Lump sums (peak coal: Guardian UK)

[jpak]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/05/fossilfuels.energy

For weeks, South Africa has suffered rolling blackouts caused in part by shortage of coal. Gripped by unusually bitter snowstorms, China recentl banned coal exports for the next two months. And at Newcastle, Australia, th world's largest coal export terminal in the world's largest coal exporting country, th queue of carriers waiting to load has been known to stretch almost to Sydney, 150k to the south

Coal, for so long the Cinderella of fossil fuels, is suddenly not just in demand but in desperately short supply. The world's biggest producers and exporters are struggling, and the price of imports to Europe has doubled to almost $140 (£70.5) per tonne over the past year. "It's a global crunch," says John Howland, managing editor of the international coal industry magazine McCloskey's Coal Report.

The immediate reasons for the price spike are soaring demand, inadequate infrastructure and bad weather. But now there are also gnawing doubts that global coal production may, within the next few decades, face fundamental geological constraints, or "peak coal".

Ask most energy analysts how much coal we have left, and the answer will be a variant on "plenty". The latest "official" statistics from the World Energy Council put global coal reserves at the end of 2006 at a staggering 847bn tonnes. Since world coal production that year was just under 6bn tonnes, the reserves-to-production (R/P) ratio - the theoretical number of years the reserves would last at the current rate of consumption - is well over 100 years.

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[gasperc]

1. hmm..seems like things will get worse

before they get worser, peak everything