As always, the years supply is (almost) always given as if there were no change in the consumption rate. It is starting to dawn on some people that the exponential consumption time very quickly shortens the "actual" reserves left if on considers growth.

For example, that 200-250 year US reserve that is often quoted lasts but 80-87 years if you consider a growth rate of ~2.2% per year. Throw in a dramatic coal-to-liquids program and it's easy to demonstrate that the US coal reserves quickly drop to a couple of decades.

Yes, it's all "a blink of the eye" in time.

Resource and reserve calculations for coal are somewhat different to those for oil. You are still constrained in how far from a known (as in mined or drilled) site one can project that the deposit extends out. If it extends out less than a quarter of a mile it can still be called a reserve. Beyond that point it is only an "inferred resource", and that only out for a distance of up to three miles (as my memory recalls). Because coal does not flow like oil or gas, it is much more likely to be in place all the way between two boreholes, than is the likely case if oil and gas are found. Thus the final reserves, as they are proved, may, in fact, be larger than the currently defined resource.

On the other hand the presence of faults, washouts and other geological features can make what might otherwise be a highly desirable site (see Glenrothes in Scotland) uneconomic to mine. Plus I don't know the other constraints on the definition or reserve and resource in India (and these are, I suspect, their numbers not the USGS ones) so these are likely more ballpark than reliable numbers.

It seems to me like engineering is becoming more and more concentrated at the massive engineering factories like Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, and the Big 10 schools. I think a lot of the smaller schools don't have the finances to compete.

If you switch your kids major from chemistry to chemical engineering you will double his pay immediately. The starting salaries in oil/gas and power generation are on the rise big time.

Chemistry is indeed a evolving and important career path, in any scenario involving BAU at some level. I have two daughters in college. One in California looking at natural health systems and nutrition, and one at MIT taking Physics and Material science courses. Both a better bet than political science or a wall street job today. I have a friend whose daughter is at harvard and is amazed at the number of feckless seniors at Harvard are concerned that they have prepared for a cushy job on Wall Street and they suddenly don't exist.

I have a degree in Chemistry and program computers for a living. Deciding to go into pure chemistry as and undergraduate was the best decision I ever made. Gaining and understanding of one of the basic sciences is worth its weight in gold. Save the engineering for graduate school four years is barely enough time to pick up a basic grasp of physics, chemistry and mathematics.

With my background I can program computer, work in any number of chemical related industries, work in the medical field as a lab technician. Actually understand agriculture etc etc. People that don't understand chemistry miss a lot about our world and how it works.

As far as Chemistry being in demand thats a tough one generally in the US you really have to go to graduate school to get a job doing chemistry simply because most of the synthetic work is either drug related or about industrial catalysts. Both areas require advanced degrees. Most chemical production has been outsourced to areas such as China with weak pollution laws.

I made the mistake of taking advanced basket weaving in graduate school theoretical chemistry which is practically worthless but was a lot of fun. If I was entering the field today I'd focus on nano-technology which has a huge untapped potential. We are just now getting to the point that we can do non-homogeneous chemical reactions or real three dimensional chemistry. For example the concept of creating something quite similar to a spiders spinnerets is now conceptually feasible.

Or another example something like a spinneret that creates endless carbon nanotubes. In many cases this is a fusion of concepts from making computer chips and activating the surfaces with catalytic agents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanochemistry

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=EWejwvtfMwwC&dq=nano+chemistry&pr...

Beyond this I'm using my degree now to investigate using liquid nitrogen as a energy store
for renewable energy. You can't do that with a Computer Science degree.

Chemistry and particularly chemical engineering should be just fine. I would look at the history of basic chemical processes as society powers down. We will have to learn how to produce basic chemicals with less energy. We will also have to look to other more sustainable sources for plastics, fertilizers, as well as energy.

There's the rub. What exactly do we teach and who decides the course content?

I'm not a teacher so I can't approach the subject from a teacher's perspective. I have sat in on some contentious school board meetings so I know how difficult it would be to create energy courses at the school district level.

Part of me wants to see energy course content developed at the national level. The problem with expecting national governments to mandate energy courses and become involved in the content is obvious. By the time it was done it would be too late and the course content too ineffective.

I'll switch from my doomer hat to a faith in the human species hat for a minute. The key to energy course content is valid data. Unlike math and science which, at the grade and high school levels, have content that is fairly static, some energy course content would be a moving target. At least once a year the courses would need to be updated to reflect the new knowledge gained in the previous year. The course content dealing with complex subjects like peak oil should be based on peer reviewed data. I would suggest an international, non-profit agency could act as a clearing house for energy information that countries could reference while developing their energy course content.

Even amongst experts there is often conflicting energy data. I don't want to imply there will be only one "right" course content. In fact, one facet of the energy course must be a full understanding that there are multiple viewpoints, but let's exclude those that are not peer reviewed.

One of the bright spots in our educational system are schools run by teachers and administrators that break away from the mediocre and provide their students (our children) with and education that is the envy of other schools (and parents). Perhaps these schools could start the energy course movement and provide a blueprint for school districts, states, and federal governments to follow. Success from the bottom up rather than from the top down.

I don't want to give an impression that my concept of an energy course is well researched. I believe we need to start with the desired result and then work backwards to the steps required to achieve that result. An enormous task, but one that will literally change the world in the next quarter century.

My premise is we humans act on inertia. We base our future plans on our past experiences. Hence the current financial crisis. If we are to minimize the horrendous consequences of not decisively dealing with energy now, we need to change our inertia from a lack of energy education to a full energy education. It is easier to effect this change in children than in adults. However, because the establishment of energy courses will involve a substantial number of adults who otherwise would not learn about our energy future, we will see a positive increase in the number of current decision makers who can effect energy policy.

We don't currently see discussions between adults and children at the dinner table about how algebra will soon change the world we live in:) One, I would hope, stupendous success of energy courses would be an ongoing dialog between adults and children about the future of the planet. The result being more educated and motivated adults.

I would be interesting to hear from some TOD readers who are teachers. I'm betting they could whip up energy course outlines for grades one through twelve. Their input would spark some interesting discussion. I hope so, don't want to have to put my doomer hat back on right away.