It will probably be environmental constraints, not resource constraints, that will be the issue going forward.

We don't want fossil OIL
We don't want fossil COAL

What we want is a NO FOOTPRINT ENERGY source

Is that too simple.

There are well proven ways to achieve this
but hey the fossil sellers are not interested
and you the people, just have no idea.

Too bad, keep ya dry'n weather, good for dry'n wet clothes, hey don't let it rain on parade day

and keep pumping that mercury into ya neurones..... life is a circus, yeah !

LOL, more like an insane asylum

Your comment amounts to: "the report is wrong." And it may be -- I certainly don't have the expertise to assess one way or the other. But people that I take seriously take it seriously, so it's worth pondering what the implications would be.

If it's wrong -- if there's plenty of coal waiting to be burnt -- then we're back to pleading with an energy-hungry world to refrain from burning it based on concerns about the atmosphere -- concerns that, you may have noticed, have not done much yet to constrain its use.

If the report is right, then our hand is immeasurably strengthened. In addition to all the climate-change arguments, we can then say, "coal will be prohibitively expensive in a few decades, so we have no choice but to move to R&E." For better or worse, that brute economic argument is one everyone understands and responds to.

One way or another, if it turns out peak coal is imminent, the energy landscape fundamentally changes. You should check out the linked Heinberg piece.

www.grist.org

Hmm, so let's see here, "peak coal" is good because it drives people to avoid the stuff and greenhouses gases would miraculously decline.  Not to offend the good folks at Grist but that sounds like journalism instead of science.  

I guess at the end of the day, "peak anything" is not a scientific term because it is a matter of economics and perception, translating feelings into words and numbers.  I know the fight, the battle, and the odds -- if there is plenty of fossil fuels why change our habits and life styles one bit?  That's what we want, new habits, new technology, and new life styles, right?  I completely understand.

I an sure the German study about coal consumption and reserves will be enlightening, since if they are responsible scientists they will know what kind of coal, where it is, how difficult it is to extract it, and what kind of assessments have been done in different locations using different methods. One might find an unequal distribution of things that makes a top-down argument for "peak coal" quite complex.  It is like Global Warming where some areas get too much rain and others none, some too hot and other too cold.  

So I hope you're cool with my argument, that the devil is in the details.  
/sammie

Onward through the fog

Ex-top spook James Woolsey was running around giving "PowerShift" presentations warning about energy vulnerability (though he downplays the peak oil term and explanation).
He seems to think that oil would flow freely and abundantly for good if only politics didn't get in the way.

He's even got a spiffy little scenario role-playing game set up where a number of events lead to rapid constriction in oil supplies and participants (college students and a himself) play the US cabinet trying to advise the president about what to do.  He posit unrest in Nigeria, terrorists hitting Alaskan oil refineries, and Middle East unrest--the situation soon spins out of control.  That part's pretty good--we ARE astoundingly vulnerable.

However, when I attended one of the shows, I learned to my dismay that his solution is ethanol and coal-to-liquids, just like Bob Hirsch of SAIC.   In other words, the only problem is a liquid fuels shortage, so the solution to getting back to the happy place is "make more liquid fuels."

Apparently leadership in America has devolved to the point where the first to suggest treating a symptom in isolation is considered an innovative leader, and anyone who actually suggests considering and addressing the root cause (a society built to require automobility) without ignoring the other related problems (global heating, public health, weakened financial system) is just talking crazy.

JMG I found your posting quite resourceful.  I don't understand what France has to do with this because the US should be a leader in solving energy problems but has completely and utterly failed.  To wit:  Bush said he now acknowledged that humans might have an effect on global warming, but any EPA rules couldn't cost any money and if GHG emission in China rose, the entire deal was off.  Is this boy on crack or what?

Onward through the fog

I don't see how Mongabay or you have nailed it. We will "have to" leave the coal in the ground? Says who?

As oil and natural gas peak, decline, and become prohibitively expensive, there's going to be massive pressure to use coal to make up the gap (and keep up with rising demand). I repeat: massive. You really think the U.S. and China are going to leave the coal in the ground out of fear of sea-level rises a century hence? Perhaps you have more faith in human rationality than I do.

www.grist.org

Nuclear        31
Hydro          14
Biofuels/wood   5

is exactly half.  Wind will soons push that #

And that % can easily shift in a crunch. Most trips can be made without oil; trams, subways, TGV, bicycling, walking are ready options for a majority of trips.  Taking a car is often easier, but in a crunch they have a largely built out (some still under construction) non-oil transportation alternative readily available.

Their not very good freight rail system (just opened to competition) can take some freight off of trucks.

No one is perfect, but France seems to be near the head of the pack of where we should all be going.

http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm

Coal reserves in the US will cause the US to be the last to adapt to peak fossil energy supplies.  Expect post fossil energy developments elsewhere first, not here.

Peak coal is a long way into the future for the US.  Like talk about peak oil, I expect little more than empty talk about peak coal, no real policy changes, and insignificant alternative energy investments until coal shortages (or carbon taxes) cause permanent price increases.  

It is encouraging that China's coal economy is not sustainable.

(Probably much much sooner - but some legitimate analyst have put it that late.)

Look the problem is not that we don't have non-fossil fuel alternatives.

Jacobson & Archer have estimate that wind energy has a worldwide commercial potential of 72 Terrawatts. These are class 3 sites on land, not including offshore potential. Granted that this is still a second cut: there are probably real obstacles on many of these sites. But overall there is little doubt that wind alone could provide all the world's energy. It would require some big ass HVDC lines. Pumped storage to smooth out variability would cover substantially fewer acres than current world dams.

Similarly a fraction of the worlds deserts could provide many times the energy wind could via solar thermal electricity.

So we have plenty of renewable energy - all you want.

Lots of near term potential for breakthroughs too. Tester and MIT seem to think that we have near term breakthroughs in dry rock geothermal that could move potential from a fraction of a percent of world consumption to close to all of world consumption.

Ocean currents have tremendous potential - basically  underwater windmills.

Both of these currently face obstacles - unlike sun and wind, they are not quite ready for prime time. But they are close.

So we face no shortage of usable energy. What we may face a shortage of is cheap energy. Which is where the URGE2 thing comes in. If energy prices have to rise slightly, use that energy more efficiently and your economy not only does not suffer; it improves.

S

You are stark raving mad. If we can get through two centuries on today's sustainable renewables, plenty of other will be ready long b. Plus efficiency can draw that out to four centuries or eight.

And that does not even begin to look at near term potential breakthroughs - Flyng Energy Generators that have a potential of more like 350 terawatts from wind than 72 terawatts. Geothermal technolgies that could raise geothermal technology from current less than a terawatt (a lot less) to 60 terawatts.

And if that is not enough hey, just because nukes are overpriced and proliferation prone today that does not mean they will always be. IF efficiency and renewables buy us only a few centuries, that will be plenty of time to develop nukes that really can do what the nuclear industry has always promised, but never delivered. Heck, in that time, maybe will get net energy sustained fusion.

All of these reserves numbers are suspect. The known oil reserves are almost certainly over stated as the vast majority of these reserves is in the hands of state oil companies. Overstating your reserves brings economic benefits. Saudi Arabia has had the same level of reserves for years now and considering that they have not had any major discoveries something does not add up.

These numbers on coal are equally suspect. Different standards for different countries, etc, etc. The other thing people often forget is the investment required to get the oil in your gas tank. It's one thing pumping easy oil out of the ground but once you start talking about oil sands or coal liquification you need big, big plants to do that. Building these takes years and costs billions. Before these things are on stream takes a while.

"humanity will have to adjust to a sharply energy constrained world"

But thanks to creativity and inovation, that won't necessarily mean a lower standard of living.  At least for those who take the renewable energy and conservation path.

It will mean prosperity for those who provide the devices that make this possible.  

Would you rather live in prosperity or under oily corporate dictatorship?

Next election.  Vote HUMAN!  Instead of shaved ape.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

MarkUK wrote: Building these takes years and costs billions. Before these things are on stream takes a while.

Hence there is opportunity for futures traders to warn us by softening the price curves. Do you have any suggestions for encouraging them to take advantage of these money-making opportunities?

>> Solar power (as wind, wave, ocean current, etc.) is therefore inherently unsustainable. Nuclear fission, on the other hand,  >>

MUST BE BANNED.... Nuclear material must stay where it lies. Finish Fission.

No ENERGY FOOTPRINT now or later, artihmetic projections might just be correct for salt you may find.

My point wasn't really the potential money to be made etc. The problem is the difference in how the energy source is found. We are used to fairly standard oil that comes out of the ground.

Coal as a source of gas or synthetic oil or just as itself does not come easily out of the ground. It is like the oil sands in Canada. People like to point out that there is plenty of oil there. True, the problem is the billions and billions of investment required and the tens of thousands of skilled workers to get it out.

We can do it, but it takes time. Energy demand is growing much faster than we can bring these alternative fossil fuel sources online. It takes ten years or so to bring a standard oil field into production...

Future's trading is not my field...

That is the sum total of modern futures trading.  A scam.  Unregulated hedge funds taking advantage of inside information.

The rich getting richer and the poor starving.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I am not am optimist when it comes to human nature.

I believe heavily in Murphey's Law.