The Daily Chart: The Future of Energy Is . . . Coal

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The Daily Chart: The Future of Energy Is . . . Coal October 7, 2024 by Steven Hayward
In the midst of all the ongoing cheerleading for “net-zero” and the fabulous “energy transition,” a reality check is in order. Coal-fired power is still growing very fast. And guess where?

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/10/the-daily-chart-the-future-of-energy-is-coal.php
Coal is abundant and cheap compared to alternatives.

No wonder why the 2 most populated countries in the world turn toward it.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

The Daily Chart: The Future of Energy Is . . . Coal October 7, 2024 by Steven Hayward
In the midst of all the ongoing cheerleading for “net-zero” and the fabulous “energy transition,” a reality check is in order. Coal-fired power is still growing very fast. And guess where?

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/10/the-daily-chart-the-future-of-energy-is-coal.php
Coal is abundant and cheap compared to alternatives.

No wonder why the 2 most populated countries in the world turn toward it.

India has huge coal reserves.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

India has huge coal reserves.

Not as much as we do

[Kamaji]

Not as much as we do

Are these just proven reserves?

[DefiantMassRINO]

Isn't coal made from plants, like fake meat?  How can something made from plants be bad?

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Are these just proven reserves?

I admit I am only familiar to oil and gas reserves due to my past job as a reserves auditor.

In the oil and gas business, one can only call a hydrocarbon a reserve if it is 'proven', i.e. -already discovered and is currently commercial to extract.

Am believing this is the same case with coal.

Another connotation this is similar for coal reserves as note the graph shows that 70% of the coal reserves worldwide are in Anthracite and Bituminous, the two highest energy forms of coal.  Presumably lignite, the poorest quality coal, makes up the rest.

I know enough in the coal world that the vast quantities of lignite far surpass those of the Anthracite and Bituminous.  The reason that most are not 'proven' is they are sub commercial.

So to answer your question, my opinion is the graph shows only proven reserves, not resources that are subcommercial.

I read somewhere that the amount of coal in the world is so vast, exponentially greater than oil and gas it could be used for a thousand years to satisfy all the world's energy needs.
@Kamaji

[Kamaji]

I admit I am only familiar to oil and gas reserves due to my past job as a reserves auditor.

In the oil and gas business, one can only call a hydrocarbon a reserve if it is 'proven', i.e. -already discovered and is currently commercial to extract.

Am believing this is the same case with coal.

Another connotation this is similar for coal reserves as note the graph shows that 70% of the coal reserves worldwide are in Anthracite and Bituminous, the two highest energy forms of coal.  Presumably lignite, the poorest quality coal, makes up the rest.

I know enough in the coal world that the vast quantities of lignite far surpass those of the Anthracite and Bituminous.  The reason that most are not 'proven' is they are sub commercial.

So to answer your question, my opinion is the graph shows only proven reserves, not resources that are subcommercial.

I read somewhere that the amount of coal in the world is so vast, exponentially greater than oil and gas it could be used for a thousand years to satisfy all the world's energy needs.
@Kamaji

@IsailedawayfromFR

Thanks!!

[Smokin Joe]

India has huge coal reserves.

The US has 250 Billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves, the most of any country in the world.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

The US has 250 Billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves, the most of any country in the world.

Look up the amount of oil we have locked up in the Green River formation in Colorado. Just need to tap it.

[Smokin Joe]

Look up the amount of oil we have locked up in the Green River formation in Colorado. Just need to tap it.

That's more difficult. I know those rocks, have a couple of bits on my mantel with a lovely fossil plant (both sides). Unlike most wet shale plays with associated very tight silt/sand/dolomite interbeds or associated reservoir strata, the oil is pretty evenly dispersed in the shale itself. Many ideas have been tried to produce it, from mining the shale and baking the oil out of it (Parachute Creek), to chilling and heating the rock in situ, to Project Rulison up on the Book Cliffs (a nuclear frac).
It's there, but getting it out is the tricky part, and not ready for prime time.
There is at least one more unconventional reservoir field out there that I know of, but BLM land means not under the current US management. If Harris gets in, maybe never, because it would take a sand frac after horizontal drilling to produce it, and she wants to ban that.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

That's more difficult. I know those rocks, have a couple of bits on my mantel with a lovely fossil plant (both sides). Unlike most wet shale plays with associated very tight silt/sand/dolomite interbeds or associated reservoir strata, the oil is pretty evenly dispersed in the shale itself. Many ideas have been tried to produce it, from mining the shale and baking the oil out of it (Parachute Creek), to chilling and heating the rock in situ, to Project Rulison up on the Book Cliffs (a nuclear frac).
It's there, but getting it out is the tricky part, and not ready for prime time.
There is at least one more unconventional reservoir field out there that I know of, but BLM land means not under the current US management. If Harris gets in, maybe never, because it would take a sand frac after horizontal drilling to produce it, and she wants to ban that.

Nice knowing that if the price of oil were to go up, we'd still have that as another reserve were it to become economical. I know we shouldn't necessarily count on it, but we shouldn't count it out either.

There is also the amount of hydrocarbons in frozen methane on the sea floor. Something like more hydrocarbons than humanity has ever burned of any type in human history. Japan has a program to develop them. Or the large amount of methane on Titan, another far off future possibility. Now we may actually develop an alternative before those come up. I don't know.

I read up on this stuff quite a bit back in the late 2000's because there was a lot of talk then that we were at peak oil.

[Smokin Joe]

Nice knowing that if the price of oil were to go up, we'd still have that as another reserve were it to become economical. I know we shouldn't necessarily count on it, but we shouldn't count it out either.

There is also the amount of hydrocarbons in frozen methane on the sea floor. Something like more hydrocarbons than humanity has ever burned of any type in human history. Japan has a program to develop them. Or the large amount of methane on Titan, another far off future possibility. Now we may actually develop an alternative before those come up. I don't know.

I read up on this stuff quite a bit back in the late 2000's because there was a lot of talk then that we were at peak oil.

I have a book in my office entitled "When the oil runs out". Published in 1947.
We've shied from the looming disaster of 'peak oil' before, and somehow managed to come out of the situation with more production than ever.

Keep in mind that some of the reasons for oil to be 'scarce' are completely artificial.
COVID led to a shortfall in domestic production because a tremendous number of stripper wells (ones which produce under 20 bbls of oil per day) were plugged and abandoned when the price bottomed (actually went negative, briefly). They will likely never be put back on line, as recompletion would cost more than any foreseeable production would bring in. It isn't much to plug one well, but the cumulative effect led to a drop in overall production of roughly 1.5 million barrels per day. The tar sands oil brought in by the Keystone XL Pipeline would have compensated, some 850,000 BOPD brought in from Canada, but Biden killed the project on day one.
The Arab Oil Embargo was another artificial shortage, and led to an oil boom here in the US.
Alaska has a lot of oil untapped, too, but ANWR, or at least the tiny fraction that has been explored with a drill bit, has been severely restricted, too. Again, by the Biden Administration.

We likely have another shortage in the pipeline, as the Biden Administration has consistently failed to let out for bids the statutorily required offerings from Federally owned lands, which are roughly half the land west of the Mississippi.

In all, policy is more damaging than geology.

[berdie]

I think eventually that will be one of the answers.

My Mom's family were all coal miners (not here but in S. Illinois) I used to spend summers there. Even as a child I recognized how very hard they worked. So I wonder if there will be enough workers to populate a resurrection. Most young folks don't really have that in mind. Nor do they have the knowledge.

[Smokin Joe]

I think eventually that will be one of the answers.

My Mom's family were all coal miners (not here but in S. Illinois) I used to spend summers there. Even as a child I recognized how very hard they worked. So I wonder if there will be enough workers to populate a resurrection. Most young folks don't really have that in mind. Nor do they have the knowledge.

A combination of knowledge, skills, and the desire to work at a 'dirty job'...But then, it may be that they will, in their desire to keep the dirt out from under their fingernails, figure out a way to work the mines with remote controlled vehicles that only require a rare few hardy 'specialists' to go down to troubleshoot problems.

[berdie]

A combination of knowledge, skills, and the desire to work at a 'dirty job'...But then, it may be that they will, in their desire to keep the dirt out from under their fingernails, figure out a way to work the mines with remote controlled vehicles that only require a rare few hardy 'specialists' to go down to troubleshoot problems.

That is probably true. Unless the miner's union stops it. Kinda like  one of the longshoreman's union demands was...

We don't need no stinkin' automation.

[Free Vulcan]

Ah the globalist conundrum - less energy from the Green New Deal, or more energy for their AI future. What to do, what to do...

A question for who may be able to answer it - what do they consider reserves? Here in Iowa in the next county over I got a buddy who has some property that has copious amounts of coal right at the surface, enough to keep a few stoves running for awhile. You can see the seams in the creek banks and pull it out with your bare hands. Is that considered reserve or just what they think is commercially viable?

[Smokin Joe]

That is probably true. Unless the miner's union stops it. Kinda like  one of the longshoreman's union demands was...

We don't need no stinkin' automation.

Well, not here, maybe, but in space, if ever we are to mine there, the tech would sure come in handy.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

That is probably true. Unless the miner's union stops it. Kinda like  one of the longshoreman's union demands was...

We don't need no stinkin' automation.

I'd love to apply that logic to the computer profession. Ban batch files, ban shell scripts!

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Nice knowing that if the price of oil were to go up, we'd still have that as another reserve were it to become economical. I know we shouldn't necessarily count on it, but we shouldn't count it out either.

There is also the amount of hydrocarbons in frozen methane on the sea floor. Something like more hydrocarbons than humanity has ever burned of any type in human history. Japan has a program to develop them. Or the large amount of methane on Titan, another far off future possibility. Now we may actually develop an alternative before those come up. I don't know.

I read up on this stuff quite a bit back in the late 2000's because there was a lot of talk then that we were at peak oil.

I'll add that the cost to extract Oil shales like that at the Green River is high as the oil does not move through the earth like the unconventional oil plays in the Bakken/Three Forks in North Dakota/Montana or the Eagleford in Texas, so it must be retorted either in situ(e,g, microwaving like Shell has experimented) or by simply mining it like coal and surface retorting.

The world has plenty of Hydrocarbons locked away to sustain it for centuries but it will be increasingly expensive to obtain.  It might be that we in the future use Fischer-Tropsch methods to simply convert natural gas to our liquid fuel needs as there is exponentially more natural gas available as there is oil.  You already mentioned that which exists as methane on the seafloor, but that which can be produced by more conventional methods is a staggering amount because natural gas flows much more freely through the earth than does liquids.  The world also contains countless amounts of known conventional deposits containing natural gas found over the past hundred years of drilling that were never produced as companies were looking for the easy to transport crude rather than gas.