The Great Coal Rush and Why It Will Fail
by Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #190 (February 2008)
This MuseLetter, and several more during the next few months, will be
chapters for a forthcoming book on coal, to be published by Post Carbon
Press. This month's issue is the book's Introduction.
The world appears poised for a headlong sprint toward greater dependence
on coal. This book's purpose is to examine one crucial question that
will shape this next great coal rush: How much is left?
The answer from conventional wisdom is, Lots. Coal appears to be the
most abundant of the conventional fossil fuels, and everyone agrees that
enormous quantities remain to be extracted. Most policy makers would
prefer simply to leave it at that. Decades-old estimates assure us that
there is 150 years' worth of supply at current rates of production;
therefore we should be able to enjoy plenty of coal for several
generations to come.
However, as we will see, this conventional wisdom is in need of
substantial correction.
In Chapter One, we will see how coal supplies are estimated, and why new
studies are challenging longstanding assumptions of abundance. As we
will learn, estimating coal reserves is a complex task, and in many
cases published figures are highly misleading. Then in following
chapters we will look in some detail at coal reserves in China, the US,
and the rest of the world, seeing how supply shortfalls are likely
within decades - in some nations, within years. We will also examine the
implications of this new information for our understanding of the crisis
of global climate change, and will explore the likely impacts of supply
constraints on the various industries that depend on coal - principally,
electrical power generation and steel production.
Why Care About Coal?
1. The Economy
If coal were of declining importance in the world's energy mix, the
problems of depletion and declining availability would not be serious.
Instead, however, coal is at the center of energy planning for many
nations - especially the burgeoning Asian economies. Despite
environmental concerns, coal is experiencing the fastest percentage
growth in usage worldwide of any of the principal fossil fuels, and the
fastest growth, in terms of BTUs delivered, of any energy source.
This resurgence was mostly unanticipated.
Coal was the first fuel of the industrial age; it was the world's
primary source of energy from the end of the 19th century (when it
supplanted wood) until the middle of the 20th (when it was overtaken by
oil). More recently, natural gas has substituted for coal to some extent
in electricity generation, partly because of growing concerns about
greenhouse gas emissions (coal is the most carbon-intensive common fuel,
natural gas the least); meanwhile oil has become the globe's most
important fuel largely because of its role in transport.
The historic pattern was thus for industrial societies to move from
low-quality fuels (wood contains an average of twelve megajoules per
kilogram, and coal fourteen to 32.5 Mj/kg) to higher-quality fuels (an
average of 41.9 Mj/kg for oil and 53.6 for natural gas); from
more-polluting to less-polluting fuels; and from solid fuels to a liquid
fuel easily transported and therefore well suited to a system of global
trade in energy resources.
During the 20th century, fuel switching yielded decisive economic and
even geopolitical advantages. In 1912, Winston Churchill, as Lord of the
Admiralty, famously retooled Britain's navy to burn oil rather than
coal, thus helping to ensure victory over Germany in World War I.
Throughout the second half of the century, the US economy became less
energy intensive (measured as the amount of energy required to produce
each dollar of GDP) largely by switching away from coal toward oil and
gas. The reasons for doing so are explained in the following passage
from Beyond Oil (1991) by Gever, Kaufmann, Skole, and Vorosmarty:
The advantages of internal combustion engines are such that a diesel
locomotive uses only one-fifth the energy (in kilocalories) that a
coal-powered steam engine needs to pull the same train. Moreover,
oil-burning systems generally require less attention and burn cleaner
than solid-fuel systems, as anyone will attest who grew up with a coal
furnace in the basement. As a result, oil and gas generate from 1.3 to
2.45 times the amount of economic value per kilocalorie that coal does. {1}
As nations learned to take advantage of physical and functional
differences in fuels, straining to get more economic bang for their
energy buck, coal was nearly always in the position of being the older,
less-efficient, less-desirable source. In short, the widespread
assumption only a decade ago was that coal's moment in the energy
spotlight had ended. While remaining an important fuel for electricity
production, coal was, in many people's minds, an artifact of the 19th
and early 20th centuries - the eras of steam-powered looms, majestic
ocean liners, and smokespewing locomotives. Futurists in the 1980s and
1990s assured us that, with the dawn of the information age, energy
would soon become "de-carbonized" as nations shifted to cleaner energy
sources and more concentrated fuels.
However, during the past three years, global production of crude oil has
remained static, despite demand growth - especially from Asian
economies. And there is every indication that worldwide petroleum
production will begin an inexorable, inevitable decline beginning around
2010. This is the often-discussed phenomenon of Peak Oil - explained,
for example, in the present author's The Oil Depletion Protocol {2}. In
the quarter century from 1980 to 2005, world oil use grew at an average
rate of roughly two percent annually. During most of this period, prices
were low - usually in the range of $US10 to $20. However, in the three
years since May 2005, the rate of extraction of conventional crude oil
has stalled, while prices have shifted to the $60 to $100 range. Many
analysts believe that by 2015 oil production will be declining at an
annual rate of over two percent per year and prices may be in the
multiple hundreds of dollars per barrel. While more exploration
prospects for conventional oil exist, they are mostly in geographically
remote or politically sensitive areas; meanwhile, shortages of drilling
rigs and trained personnel are adding significantly to delays in
bringing new projects on line. Enormous quantities of non-conventional
fossil fuels exist that are capable of being turned into synthetic
liquid fuels (the bitumen deposits of Alberta, the heavy oil of the
Orinoco basin in Venezuela, and the marlstone or "shale oil" of Wyoming
and Colorado); however, the rate at which these substances can be
extracted and processed is constrained by physical and economic factors
- such as the need for enormous quantities of fresh water and natural
gas for processing.
World production of natural gas will likely peak somewhat later than
that of oil; however, regional natural gas supply constraints are
already appearing, primarily in North America (the most intensive
consumer of the resource), as well as Russia and Europe. Because only a
small proportion is traded globally in the form of liquefied natural gas
(LNG), this means it may not be possible to avert regional shortages by
resorting to seaborne imports.
In the face of these constraints for oil, gas, and unconventional fossil
fuels, coal by comparison appears suddenly attractive again. The
industrial world has abundant experience with it, the technology for
mining and using it is well developed, and there is purportedly an
enormous amount of it waiting to be dug and burned. New technologies,
such as integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants and
methods to capture and store carbon, promise to make coal cleaner
(though not cheaper) to use. In addition, there is increasing interest
in deploying methods to turn coal into a synthetic liquid fuel able to
substitute for oil (we will explore these technologies in more detail in
chapter eight).
Since economic growth generally implies more energy consumption, it
should come as no surprise that nearly all of the current world
expansion in coal consumption is occurring in the nations with the
highest rates of economic growth - principally, China and India, but
also Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. The shift in the world's economic
center of gravity away from the US and toward the great population
centers of East and South Asia is being widely heralded as the primary
economic trend of the new millennium. In recent years, China's economy
has grown at an annual rate of seven to 11.5 percent (a seven percent
constant growth rate implies a doubling of size every ten years: thus
after twenty years the entire economy is four times its previous size,
and after a mere thirty years it is eight times its former magnitude; at
11.5 percent annual growth, this eight-fold expansion comes in just
twenty years). According to most expectations, China's GDP will exceed
US$10 trillion by the end of the current decade, and will surpass US$20
trillion by 2020, making China's then the world's largest national
economy. India's economic growth rate was 8.4 percent in 2006 and 9.2
percent in 2007. Currently, India is the world's fourth largest national
economy, but at current rates of growth it could advance to third place
within a decade (current rankings according to the CIA "World Factbook")
{3} India is now the world's third-largest consumer of coal, which
provides nearly two-thirds of the nation's commercial energy (compared
to the world average of 26 percent).
China currently obtains nearly seventy percent of its energy from coal
and is the world's primary coal consumer, using nearly twice as much as
the next country in line (the US). The quantities are staggering: in
2007 alone, China added electrical generating capacity - nearly all of
it coal-based - equal to the whole of France's or Britain's entire
electricity grid. During 2007, China's installed electricity generating
capacity grew seventeen percent, reaching over 700 gigawatts, second
only to the US's 900+ gigawatts.
It is entirely foreseeable that this enormous, rapid growth in coal
consumption should entail an equally enormous environmental cost.
2. The Environment
If there were sound economic reasons for industrial societies to switch
from coal to oil and gas during the 20th century, there were equally
compelling environmental reasons.
Coal is the dirtiest of the conventional fossil fuels. Sulfur, mercury,
and radioactive elements are released into the air when coal is burned
and are difficult to capture at source. During the early phase of the
industrial revolution, both the mining and the burning of coal generated
legendary amounts of pollution. In cities like London, Chicago, and
Pittsburgh, smoke and airborne soot reduced visibility to mere inches on
some days. The following passage from "The Smoke of Great Cities" by
David Stradling and Peter Thorsheim captures the situation:
One visitor to Pittsburgh during a temperature inversion in 1868
described the city as "hell with the lid taken off", as he peered
through a heavy, shifting blanket of smoke that hid everything but the
bare flames of the coke furnaces that surrounded the town. During autumn
and winter this smoke often mixed with fog to form an oily vapor, first
called smog in the frequently afflicted London. In addition to darkening
city skies, smoky chimneys deposited a fine layer of soot and sulfuric
acid on every surface. "After a few days of dense fogs", one Londoner
observed in 1894, "the leaves and blossoms of some plants fall off, the
blossoms of others are crimped, [and] others turn black". In addition to
harming flowers, trees, and food crops, air pollution disfigured and
eroded stone and iron monuments, buildings, and bridges. Of greatest
concern to many contemporaries, however, was the effect that smoke had
on human health. Respiratory diseases, especially tuberculosis,
bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthma, were serious public health problems
in late-nineteenth-century Britain and the United States. {4}
The mining of coal was, in its early days, no less grim. Digging coal
out of the ground is an inherently dangerous and environmentally ruinous
activity, and accidents (from asphyxiation by accumulated gas, as well
as from explosions, fires, and roof collapses) were so common as to be
an expected part of life in mining towns. Miners and their families
often suffered from respiratory ailments, including pneumoconiosis, or
black lung disease. And mining altered landscapes, often resulting in
polluted water and air, and the destruction of forests. From the
standpoint of safety, coal mining has cleaned up its act, at least in
the more industrialized countries. The large-scale mechanization of
mining means that today fewer miners are required to produce an
equivalent amount of coal; meanwhile, improvements in mining methods
(for example longwall mining), as well as hazardous gas monitoring
(using electronic sensors), gas drainage, and ventilation have reduced
the risks of rock falls, explosions, and unhealthy air quality. Even
with these improvements, mining accidents still claimed 46 fatalities in
the US in 2006; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, mining
remains America's second most dangerous occupation.
However, despite technical advances, coal mining continues to destroy
landscapes, as is infamously the case with the method used in the
Appalachian region of the US called "mountaintop removal". This
practice, which involves clear-cutting native hardwood forests, using
dynamite to blast away as much as 1000 feet of mountaintop and then
dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams, has been
called "one of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes
in American history" {5} Families and communities near mining sites must
contend with continual blasting from mining operations and suffer from
airborne dust and debris, floods have left hundreds dead and thousands
homeless, and drinking water in many areas has been contaminated.
While the environmental and safety risks of both coal mining and coal
burning have been somewhat moderated in countries that industrialized
early, in the nations where coal use is today the highest and is growing
fastest, methods of mining and consumption often resemble the worst
practices of the early 20th century. Thousands of China's five million
coal miners die from accidents each year (3786 recorded deaths in 2007).
Meanwhile, acid rain falls on one-third of China's territory and
one-third of the urban population breathes heavily polluted air {6}.
China's coal burning has put five of its cities in the top ten of the
most polluted cities in the world, according to the International Energy
Agency.
Recently, very fine coal dust originating in China and containing
arsenic and other toxic elements has been detected drifting around the
globe in increasing amounts. In early April 2006, a dense cloud of coal
dust and desert sand from northern China obscured nearby Seoul before
sailing across the Pacific. Monitoring stations of the US West Coast
found highly elevated levels of sulfur compounds, carbon and other
byproducts of coal combustion - microscopic particles that can work
their way deep into the lungs, contributing to respiratory damage, heart
disease and cancer. But as terrible as all of these mostly longstanding
environmental, health, and safety problems are, they pale in comparison
to what many regard as the greatest crisis of our time - global Climate
Change consequent upon carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of
fossil fuels. While coal produces a little over a quarter of the world's
energy, it is responsible for nearly forty percent of greenhouse gas
emissions. Those emissions consist principally of carbon dioxide, though
coal mining also releases methane, which is twenty times as powerful a
greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and accounts for nine percent of
greenhouse gas emissions created through human activity. During the past
decade, as the scientific consensus has solidified that global warming
is due to human activity, the actual signs of that warming have often
surpassed even the most dire forecasts. During the 2007 summer, Arctic
sea ice reached a minimum extent of 4.13 million square kilometers,
compared to the previous record low of 5.32 million square kilometers in
2005. This represented a decline of 22 per cent in just two years; the
difference amounted to an expanse of ice roughly the size of Texas and
California combined. Moreover, the average thickness of the ice has
declined by about half since 2001. Altogether, taking into account both
geographic extent and thickness, summer Arctic sea ice has lost more
than eighty per cent of its volume in four decades. At current rates of
melting, the Arctic could be ice-free during the summer months by 2013.
While sea levels will not be directly affected by the total melting of
the northern icecap, since it floats on and thus displaces ocean water,
that event will severely destabilize Greenland's ice pack - whose
disappearance would cause sea levels to rise by several meters,
inundating coastal cities home to hundreds of millions of people.
Meanwhile, as deserts expand and climate zones shift, many species that
are unable to move or adapt quickly enough find themselves on the
precipice of extinction.
The crisis is being exacerbated by the fact that carbon sinks (forests
and oceans that soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere) are losing
their capacity. The net carbon uptake of northern forests is declining
in response to autumnal warming. And evidence suggests that the oceans'
ability to take up atmospheric carbon is also slowing, and perhaps even
reversing. {7}
Meanwhile, the seas are acidifying as levels of carbonic acid - produced
by the reaction of water with carbon dioxide - are increasing at a rate
a hundred times faster than the world has seen for millions of years.
The oceans are naturally alkaline; but, since the industrial revolution,
sea surfaces have grown increasingly acidic, and many millennia will
pass before natural processes can return the oceans to their
preindustrial state. The sea life expected to be worst hit include
organisms that produce calcium carbonate shells - including corals,
crustaceans, mollusks, and certain plankton species. Larger sea fauna
such as penguins and cetaceans would not be directly affected, but
changes to the rest of the food chain would eventually impact these
larger animals as well.
>From the human standpoint, the potential consequences of climate change
for agriculture are particularly worrisome. According to the UN's World
Food Program (WFP), 57 countries - including 29 in Africa, nineteen in
Asia and nine in Latin America - have been hit by catastrophic floods
during the past few years. Harvests have been affected by drought and
heat waves in South Asia, Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay
{8}. In 2007 the Australian government said drought had slashed
predictions of the coming winter harvest by nearly forty percent, or
four million tons {9}.
Altogether, human-induced climate change constitutes an environmental
impact of a scale never before seen during the period of human
civilization. Because coal produces higher emissions per BTU of energy
yielded than does oil or gas, as these other fossil fuels deplete and
become more scarce and expensive, and as higher-quality coal depletes
and nations turn to lower-quality coals, the climate crisis will only
grow worse - unless cleaner sources of energy are developed quickly, or
unless total energy use declines.
Efforts to capture carbon at power plants and sequester it in deep
geological deposits could theoretically reduce the environmental burden
from coal consumption, but there are snags and tradeoffs to that
solution, as we will see in chapter eight.
There is currently an enormous push underway to develop a global
agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, using cap-and-trade
mechanisms to ration rights to emit carbon. This may turn out to be the
most significant global policy discussion in world history, and it will
have enormous implications for, among other things, the problem of
global economic inequity - since national levels of per-capita energy
consumption correlate closely with per-capita GDP.
Such a policy would also significantly impact the development of coal
industries worldwide, and entire national economies that depend on coal.
But if size of the coal resource base is smaller than is generally
believed, this would also have enormous implications for climate
science, climate policy, and economic planning at all levels of society.
In short: two of the defining trends of the emerging century - The
Development of the Asian Economies, and Climate Change - both center on
coal. But coal is a finite, non-renewable resource. Thus any discussion
of the future of coal must also intersect with a third great trend of
the new century: Resource Depletion.
These three overarching trends, which will determine the future of our
species, must inevitably coalesce - but how? Can current trends in coal
consumption be sustained? If not, what does this mean for the global
economy and for the environment? If such trends cannot be sustained, how
will our energy future unfold? These are, of course, enormously complex
questions - which we will attempt to unpack during the course of this
book. But it is probably best to begin with a more rudimentary,
apparently mundane question upon which these others directly or
indirectly pivot: How Do We Know How Much Coal We Have?
Notes
1. John Gever, Robert Kaufmann, David Skole, and Charles Vorosmarty,
Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades
(Ballinger, 1987), page 87
2. Richard Heinberg, The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil
Wars, Terrorism, and Economic Collapse (New Society, 2006)
3.
http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/200...
4. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3854/is_199901/ai_n8833707/pg_1
5. Appalachian Voices website:
http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/mtr_overview/
6. Robert J Saiget, "China's Coal Addiction Causing Environmental
Disaster", Terra Daily website (November 06 2006)
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/China_Coal_Addiction_Causing_Environme...
7. "Is the Ocean Carbon Sink Sinking?", RealClimate website (November 01
2007)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/11/is-the-ocean-carbo...
8. John Vidal, "Global Food Crisis Looms as Climate Change and Fuel
Shortages Bite", The Guardian (November 03 2007)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/03/food.climatechange
9. Ibid.
