The Oil Drum

The National Research Council, as Leanan reported earlier, has just issued a report Coal: Research and Development to Support National Energy Policy dealing with both current reserves and needed research. While I haven’t had a chance to read it in detail yet, there was one paragraph I thought worth mentioning before I write a longer review, and it is this one.

Despite significant uncertainties in existing reserve estimates, it is clear that there is sufficient coal at current levels of production to meet anticipated needs through 2030. Looking further into the future, there is probably sufficient coal to meet the nation’s needs for more than 100 years at current rates of consumption. However it is not possible to confirm the often-quoted assertion that there is a sufficient supply of coal for the next 250 years.

I had written in the non-too-distant past about why coal reserves can be smaller than those anticipated. There is, however, a current part of the in-situ deposits that are not considered, and to illustrate what I mean, I thought I would use the example of the Prairie State Energy Campus that is being developed in Southern Illinois. This is a 1,600 megawatt power plant that will serve customers in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Kentucky. It will be served by a dedicated adjacent underground coal mine. It is one aspect of this mine that I thought I would address here.