Peak Coal on the horizon, too?

A small German research firm says “yes,” and that it could bein just 15 years.

Folks like the World Coal Institute and American mining companies have repeated ad nauseum the mantra that we have 200 years of coal left. But, what if they’re wrong?

Even if the Energy Watch Group is not totally right, either, what if, at today’s usage (not counting the idea of converting coal to diesel fuel, as the Germans did in World War II) the world has only 50-60 years left?

A larger European study, due out soon, bolsters some of the EWG findings:

Early in their paper the authors ask, “Will coal be a fuel of the future?” Their disturbing conclusion, many pages later, is that “The analysis in the preceding chapters indicates that coal might not be so abundant, widely available and reliable as an energy source in the future.”

Another problem — most of the easily-mined coal now being removed is higher-quality, “harder” coal. Between this and rising production costs, researchers expect the gap between coal and oil prices to narrow in coming years.