I have written recently about some of the reasons that coal reserves, as currently understood, might not be quite as large, at present, as they are assumed to be. However, while I could continue on that tack for some additional time, it is perhaps time to give a gentle cough and suggest that there is perhaps a little terminologically inexact thinking in some of the discussions on the actual size of reserves, relative to the overall resource and that there is another viewpoint that should be considered in this debate. Particularly this relates to how much is left and how long it will last.

Firstly it should be recognized that a number of studies of coal reserves have put caveats on their numbers along the lines of “under current operating and economic conditions.” And so let me first put back up the table I posted in my last post , relating to the coal reserves of the UK back in 1952.

Note that this is coal that has largely been proved to be in place. However, in the time frame between 1952 and today it has not been mined or gone away, but it has become, at present, uneconomic to mine. And thus under current conditions it is no longer a reserve. And the one thing that those who write here should know better about assuming is the “current conditions.” Jeepers! We have spent over two years here accumulating convincing evidence that current conditions are not sustainable, and yet that argument is accepted, with little discussion, when it is proposed.