[gnm]

I am in no way cheering over it. There was an oil drum piece a year or two ago fearmongering over new england's natural gas supplies that made me positively worried about it. This was all pre-shale-gas of course.

I'm just yanking your chain Mos, I know you are looking for other ways out... Good luck...

-G

[frankthetank]

Nuclear fuel is easily disposed of into outer space. Just fill a rocket with the stuff and shoot it towards the sun. If a rocket fails then hopefully it lands in the ocean...problem solved Aren't there some Russian subs laying down there?

[kpeavey]

shooting stuff into space would reduce our rotational inertia. Days would lengthen, and I gotta tell you, they are long enough already!

[Ludi]

Nuclear fuel is easily disposed of into outer space.

"Easily" maybe. Probably not cheaply, or safely.

[cudabachi]

A simple hypen sure would have made the title of this thread read better.

[frankthetank]

Could you imagine the astronauts loading 55gallon drums of radioactive waste into the space shuttle...

"

[hillsidedigger]

The amount of energy (as well as hardware) required to propel wastes toward the Sun would be huge.

[Ludi]

Could you imagine the astronauts loading 55gallon drums of radioactive waste into the space shuttle...

They won't be doing it, since the shuttle is being retired. The new vehicle is not in operation yet. So much for the Space Age.

Incidentally, it costs almost $900 per pound to take something into space with the shuttle, according to the info I found. And the shuttle might not get your nuke waste far enough away not to eventually come back to Earth.

[frankthetank]

They could just take this ash right back to the spot where it was dug from and dump it??? put some dirt on top?

[Graeme]

Study Concludes “Peak Coal” Will Occur Close to 2011

A multi-Hubbert analysis of coal production by Tadeusz Patzek at The University of Texas at Austin and Gregory Croft at the University of California, Berkeley concludes that the global peak of coal production from existing coalfields will occur close to the year 2011. The HHV of global production is likely to peak in 2011 at 160 EJ/y, and the peak carbon emissions from coal burning will also peak in 2011 at 4.0 Gt C (15 Gt CO2) per year, according to the study.

After 2011, the production rates of coal and CO2 decline, reaching 1990 levels by the year 2037, and reaching 50% of the peak value in the year 2047. It is unlikely that future mines will reverse the trend predicted in this business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, according to the study, which was published in the journal Energy. (The accompanying online supporting materials provide the analysis of production by country.)

The most important conclusion of this paper is that the peak of global coal production from the existing coalfields is imminent, and coal production from these areas will fall by 50% in the next 40 years. The CO2 emissions from burning this coal will also decline by 50%. Thus, current focus on carbon capture and geological sequestration may be misplaced. Instead, the global community should be devoting its attention to conservation and increasing efficiency of electrical power generation from coal.

greencarcongress

[Sixstrings]

After 2011, the production rates of coal and CO2 decline, reaching 1990 levels by the year 2037, and reaching 50% of the peak value in the year 2047.

Peak coal this soon? Wow, I thought a peak on coal was farther off. Anyway, will be good for the environment to start going backwards on emissions (even if it's because we're running out of carbon to burn).

[Pops]

Ol' Ted is still greasin the way for good old petroleum - ethanol is an energy loser, now a good excuse to not worry about climate change.

BP says 119 years R/P for coal

[Tanada]

Like Pops I have an exceedingly hard time believing PC will take place next year, we have way to much of the stuff laying around. Unlike Petroleum that comes mostly from wells and only allows you to get a modest percentage from the source rock all of the coal less than say 500 feet down can be strip mined and much of it will be. Just because at today's very low prices much of this is left alone it does not follow that a doubling of prices will not increase the desirability of all the shallow coal. Add in that the folks using THAI to produce Bitumen Sands and Very Heavy oil formations are also looking at variations to combust deep thin strata of coal in situ to produce H2 and CO gas which the will then burn in gas turbine power plants after cleaning out the SO2 and similar contaminants. Doing it the THAI way would provide a very cheap way to produce deep coal, which in turn would lead to much more of it being consumed.

[Expatriot]

A. we have way to much of the stuff laying around.

B. all of the coal less than say 500 feet down can be strip mined

C. a doubling of prices will not increase the desirability of all the shallow coal.

D. Doing it the THAI way would provide a very cheap way to produce deep coal

All, to the core, utterly irrelevant to the point being made. If you superimposed PO, you'd have these points.

A. there are 4 Saudi Arabias in the Bakken formation.

B. oil sands can be used 100%, unlike conventional oil.

C. when oil goes over 100 it will be economical to produce more off shore wells.

D. improved technologies will allow horizontal drilling, which will allow greater production.

As it is, you're sitting in Oil Finder II's seat on this one Tanada!

By the way - I have no opinion on PC, I'm just saying that the arguments you are making are the same arguments the cornutrolls make regarding PO.

[eastbay]

I have no problem at all believing this.

The model demonstrates that despite enormous coal deposits globally, coal production rates will decline because the deposits show increasing inaccessibility and decreasing coal seam thickness, according to the research.

They took just about every consideration into play in this study, it appears. Dismissing peak coal is much like dismissing peak oil because of tar sands and shale of which there is combined no doubt enough to power humanity several additional decades into the future... but the trick will be getting it into the gas tanks.

[hillsidedigger]

It's sounds plausible to me that coal production will not ever exceed the expected production of next year.

[Expatriot]

I have no problem at all believing this.
Dismissing peak coal is much like dismissing peak oil because of tar sands and shale of which there is combined no doubt enough to power humanity several additional decades into the future... but the trick will be getting it into the gas tanks.

Quoting Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka -
"Hey, that was my idea."

[dolanbaker]

I think we'll just see a greater divergance in the use of fuel, Oil mainly for road transport & petrochemicals, coal for power generation & gas for heating. Any ideas of using coal as an oil replacement will be quietly dropped.

I didn't expect coal to peak so soon, but then again it's extraction rate has recently increased very rapidly as well.

[Pops]

I wouldn't be too surprised if coal peaks over the next decade or two, there are other predictions in that area, I just wouldn't put too much faith in this guy (Patzek) when he says "Keep driving your ICE and don't worry about global warming because coal is peaking." The coal peak isn't his point, he is saying don't worry about climate change.

From the report: "Governments worldwide are basing their policy decisions (wrt carbon) on the uninterrupted increase of coal and oil production worldwide," says Patzek. "These policy decisions will be inherently in error, and will lead to expensive and false technological solutions."

I am not saying he has an agenda, he is just always on the side of BAU, and as it turns out, burning oil. Here is what he said about the BP Leak:

BP Spill May Be Less Than Doomsayers Think: Tadeusz W. Patzek
"The combined effect of rock and well erosion might have increased oil flow from about 20,000 to 30,000 barrels a day."
Bloomberg

Here is the word from .gov today:
"The well was gushing about 62,000 barrels a day when it started leaking and about 53,000 barrels when it was capped on July 15, according to an e-mailed statement from the U.S. government’s joint information center."
Bloomberg again

...
Another instance of falling on the side of BAU was Patek's and Pimentel's Ethanol EROEI study. I think ethanol is a bad, bad idea (along with most biofuels) but he was way off the mark when compared to other reports, showing a loss when most or all others showed a modest gain. (I haven't read about this in a while so stand to be corrected)


So anyway, I have nothing against this guy, he just always seems on the side of burning them fossil fuels.

[eastbay]

The study suggests worldwide coal production is peaking now. This prediction should be easy to verify by simply watching monthly coal production figures. Anyone have a good, reliable source for worldwide coal production data? We could check it each month and see how the numbers add up. Simple.