DesuMaiden wrote:dashster wrote:If it weren't bad enough to have Peak Oil looming combined with eternal population growth, coal and natural gas could peak very close to the same time. The Energy Watch Group (which was early on Peak Oil thanks to tar sands/fracking/NGLs) predicts coal will peak in 2025 and natural gas in 2020.
Given that natural gas and coal are both non renewable resources, it is no surprise that they will eventually peak in production too.
I think their could be a surprise as to when they peak. Coal is thought to be no problem for over two hundred years at current usage in the US, but
Leslie Glustrom pointed out in a talk that the EIA has a disclaimer with their estimate of recoverable coal reserves. And that is:
“The usual understanding of the term “reserves” as referring to quantities that can be recovered at a sustainable profit cannot technically be extended to EIA’s estimated recoverable reserves because economic and engineering data to project mining and development costs and coal resource market values are not available”.
I am now seeing predictions of plenty of natural gas for a century. And you see people, including former Peak Oiler T. Boone Pickens suggesting we
convert trucks to natural gas. But the natural gas production forecasts vary, and one by
a research group at the University of Texas sees a peak in US production in 2020.