “fantasy” or maybe “fiction”.