Peak Coal: Coal Production Projected to Decline

The 50% of U.S. ratepayers whose electricity is generated by coal had best plan for steeply higher electricity prices not far down the road, and they as well as the rest of us need to be thinking of how we will cope when the fuels we depend upon for 63%-coal and gas- of our power are in steep depletion.

Recent reports indicate that coal may not be so plentiful as originally thought, and that not only to we not have a "200-year" supply, but that coal production may go into terminal decline within a few years.

This may seem improbable to a lot of people. The United States is the second-largest coal producer in the world, and 48% of the electricity in this country is generated by coal. Moreover, this has been the cheapest way to generate power to date, even though it carries environmental hazards and costs that we now know we can no longer bear. Coal is surely the dirtiest method of power production ever, and the cost of building a coal plant with necessary pollution controls equals or exceeds the cost of building a conventional nuclear plant with the same generating capacity.

While consumption of all fuels in this country have dropped slightly due to the current steep economic contraction, global consumption of coal is increasing rapidly, with China and India being the largest consumers. The demand for electricity by these two most populous countries in the world will only increase as they continue to industrialize and more of their citizens aspire to Western lifestyles.

According to Richard Heinberg at The Energy Bulletin:

"future scenarios for global coal consumption are cast into doubt by two recent European studies on world coal supplies. The first, Coal: Resources and Future Production (PDF 630KB), published on April 5 by the Energy Watch Group, which reports to the German Parliament, found that global coal production could peak in as few as 15 years. This astonishing conclusion was based on a careful analysis of recent reserves revisions for several nations.

The report's authors (Werner Zittel and Jörg Schindler) note that, with regard to global coal reserves, "the data quality is very unreliable", especially for China, South Asia, and the Former Soviet Union countries. Some nations (such as Vietnam) have not updated their proved reserves for decades, in some instances not since the 1960s. China's last update was in 1992; since then, 20 per cent of its reserves have been consumed, though this is not revealed in official figures.

However, since 1986 all nations with significant coal resources (except India and Australia) that have made the effort to update their reserves estimates have reported substantial downward revisions. Some countries - including Botswana, Germany, and the UK - have downgraded their reserves by more than 90 per cent. Poland's reserves are now 50 per cent smaller than was the case 20 years ago.

These downgrades cannot be explained by volumes produced during this period. The best explanation, say the EWG report's authors, is that nations now have better data from more thorough surveys. If that is the case, then future downward revisions are likely from countries that still rely on decades-old reserves estimates. Altogether, the world's reserves of coal have dwindled from 10 trillion tons of hard coal equivalent to 4.2 trillion tons in 2005 - a 60 per cent downward revision in 25 years.

China (the world's primary consumer) and the US (the nation with the largest reserves) are keys to the future of coal. China reports 55 years of coal reserves at current consumption rates. Subtracting quantities consumed since 1992, the last year reserves figures were updated, this declines to 40 to 45 years. However, the calculation assumes constant rates of usage, which is unrealistic since consumption is increasing rapidly. Already China has shifted from being a minor coal exporter to being a net coal importer. Moreover, we must factor in the peaking phenomenon common to the extraction of all non-renewable resources (the peak of production typically occurs long before the resource is exhausted).

The EWG report's authors, taking these factors into account, state: "it is likely that China will experience peak production within the next 5-15 years, followed by a steep decline." Only if China's reported coal reserves are in reality much larger than reported will Chinese coal production rates not peak "very soon" and fall rapidly.

The United States is the world's second-largest producer, surpassing the two next important producer states (India and Australia) by nearly a factor of three. Its reserves are so large that America has been called "the Saudi Arabia of coal". The US has already passed its peak of production for high-quality coal (from the Appalachian Mountains and the Illinois basin) and has seen production of bituminous coal decline since 1990. However, growing extraction of sub-bituminous coal in Wyoming has more than compensated for this.

Taking reserves into account, the EWG concludes that growth in total volumes can continue for 10 to 15 years. However, in terms of energy content US coal production peaked in 1998 at 598 million tons of oil equivalents (Mtoe); by 2005 this had fallen to 576 Mtoe."

Here we have it: all fossil fuels are in decline or soon will be, and as they deplete, prices will trend sharply upward, and everything we do, make, use, and buy will become more expensive. Much more expensive.

While the fossil fuels that we're so heavily dependent upon deplete, our demand for electricity will most likely increase, especially if we electrify a substantial part of our transportation- and we will most likely have to do exactly that if most of the population is to have access to motorized transportation in the decades ahead as oil supplies become more unreliable and expensive.

Fortunately, there is nuclear, and here in Illinois we can be grateful that 50% of our power is generated by it. Generation 3 cold water reactors incorporate great improvements in safety and are now extremely safe, and can be built much more cheaply than the early essays in the craft, because of increasing standardization of design and mass production of parts. Additionally, newer nuclear technologies have the potential to extend the fuel cycle many hundreds of years beyond the horizons of our limited supplies of U235, while making use of spent nuclear fuel and thus reducing or altogether eliminating nuclear waste.

However, the future of nuclear in Illinois is very uncertain, thanks to the ill-considered moratorium on the construction of nuclear power facilities until the permanent storage of nuclear "waste" (more on that later) is "solved and the current emphasis is on coal-fired generation. A 600-megawatt "clean coal" plant is planned for Taylorville, Illinois, and the Illinois House of Representatives in May passed a bill that would require utilities and power marketers to buy 5% of their power from such facilities. The bill will go to the Senate this fall.

Will Illinois, the crucible of civilian nuclear power and the state most dependent upon it, resume its place as a leader in the development of nuclear, or will we make all the wrong choices and wed ourselves to fatal dependency on rapidly depleting fossil fuel resources, or on "renewables" such as wind and solar, that provide power only intermittently and at a cost that will render regular electic power unaffordable to 50% of the population? Decisions being made now will take generations to reverse, for generating equipment is extremely expensive, and plants being built now will have to serve for at least 40 years. The decision to eschew nuclear in favor of coal could condemn Illinois to increasing economic marginalization and deterioration, complete with further loss of manufacturing and commerce and vaulting poverty rates- and little hope of reversing those trends in our lifetimes.

No Free Lunch: The Hidden Hazards and Costs of Renewable Energy

Whoever first said that "there's no such a thing as a free lunch" may not have been thinking of energy, but there aren't many fields where the trade-offs and offsets come into play with such a vengeance as in energy production.

Conventional nuclear power produces radioactive waste that remains highly toxic for tens of thousands of years. Solar leaches toxic chemicals into the water during the manufacture of the panels, and a solar plant that that generates 1 Gw (1000 Mw, or the capacity of one reactor at the Braidwood Nuclear facility) requires 8 square miles of space, based on the approximately 13% efficiency of modern solar panels. Wind power is noisy, and wind turbines can throw blades, at great hazard to any humans in the vicinity. Hydroelectric dams have been known to collapse, resulting in steep death tolls and widespread devastation- the collapse of the St. Francis Dam (Los Angeles) in 1928 killed nearly 500 people, and the Teton Dam (Idaho) in 1976 collapse killed 11.

And now it appears that deep-drill geothermal projects, the kind that involve drilling into deep rock, may cause earthqakes. Altarock Geothermal, one of the many "green" energy companies in which former Vice-President Al Gore has a significant financial stake, is planning on drilling into rock in an area two hours north of San Francisco, in one of the most seismically sensitive areas of the world, and intends to use the same method that former oilman Markus O. Haring used in 2006 in Basel, Switzerland and that triggered a 3.4 M earthquake, which was followed by thousands of smaller aftershocks. Altarock knew of this earthquake but did not disclose it on the report of potential seismic impact which they were required to submit prior to being given approval.

Given that there are significant hazards attached to all methods of energy production, this particular method seems to bear outsized risks in relation to the potential energy produced, and relative to other methods. San Francisco has been the site of a few catastrophic earthquakes in the past 100 years or so, most recently the disastrous 1989 Loma Prieta, and in view of the potential for major loss of human life and widespread property damage in the event of a major tremblor, and the very real possibility that a project like this could trigger such an event, it is astonishing that California authorities would consider permitting this project anywhere near San Francisco. In fact, it seems highly inapropriate to do such a drill anywhere along the fault-riddled and densely-populated Pacific coast at all in view of the known hazard.

Such is the power of religion- and the pursuit of "green" energy has become a religion, whose tenets are not to be questioned even in the face of a mountain of contrary evidence. The central tenet of the Green religion is that we can make a painless switch to "green" solar, wind, and thermal energy with no adjustment or rearranging of our lives and industry necessary. This belief would be touching were our future well-being, and possibly the very lives of tens of millions of us, not dependent on decisions being made now regarding the future of electrical power generation, and it is chilling to consider that these decisions are being made not on the basis of known facts, but by blind faith and wishful thinking.

In view of the known downside of many forms of renewable energy, it might be wise to slow the push to replace fossil fuel with "renewables" until objective risk assessments and costs analysis comparing the various forms of energy generation are made. Some renewable sources may be ideal for large-scale power generation, while others are better for "distributed" power- that is, on an extremely small scale, such as a household. Some may be so inherently costly that there is no hope that they can provide more than a tiny fraction of our power, while others may entail hazards that are unacceptable at any level of efficiency or cost.

Most of all, we need to relearn the concept of tradeoffs and price-paying. Energy generation is and has always been expensive and fraught with risk, even in the age of cheap fossil fuels that has just passed. We are now at the threshold of another era, one in which energy will be costlier and more difficult to generate in the amounts we need to supply our swollen populations with the level of comfort and amenity now considered minimal, and we are most likely going to be confronted with many difficult choices, each of which will have an outcome that is not exactly ideal.

So, what will we choose?

Will we choose methods of power generation that are capable of generating the kind of power we will need in the amounts we need and at a cost we can afford, to power our society in the face of growing demand and the need to convert our transportation to electricity as fossil fuels deplete, even if that means we must build more coal, nuclear, or gas-fired plants?

Or will we opt for solar, wind, and thermal, which will either be much costlier, have physical hazards that we are only beginning to grasp, and will most of all be so expensive and unreliable that 50% of our population will not be able to have reliable electricity at all?

Will we continue to build coal and gas-fired plants in spite of the known depletion of coal and gas, and the known environmental hazards of coal, to the detriment of nuclear development?

Does the potential loss of life due to nuclear power compare with the certain loss of life, steeply reduced lifespans, and widespread misery and poverty that will result from reversion to pre-technological lifestyles should a large portion of our population lose access to reliable electricity?

These are the choices we will have to make, and rather soon, and we'll have to decide just how steep a price in human misery-mass impoverishment, rampant epidemics, famines, steeply reduced lifespans, and random death on a mass scale- we are willing to pay to avoid assuming the necessary risks and making the requisite difficult adjustments we will have to make to retain the life-giving technological amenity we've enjoyed for the past century.

Repeal the Nuclear Moratorium

Efforts to repeal Illinois' 20-year-old moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants until arrangements are made for the permanent storage of highly toxic nuclear waste products, have stalled once more, even though the sponsor of HB2971, State Representative Jo Ann Osmond (R. 61st District) intends to re-introduce the bill next year. The bill faces strong opposition from the environmentalist movement, as well as the doubts and fears of a public imprinted by the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Middletown, PA; and the level 7 disaster, the worst in the history of nuclear power generation, at the Soviet-designed and operated Chernobyl plant in Ukraine.

The exploitation of these two events by anti-nuclear activists, along with the wide-spread public ignorance of the risks, benefits, and costs of various sources of energy, have combined to create a hostile climate for the further development of nuclear power in the United States generally, but particularly in Illinois, which is ironic considering that this state is the crucible of civil nuclear power in this country, and is more dependent upon nuclear for electrical power than any other state.

Americans have allowed themselves to be lulled into dangerous complacency regarding energy supplies, thanks to current low oil and gas prices, and the more immediate threats to our well-being from the collapse of our financial system and resulting economic morass. The deepening recession has caused an immediate steep drop in demand for energy, with the result that prices for most energy sources have tanked, and concerns regarding our precarious energy situation have been shunted to the back burner.

This complacency could prove deadly in a very short time, as global demand for energy continues to increase rapidly, and other nations, notably the large, rapidly developing nations of Asia, compete with us for dwindling supplies of fossil fuels. The two most populous nations, India and China, are aggressively staking claims on future oil production and rapidly increasing their electrical generating capacity, while the OPEC nations sequester more of their supplies for their own use and other developing nations are catching up to the two Asian superpowers in industrial capacity and energy demand.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), countries around the world must build at least 32 nuclear power plants each year by 2050 in order to meet increasing demand for electricity. The United States will have to build about 30 large facilities just to replace its aging nuclear fleet and stay even with current demand. Additionally, if we are to convert our transportation to electrical power on the time table dictated by global depletion of liquid fuels and the subsequent rapid increase in fuel prices that will result, we will have to increase our generating power substantially, and we don't have forever to do it before increasing fuel prices render the project unaffordable.

Americans, however, are apt to rest easy, for we are so accustomed to a plentitude of cheap energy, and already have enough electrical generating capacity in place to meet current demand, so the peaking of oil production seems to many of our political and business leaders to be a distant threat at worst, given the current temporary gasoline glut and falling demand. Additionally, we have immense reserves of coal, and natural gas is still plentiful and its production peak lies several years out.

Worse, though, is our sanguine assumption that "renewables" will offset the reduction of oil, and eventually gas, and that we can make an easy and seamless transition to solar, hydro, and wind with no loss of amenity and no re-arrangeing of our lifestyles, industry, or commerce necessary. This dangerous fiction is driving U. S. energy policies, as articulated by Chairman Jon Wellinghoff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who stated with great certainty that no new nuclear or coal plants will ever be needed again in the U.S. and that renewables like wind, solar and biomass will provide enough energy to meet baseload capacity and future energy demands and that nuclear and coal plants are "too expensive".

This is a very scary utterance, coming as it does from the mouth of the man who has the power to determine the direction of energy development in this country, and it has life or death implications for 310 million people, a large fraction of whom could find themselves unable to afford electricity in any form on any terms, if we fail to keep up with the increase in demand and to offset the loss of fossil fuels. Steep and rapid reduction in the availability of fossil fuels could force many tens of millions of people out of cars and onto public transit, causing a massive surge in demand for electrical power that cannot conceivably be met by renewables in their current state of development, and it's most unlikely that these diffuse and intermittent forms of energy will ever supply more than a small fraction of current demand, let alone meet future increases in demand. Moreover, a massive surge in demand concurrent with conversion to coal for generation would reduce our coal reserves from a 250 year supply, which estimate is based on current demand, to a 50 year supply if use of coal should increase by even 5% yearly.

Anti-nuclear activists claim that the expense of building and operating nuclear plants exceeds that of most renewables. Their comparisons are based on the extremely high costs of Generation 1 light water reactors, the first generation of plants constructed. Nuclear power was a pioneering technology during the decades these plants went up, and like all new technologies, was costly, clunky, and tricky to operate. Down time was frequent. The plants were custom built down to the last reinforcement rod, which resulted in long construction delays and massive cost overruns. Surprises were frequent. Generation 2 plants incorporated new and refined technologies that reduced both construction costs and down time, and included vasty improved safety features. Generation 3 reactors incorporate many mass-produced parts, realizing steep reductions in costs and in construction time, and are vastly safer than their predecessors.

Moreover, the newest nuclear technology, developed 30 years ago and now commercially viable, the Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor, is a vast advance on even the newest and most advanced light water reactors. This nuclear technology uses thorium, which is abundant, instead of uranium 235, which is depleting rapidly. It is an inherently safe technology and produces fissionable by-products that can extend the fuel cyle hundreds of years and that cannot be used to produce nuclear weapons. The reactors are small and are to be mass-produced in factories, requiring a lesser skill set, thus saving labor costs, and can be transported to the site by truck or rail. Several units can be combined at a particular site to provide power for larger communities.

This is not to say that renewables should be abandoned. But at this point, renewable sources either don't "scale" to the power needs of large populations, or will not work in many locations due to climate or topography- unless that population is to give up most of the basic improvements in lifestyle of the past century, including advanced sanitation, motorized transportation in any form, and regular electricity available 24 hours per day.

The quality of our lives, and possibly whether or not a large percentage of us will even be able to survive at all, depends upon decisions being made now regarding the funding of energy research and development, and the regulation of the industry. The decision to foreclose any future development of an energy source that is potentially can provide more power for many more years into the future with minimal pollution, will have tragic consequences for millions of people, including me and most likely you as well.

We can't afford to not to build more nuclear reactors, and we need to pressure our representatives to repeal the nuclear moratorium in Illinois and hope that other states do likewise.