Net Zero? Fossil Fuels Are Leaving Us Before We Leave Them
4 hours ago Guest Blogger 28 Comments
David Archibald
In a paper authored by Chinese academics in 2017, there was this graph of their best estimate of the trajectory of Chinese coal production:
Figure 1: Projection of Chinese coal production to 2100.
Their best guess of the year of the production peak was 2024, which is now. There is no plateau; production tips over into a decline rate that settles down at 75 million tonnes per year and starts bottoming out late in the century. There is some support for this prediction in that Chinese coal imports have started rising strongly in the last few years. To fill their production contracts in 2024, Chinese coal mines are tending to wash their coal less, producing the contract tonnage but with a lower calorific value.
Most of China’s coal production is from underground mines with mining cost increasing with depth. It is said that the average depth of Chinese underground coal mines is increasing by 10 to 25 metres per annum. The average dip of coal seams mined is 13˚. There is indirect support for the view that at least half of China’s coal endowment has been mined from this graphic from a 2023 paper:
Figure 2: Chinese coal reserves distribution by depth
The figure is representational in that shows about 800 billion tonnes have been mined so far above 600 metres mine depth while total Chinese coal production to date is more likely to be 130 billion tonnes. What can be interpreted from it is that some 80% of coal reserves above 600 metres mine depth have already been mined and 60% of the coal between 600 metres and 1,000 metres depth. The remainder of China’s original coal endowment is much deeper and therefore will be more expensive to mine.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/12/net-zero-fossil-fuels-are-leaving-us-before-we-leave-them/
