<DrumBeat: December 4, 2008 The Oil Drum DrumBeat: December 5, 2008>

93 comments on The IEA WEO 2008: Long term prospects for coal production

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TenThousandMileMargin on December 4, 2008 - 4:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I feel I need to make a pre-emptive comment in regard to CO2 and climate change: Just because something is is a bad idea does not mean it is "not an option".

Often when CTL or gasification comes up somebody says "oh, we can't do that, think of all the CO2 it will release" and then dismisses the topic as if it will never happen (because it shouldn't happen). This is a rather strange kind of wilful blindness - if human beings refrained from doing something whenever there were harmful side effects, most of the industrial revolution would never have occurred in the first place.

Do you think a country that currently digs up a billion tonnes of coal a year will be squeamish about creating gas from coal in situ?

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fluffy on December 4, 2008 - 5:52am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Have to agree.

Here's the fun bit, though..

If we add up all conventional oil, conventional gas and easily-mined coal, get the total CO2 emitted and assume half is absorbed (empirical observation), I believe that final atmospheric CO2 hits circa 450-500ppm, which is at the outer limit of 'manageable' climate change. Probably.

If you start adding in tar sands, assorted non-con gas and especially gasified coal seams.. well, just don't bother with property lass than 12m above sea level.

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drillo on December 11, 2008 - 9:36am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"12m above sea level"?
Sounds optimistic. But may be true if you only think about people like you and me (as most people do, sadly).
But our children and grandchildren (as far as they survive) should move quite a bit more up the hills: If the 25,4 million km³ of Antarctic ice melt away (e.g. due to feedback mechanisms) this would lead to a sea level rise of 57 meters (187ft). At that stage you can be sure the Greenland's ice sheet will also be gone, adding further 7,3 metres (23ft) to the sea level. (As far as I remember the sea level of the ice-free periods of earth history was even close to 100m above the current level, but I don't find the data right now.)

Roughly speaking: In the end phase of this coal-economy greenhouse scenario all the (dark) green areas of a present day world map will be "blue" then - supposed that the remaining population will still have things like world maps.

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Kiashu on December 4, 2008 - 8:02am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

For my part, obviously I am not keen on having a big chunk more CO2 pumped out, whatever the source.

My query was only about the cost and technical difficulties involved in coal seam gas, because we're talking about its peaking. I mean, in oil we've got good old Saudi light sweet crude circa 1950, whack a pipe in the ground and out it spurts, and then we've got Alberta tarsands, a real mess to get the stuff out. If more of our oil comes from tarsands than easy reservoirs, then we're at peak.

So the question is whether coal seam gas is more like easy oil reservoirs, or more like tarsands.

I mean, I don't want another gramme of the stuff burned, oil, coal or gas. But that's not likely to happen, so the question then becomes, when are economic and technical factors going to give us the peaks, so that we end up burning less whether we like it or not.

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airdale on December 4, 2008 - 10:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Perhaps better to let billions die and not destroy the planet so that at least some will survive.

Sounds harsh? Well all the destruction up til now has in the end been pretty harsh for nature wouldn't one say?

Ohh but not to US! We deserve better,like that new Hummer etc.

While plants and animals continue to die off to make more rooms for more fat asses. A shame but then the fat asses surely don't care.

So harshness? Whose perspective. The planet or some fat asses?

There is lots of coal in Kentucky. It has not really been kind to Ky all this strip mining. Take a ride out Hwy 62 to Greenville. Notice the land or the lack of it. Notice the creeks still flowing with runoff that looks and likely is toxic.

And the small towns nearby? No better off than any others. So strip mining seemed to profit no one.

Now what I really get mad about is the huge pulp/paper mills who are hell bent on cutting every single piece of timber they can find. Their woodyards cover hundreds of acres of dead trees hauled there. All so someone can wipe their fat asses with paper.

Yes I tend to go a bit overboard but the folken in the cities do not get to see it daily. The huge losses to habitat all to feed the maw of 'a better life'? Fahhhhh...

Airdale

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tstreet on December 4, 2008 - 10:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We have shown virtually no concern thus far in this age of extinction, even for the future of mankind, not even mentioning non human species. How dare you point out the truth. Don't you know we are in the midst of a global economic crisis? Just let us get through this crisis and then we will go back to doing something about the ecological health of the planet. Oh wait!!! We did nothing while we were in a state of prosperity.

On an intellectual level, I think Obama gets it that we cannot put off doing something about energy and global warming in the face of what we call the crisis. I am not sure, however, that he really gets it in his gut. To confront these problems will take passion. But I could be pleasantly surprised. So at least I should wait until he actually gets in office.

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steve from Virginia on December 4, 2008 - 12:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

How dare you point out the truth!

Don't you know Jesus is going to provide a couple trillion tons more coal for us to burn? It's underground, after all ... and we can't see underground. We can't watch Jesus making coal.

Making all this new coal right under our noses is a miracle.

Jesus is going to make some more 'abiotic' oil while he's at it. It's another miracle. For someone who can turn water into wine, turning garden variety rocks into coal and oil is a piece of cake!

We need to pray the US auto industry gets a government bailout, so they can get back to building more automobiles. How hard can that be? Jesus doesn't care about rain forests or weird species of amphibians or fishes or birds. Jesus is on OUR side, on the side of subdivisions and developers. He wants life to be comfortable, convenient and for us to run up enormous debts in the process.

Jesus will keep us from going bankrupt. If Jesus can raise up dead people, he can certainly raise up dead investment banks.

All you need is hope ... baby!

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Sterling925 on December 4, 2008 - 1:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yeah, but Jesus can't put the tops back on the WV/KY mountains. They're way too gone for even JC.

He can't pull the overburden out of the 700 miles of creeks already filled and the ??? miles yet to be filled that are not covererd any more under the clean water act.

No, Jesus can't do that.

God or Buddah or the Invisible Pink Unicorn can't do that either.

I wish JC could tell me when the oil price slide will end. Too scared to short USO, too scared to buy :-O

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Kiashu on December 4, 2008 - 9:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Perhaps better to let billions die and not destroy the planet so that at least some will survive.

It is not clear why billions need die. The Olduvai doomers have yet to explain the causative relationship between fossil fuel consumption and being able to maintain a particular population level.

Given the misanthropy in the rest of your post, I assume it's just wishful thinking.

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fluffy on December 5, 2008 - 5:00am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Generally because of a simple logic error:

(1) Food production requires fossil fuel (Fairly true statement)

(2) A reduction in the amount of fossil fuel will automatically cause a reduction in agricultural production because of (1). (False - this would only happen if 100% of fossil fuel was used for food production).

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airdale on December 5, 2008 - 9:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Misanthropy? Misanthropy?

Try living where you have to see it often. Huge huge piles of dead trees. Not used for fuel.Used to simply create paper for printing on.

What happened I ask to the PaperLess Office? Was it just bullshit or is the paper used to print stock certificates or just more dollars then?

It sickens me to see the landscape virtually stripped of growth, ignorant deadly agriculture practices and you dismiss it as 'misanthropy'. I call it the 'steps to hell'.

The log trucks never stop rolling. Coming from the ozarks of Missouri , the lands of western Tennessee,even parts of southern Illinois and finally most of reachable Kentucky.

I talked to a log cutter last summer. He was proud of his job,well previous job for he was not assisting me in some work, I said to him that he was denuding the land for future generations and us as well.

His reply which I have made part of my post was simply" Why don't you try wiping your ass with plastic then?"..I told him he needed a corncob shoved up his.

He didn't last on the ag job so now back to cutting timber.

Now the folken running these enterprises have decided to make them a bit obvious by hiding some. Yet in mountaintop removal you can see it for many many miles away and you wonder then about the ignorance and utter depravity of this people who inhabit what was once very beautiful and extremely fertile lands not to mention the beauty of the Smoky Mtns.

Yet they could care less. We could care less. We are eating our seed corn and now the price is coming due. Very much due and its not
"Misanthropy" to me. Its killing us.

Airdale..course you may not see it and have to watch it...eyes wide shut....We will need it but like gas its not renewable either.

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tstreet on December 5, 2008 - 7:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

And I hear that recyclers are not able to find a market for their product. There should be a major tax on the use of virgin material. It is a crime that we have so much unrecycled paper while we continue to denude the landscape. Misanthropy indeed!!!!

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Engineer-Poet on December 6, 2008 - 11:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Trees are renewable.  If it takes more money/energy to recycle post-consumer paper (which contains stuff like ink, toner, glossy coatings, adhesives, etc.) than to use virgin pulp, maybe it makes more sense to turn the paper into biogas or ethanol or something else that displaces a non-renewable resource.

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93 comments on The IEA WEO 2008: Long term prospects for coal production

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