Coal Resources

Coal is the second only to oil in fossil fuel consumption and is very likely to have a greater use in the future as oil and gas production decline. The International Energy Outlook 2005 projects that coal consumption, which increased in production by 7.2% from 2003 to 2004, will increase by 2.5% per annum until 2015 and 1.3 % per annum from 2015 to 2025.  The greater growth in the first period reflects the rapid growth of Asian economies during this time which are likely to slow down in the later period.  Asia's demand for coal is expected to be moderated by increasing use of natural gas from pipelines from the Caspian Sea area that are now under construction and those that may be built in the future.  EIA expects that their coal consumption will double by 2025, which will lower China's R/P considerably, indicating either increased imports, perhaps from the Russian Federation, or a shortfall in the following period.  In the short term EIA expects U.S. demand for coal to increase by 4.5% in 2005 and remain at 2005 levels in 2006.

COAL RESOURCE DATA

Location	Proved Anthracite & Bituminous Reserves	Proved Sub-bituminous & Lignite Reserves	Share of Total Re-serves	2004 Produc-tion	Change over 2003	Con-sump-tion	R/P ratio
	million tonnes	million tonnes	%	million tonnes oil equiv.	%	million tonnes oil equiv.
United States	111,338	135,305	27.1%	567.2	3.3%	564.3	245
Russian Federation	49,088	107,922	17.3%	127.6	2.2%	105.9	>500
India	90,085	2,360	10.2%	188.8	7.4%	204.8	229
China	62,200	52,300	12.6%	989.8	13.3%	956.9	59
Australia	38,600	39,900	8.6%	199.4	5.2%	54.4	215
South Africa	48,750	-	5.4%	136.9	2.2%	94.5	201
Leading Im	porter
Japan	359	-	-	0.7	-	120.8	268
World Total	478,771	430,293	100.00%	2,732	7.2%	2,778	164

Data for the previous table is taken from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2005.  Units for production and consumption are expressed in tonnes (2204.62 lb) of oil equivalent rather than tonnes of coal because the mix of various coals with different heat contents would make values on a strictly weight basis misleading.  The heating values of lignite are quite a bit lower than for Anthracite; for a concise discussion of this see the International Energy Outlook in the section on reserves.  Data for coal is rather straight foreword because the trade in coal is very limited except with Japan and South Korea which are the largest importers, much of it coming from Australia which is the largest exporter.  Even the quantity that they import is rather small when compared to the worlds consumption.

The growth rate projected in the next few years by EIA seems to be a little low to me, with Asia increasing consumption 11.9% in 2004 and accounting for 54.2% of the world's total consumption.  While Asia has plans to build nuclear power plants at a very aggressive rate, most are not going to be coming on line before 2012. U.S. coal consumption only increased by 0.3% in 2004 but it is likely to increase at a higher rate in a few years due to the high costs of natural gas and oil.  Clean Coal power plants are starting to take off, but will not start coming on line in any quantity before 2015.   In my judgment coal liquefaction in the U.S is not likely to have any real impact before 2020.  So while Asia may slow down coal consumption after 2015 the U.S. is likely to start increasing consumption at that time.

Resources:

BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2005, June 2005 - A free 41 page summary of this report may be ordered from the website.
International Energy Outlook - Coal , EIA, July, 2005
Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA, Oct. 12, 2005

Technorati tags: coal, resources, energy

Comments

[pcoates]

I suspect the demand for coal in the US will grow much faster than indicated here. (1) increased use in electricity generation, and (2) as input to Fischer-tropsch processors. However there is a lead time in ramping up both. the coal consumption over the next 5 to 10 years is constrained by what capital plant is already in existence or being built. But beyond that, unless there is sufficient evidence of major global warming to force a reduction of US energy consumption, there is likely to be a massive increase in coal consumption. I do no see what climatic event could persuade the US policy makers to take their foot off the energy peddle

[wkwillis]

The US has sufficient balance of payments problems that it will soon have to make it's own oil, steel, etc, using it's domestic coal reserves. The will increase the US production of coal and the US is one of the largest users of coal.
Figure on taking about four years to rebuild the industrial infrastructure, because that's how long it took us last time, between December of 1941 and 1945.

[Engineer-Poet]

The US will not need very much steel (or coal to smelt it) because we've already got huge quantities; most of what we need will continue to come from recycling of scrap. If our material demand moves toward fiber-reinforced plastics in a big way, we might even wind up with a steel surplus as we did with copper when fiber optics replaced it in the telecom industry.

The one thing I see to cut the rise of coal is, ironically, farm policy. We're currently using imported nitrate to grown corn to ferment into motor fuel, which is just ridiculous. We would be better off growing switchgrass or Miscanthus on that land, which gives us a coal-supplement, feedstock for cellulosic ethanol and ruminant fodder.

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[Alternative Energy]

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