[ForeignObserver]

But someone has just thrown a spanner in the works. Is it likely that the UK will start to produce coal from the huge reserves of coal it has (assuming the pits are reopened, etc, etc). And if so, would this provide a substitute for natural gas??

Coal used to be the source of gas in the UK. Anyone old enough to remember will recall the gas fitters coming round to convert the jets on cookers so that they could run on NG. So a reverse conversion would probably be required to run on coal gas. I think I'm correct that you need a certain type of coal to get the best result - coking coal, but I am sure any coal will yield some.

[Karl]

Please ignore the wood idea there is enough environmental damage in this once green and pleasant land. The other problem is that the best wood stands on the 90 odd percent of this land that is in private hands owned by families for services rendered to the crown since 1066.

[nethawk]

The old coal gas process was just that, coking. The coal was put into a retort and heated externally, driving out all of the volatile matter. The resulting gas was cleaned up and used.

Newer processes work using a constantly fed gasifier, where steam is blown through the burning coal, yielding a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

C + H2O -> CO + H2

CO and H2 have the building blocks for nearly any petroleum product.

This "syngas" then can be fed through catalysts (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis) and converted to pretty much any product that comes from petroleum. This is how the Germans made aviation gasoline during WWII. With the right catalysts, Im sure they could make methane as drop-in substitue for NG.

FT Synthesis wil work with any type of coal, from peat and lignite all the way up to anthracite, because you can make syngas from all types of coal. It can also be made from wood, rubbish, etc.

The problem with that is it is even more greenhouse gas intensive than using straight NG, and I've heard that climate change is a large concern in the UK (not so here in the U.S. ... )

[Kingcoal]

But someone has just thrown a spanner in the works. Is it likely that the UK will start to produce coal from the huge reserves of coal it has (assuming the pits are reopened, etc, etc). And if so, would this provide a substitute for natural gas??

Coal used to be the source of gas in the UK. Anyone old enough to remember will recall the gas fitters coming round to convert the jets on cookers so that they could run on NG. So a reverse conversion would probably be required to run on coal gas. I think I'm correct that you need a certain type of coal to get the best result - coking coal, but I am sure any coal will yield some.

Before natural gas there was producer gas sometimes called municipal gas. The steel industry was still big in Europe and America and steel production needs large amounts of pure carbon. The carbon came from coal and the refining process produced large amounts of free hydrogen and carbon monoxide which was harvested and piped around town to be used for cooking, heating, lighting, etc. The old gas street lights used this gas.

This type of gas mixture is very dangerous because for one thing, CO is highly poisonous and also heavy, so it accumulates in basements and such. The other thing is that hydrogen has a very low flash point making it highly explosive.

[Brasso]

Thanks for all the responses. As far as I can see, coal may be Britain's saving grace post peak, although considering how polluting the stuff is, there will need to be some thought put into how it is used. Of course it will only last so long...

IMHO coal gasification probably won't return to mainstream (due to all the problems mentioned), but perhaps some sort of clean-burning technology for coal -> electric?? It's amazing how versatile coal is, and looks like becoming the planets new oil after peak oil (until peak coal that is...)

As for the practical question of heating the home, the best bet so far seems to be the Yorkshire Stove & Boiler from Dunsley:

http://www.dunsleyheat.co.uk/yorkshirestove.htm

Very efficient and clean. Now if I can just get a hectare of poplars, It'll be carbon-neutral...

[backstop]

Brasso -

the Dunsley stove looks well made but there are some key points to bear in mind, given the centrality of a stove in the household energy thruput.

1/. - Visit some customers who have them working and see how happy they are with them.

2/. - Ask whether Dunsley will fit a back boiler so you can run radiators and bathwater from it -

3/. - Ask whether you can cook on the hot plate on its top - even just boiling a kettle or a stew is a useful advantage now, let alone post peak.

Re points 2 & 3 I'd pretty much guarantee you'd seriously regret choosing to miss out on these options -

With regards to a woodlot, in most parts of Britain (especially the uplands)
you'd do much better with a mixture of Holly, Ash & Birch than Poplar,
as the latter is at the northern end of its range and is more vulnerable to weather extremes, as well as to windthrow.

Even under good conditions Poplar's marginally greater tonnage at 12 yrs growth is offset by it lower energy content. (And it doesn't burn nearly as well).

J Seymour (God rest him) used to reckon on 3 tons of dry wood per year for a standard poorly insulated farmhouse
(with '60s standard of heat indulgence)
and well grown coppiced Ash will give over 5 tonnes dry wood /ha. /yr , so you may not need as much as a hectare -

Also its worth finding some fellow wood-burners to buy (lease?) a larger common plot if you're starting from scratch,
as there are (were?) very good grants for planting & fencing 5 ha.s minimum (contact For. Comn.),
and there could also be useful savings on shared operational costs.


regards,

Backstop


PS - In case you don't already know it, and you come up against urban ignorance bewailing the cutting of coppice for fuel,
you can tell them that mixed native deciduous medium-cycle coppice accomodates the highest biodiversity of any European ecosystem !

Of course if they want to invest the costs of planting & tending a hectare just for the birds, and carry on buying and burning fossil fuels, well that's their choice . . . .

[clv101]

If you were in the UK and had to pick an energy source for heating for the next 10-20 years, which would you pick??

No need for heating: http://transitionculture.org/?p=251

[untothislast]

If you were in the UK and had to pick an energy source for heating for the next 10-20 years, which would you pick??

Spain!

Be sure to take your own lifetime supply of water with you.

[lorenzo]

Live now:

Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) presides over a series of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearings on the implementation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Today, they invite witnesses to discuss the economic and environmental issues of coal liquefaction and gasification.

The CLT-guy from the DOE says CTL fuels can be produced for US$35-40 pb.
U.S. has coal reserves for 200 years. 'Clean Coal' and Carbon Capture will be used for environmental friendliness. The man also says China's building many plants and has coal reserves for centuries (at current consumption rates).

This should interest everyone who thinks Peak Oil is going to be either a disaster or no biggie.

[Cynus]

I'm sure no one called him on the "200 years" claim meaning at current levels of consumption, am I right?
And I'm sure no one asked him how much that 200 years shrinks if we try to run the entire US auto fleet on coal, and factor in "normal" economic growth as well.

[cr0bar]

I recently did an undergraduate thesis which included some projections of what would happen were we to fill the gap in oil production with synfuels from coal, analysed in a similar way to the spreadsheet on this page:

EVWorld Blogs

but I took into account many other factors, such as:

the projected demand for oil,
the projected proportion of electricity generation from coal (currently 40%),
projected demand for electricity,
projected energy required for transport,
projected proportion of transport directly fuelled from oil,
projected proportion of electrically powered transport (more efficient engines),
average transmission losses in power networks,
the effficiency of coal fired power stations (may rise with new technologies)
estimated total recoverable coal remaining.

The main one being an assumption that a certain level of electrically powered transprot will replace current technologies. I used a polynomial fitted to a Hubbert curve derived from production figures in the BP statistical review with a peak around 2005-2006, as my production figures. I didn't have the data to make a more sophisticated prediction.

The upshot of this is coal is exausted by 2110 in my optomistic scenario, and this also assumes no peak coal, i.e. production increases until the moment we run out. My pessimistic scenario has us run out by 2047

[Windmills]

We'll just be moving from peak oil to peak coal as long as we're using nonrenewable resources. It's just another temporary measure. It seems that everyone is rolling out their pet causes that will result in a nice chunk of change for themselves, but do little to solve longer-term problems.

Beyond this website, there is much too little talk about population reduction. All of these fancy plans will be swept away if populations and economies continue to grow exponentially. They're merely postponing the inevitable.

[lorenzo]

We'll just be moving from peak oil to peak coal as long as we're using nonrenewable resources. It's just another temporary measure. It seems that everyone is rolling out their pet causes that will result in a nice chunk of change for themselves, but do little to solve longer-term problems.

Beyond this website, there is much too little talk about population reduction. All of these fancy plans will be swept away if populations and economies continue to grow exponentially. They're merely postponing the inevitable.

Well, of course there are those who think that if you add all those bits together (and CLT, and biofuels, and wind, and solar, and tidal) that we can get a far way without any real problems. This time will allow us to develop hyper-efficient tools and hyper-efficient energy technologies.

Don't forget that man is extremely creative. Just look at what happened the past 50 years: nuclear was invented, genetic engineering was invented, photovoltaics were refined, Fischer-tropsch was made routine, etcetera, etcetera... Add advances in information technology which will allow much more efficient uses of energy, and we will get ahead.

A combination of all the energy tools mentioned above might give us 50 or 100 years. Just imagine what we will be inventing over this period of time! There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that man's natural inventiveness will suddenly disappear because we are faced with a problem. On the contrary, it will be heightened.

[sicophiliac]

Well the US has the energy equivelent of 500 billion barrels of oil in the form of coal. Now assuming we have a so so EROEI of maybe 3:1 regarding the coal to liquids process.. it is doable with enough infastructure build up to say use 150 billion barrels worth of it and thus create 100 billion barrels worth of oil equivelent. That should be good for 20 years of domestic usage give or take depending on economic growth and improvements in general automotive efficieny and fuel economy. I have a feeling in another 4-5 years most cars will have at least double the fuel economy of current ones so that should compensate for most of the economic growth. If we used more wind and nuclear for electricity purposes and if more efficent coal gasification replaces conventional coal burning the coal used for motor vehicles wouldnt really compromise the power supply to the grid.

[MonteQuest]

Once more...

Total proven world reserves of coal are estimated to total almost one trillion tons and are projected to last over 200 years at current rates of consumption. The US has about 250 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves. According to the EIA figures, we can see that we have 255 years of coal remaining in the year 2000 given our current rate of consumption. That prediction assumes equal use of all grades of coal, from anthracite to lignite. Population growth alone reduces the calculated lifetime to some 90-120 years. However, if we look back in history, we see that there were 300 years of coal reserves in 1988, 1000 years reserves in 1904, and 10,000 years reserves in 1868! As each year goes by, our coal consumption increases and we see that the projection becomes meaningless. And if we suddenly move to a bigger reliance on coal, and coal liquidfaction for gas, then this estimate would surely drop dramatically.

Coal peak projections:
Hubbert Model Peak 2032
EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2004 Peak 2060
Flat gas consumption and greater coal consumption Peak 2053
Flat gas consumption and synfuels from coal to replace oil Peak 2035

[aflatoxin]

Once more...

Total proven world reserves of coal are estimated to total almost one trillion tons and are projected to last over 200 years at current rates of consumption. The US has about 250 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves. According to the EIA figures, we can see that we have 255 years of coal remaining in the year 2000 given our current rate of consumption. That prediction assumes equal use of all grades of coal, from anthracite to lignite. Population growth alone reduces the calculated lifetime to some 90-120 years. However, if we look back in history, we see that there were 300 years of coal reserves in 1988, 1000 years reserves in 1904, and 10,000 years reserves in 1868! As each year goes by, our coal consumption increases and we see that the projection becomes meaningless. And if we suddenly move to a bigger reliance on coal, and coal liquidfaction for gas, then this estimate would surely drop dramatically.

Coal peak projections:
Hubbert Model Peak 2032
EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2004 Peak 2060
Flat gas consumption and greater coal consumption Peak 2053
Flat gas consumption and synfuels from coal to replace oil Peak 2035

I have it from good sources that a large clean-coal and a CTL plant are being planned or southern Wyoming (Near Hanna, I think). The big idea is to dump the CO2 down nearby used gas wells.

The parties involved are the heavies in the energy business, and I don't doubt that these rumors are for real. If there's enough coal for 10 years of operation, they will probably do it.

Oil companies, to state the obvious, do not look very far into the future when planning these sorts of things.

Two projects like this, and it's time for Lee Raymonds' replacement to retire and live like a king.

[coyote]

...They forget the caveat with which the sentence started. Now what were those opening words, "at current levels", what does that mean? That means if, and only if we maintain zero growth of coal production.

So let's look at a few numbers. We go to the annual energy review, published by the dept of energy (DOE). They give this as a coal demonstrated reserve base in the United States, it has a footnote that says about half the demonstrated reserve base is estimated to be recoverable... and the average growth rate of coal production in that twenty years is 2.86% per year. And so we have to ask, well, how long would a reserve last if you have steady growth in the rate of consumption until the last bit of it is used.

...you'll find if the growth rate is zero, the small estimate would go about 240 years and the large one would go close to 500 years. So that report to the congress was correct. But look what we get if we plug in steady growth. Back in the 1960's it was our national goal to achieve growth of coal production up around 8% per year. If you could achieve that and continue it, coal would last between 37 - 46 years. President Carter cut that goal roughly in half, hoping to reach 4% per year if that could continue coal would last between 59-75 years. Here's that 2.86%, the average for the recent period of twenty years, if that could continue coal would last between 72-94 years. That's within the life expectancy of children born today...

Here is the director of the energy division of the Oakridge National laboratory telling us how expensive it is to import oil, telling us we must have big increases and rapid growth in our use of coal. Under these conditions, he estimates America's coal reserves were so huge they can last a minimum of three [hundred] years, probably a maximum of a thousand years. You've just seen the facts, now you see what an expert tells us and what can you conclude? There was a three hour television special on CBS on energy, the reporter said; by the lowest estimate we have enough coal for 200 years, by the highest, enough for more than a thousand years. You've just seen the facts now you can see what a journalist tells us after careful study, and what can you conclude?

...Well, let's do long division. You take the coal they say is there and divide by what was then the current rate of consumption, you get 180 years. Now they didn't say, current rate of consumption, they said present US energy needs. Coal today supplies about one fifth, about 20% of the energy we use in this country, so if you'd like to calculate how long this quantity of coal can satisfy present US energy needs, you have to multiply this denomination by five. When you do that you get thirty six years. They said nearly a thousand years...

...but what this lead into was a story about how we have to have major rapid growth in coal consumption. Well its obvious isn't [it]? If you have the growth that they're writing about, it won't last as long as they said it would last with zero growth. They never mention this....

Time magazine tells us that beneath the pit heads of Appalachia in the Ohio valley and under the sprawling strip mines of the west lie coal seams rich enough to meet the countries power needs for centuries, no matter how much energy consumption may grow. So I give you a very fundamental observation, don't believe any [predictions] of the life expectancy of a non renewable resource until you have confirmed the prediction by repeating the calculation. As a [corollary] we have to note that the more optimistic the prediction the greater is the probability that it is based on faulty arithmetic or on no arithmetic at all.

Again from Time Magazine, energy industries agree that to achieve some form of energy self sufficiency the US must mine all the coal that it can. Now think about that for just a moment. Let me paraphrase it. The more rapidly we consume our resources the more self sufficient we will be. Isn't that what it says?

globalpublicmedia

[arretium]

I tend to agree that as we move more into coal-to-gas process, we'll end up with the same problem only with a worse environment and perhaps two decades later. With that said, I'm very interested it getting involved in this business. The bottom line here is that this country doesn't give a rat's ass about the environment if it means keeping their car running and their hair dryer going. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when push comes to shove and Jane Six-Pack can't have her hair dryer run in the morning, she's going to be all for [insert power choice here]. If Americans are going to buy it anyway, why not be the one that sells it to them?

[sicophiliac]

I tend to agree that as we move more into coal-to-gas process, we'll end up with the same problem only with a worse environment and perhaps two decades later. With that said, I'm very interested it getting involved in this business. The bottom line here is that this country doesn't give a rat's ass about the environment if it means keeping their car running and their hair dryer going. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when push comes to shove and Jane Six-Pack can't have her hair dryer run in the morning, she's going to be all for [insert power choice here]. If Americans are going to buy it anyway, why not be the one that sells it to them?

Actually coal gasification is alot cleaner then conventional coal burning as well as being roughly 1 1/2 times asefficient in producing energy compared to conventional coal burning. Like it or not we get half our power from coal so its not going away anytime soon. Go to this site and look it up for yourself.

http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/powersys ... works.html

[Starvid]

All of these fancy plans will be swept away if populations and economies continue to grow exponentially.

Populations do no longer grow exponentially. Population will peak at 7-8 billion in 2050 and decline to 6-7 billion in 2100, according to the latest UN statistics.