beegdawg007

Life After Coal: Coming Sooner than You Think

Tom, I came across an article that you really should read.

"Rethinking U.S. Coal Reserves and Resources". by James Mayer...

Very informative!

Read it and let me know if you still think that the U.S. will run out of usable/recoverable coal anytime in the foreseeable future.

74.125.95.132/search?q...

The author of this article explains how the US EIA (Energy Information Agency) estimates the various categories of reserves, i.e. recoverable, demonstrated, hypothetical, identified etc. To start off, he makes note of this most often referenced coal reserve statistic, which is that the US has recoverable coal reserves that are estimated to be 270 billion tons, which is 200 years worth of coal! Now even that is a lot of coal. However, the author than goes on to explain why the actual reserve tonnage is "at least" 2 times that, and probably more than four times that 270 billion ton EIA estimate.

This is a lengthy and detailed article, which I know most who visit here would not be interested in reading from beginning to end. So, allow me to just use one quote from this 13,000 word article to demonstrate why this authors view is probably on target;

The author states...
" Alaska provides a dramatic example of coal potential ****unrecognized**** by the EIA, (US Energy Information Agency). Total hypothetical coal resources in Alaska exceed 5.5 trillion short tons, [note that is TRILLION, not Billion] according to the most recent comprehensive "state" coal resource assessment.i By comparison, the EIA/USGS estimate of total U.S. resources, including hypothetical measures, is 3.9 trillion tons. Alaska accounts for a meager 6.1 billion tons in the 2004 DRB estimate, even though state experts state that coal reserves in Alaska very likely surpass all coal resources in the lower 48 states. This report asserts that the EIA’s 500 billion ton DRB (Demonstrated Reserve Base) estimate reasonably reflects the ultimately recoverable U.S. coal reserves. To put this in perspective, it is believed possible that 500 billion tons of coal may ultimately be recoverable from Alaska alone."""

Coal in a resource which the U.S. has mismanaged for the past 30 years. Had we learned how to liquif and/or gasify coal to run our cars, we would be not be importing oil from anyone. We would have saved $trillions$ on pointless wars, and tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers would still be alive. Tom, do you realize that 1 shrt ton of PRB coal, which sells now for just $13/ton, contains 17.6 Million BTUs of energy? Let me better highlight the potential of that. The 17.6 Million BTU's of energy contained in $13 worth of Wyoming PRB coal is equivalent to the total BTU energy equivalent contained in 140 gallons of gasoline!