UK, France will run out of home-grown fossil energy in 5 years.

[GliderGuider]

UK "needs more home-grown energy"

In just over five years Britain will have run out of oil, coal and gas, researchers have warned.

A report by the Global Sustainability Institute said shortages would increase dependency on Norway, Qatar and Russia.

The report says Russia has more than 50 years of oil, more than 100 years of gas and more than 500 years of coal left, on current consumption.

By contrast, Britain has just 5.2 years of oil, 4.5 years of coal and three years of its own gas remaining.

France fares even worse, according to the report, with less than year to go before it runs out of all three fossil fuels.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Don't ignore the fact

that the newly discovered North Sea coal deposits are thought be enough to get the UK through at least the next 100 years.

[GliderGuider]

2. The report looks at "proved reserves"

I don't think the North Sea deposits fall into that category yet. Another hundred years of coal is not good news for the global environment...

The report:
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/global_sustainability_institute/our_research/resource_management.Maincontent.0017.file.tmp/Global%20Resource%20Observatory_Country%20Resource%20Maps%20Report.pdf

[dipsydoodle]

3. Not sure if all they're in our waters or Denmark's and Holland's too.

For some details see here :

Drilling date set for North Sea’s vast coal reserves

A billion-pound plan to reach untapped coal reserves under the North Sea will be under way by the end of the year, as the vast scale of the energy source beneath the North Sea is made clear.

Scientific data of the true extent of the coal deposits on the sea bed reveals that even a tiny percentage of them would be enough to power Britain for centuries to come, says a local expert.

Dermot Roddy, chief technical officer of energy company Five Quarter which will be leading the much-anticipated extraction work, said there are trillions of tonnes of deeply-buried coal stretching from the North East coast far out to sea: an amount thousands of times greater than all oil and gas extracted so far.

And now technology is advanced enough to be able to reach it.

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/drilling-date-set-north-seas-6896191