Update on Coal

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9583#more

Coal is going to become, alongside gas, the main energy source for the developing world in the coming decades.

As you can see from all those graphs, the general trend is rising coal production into mid-century before it starts to decline.

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[raspberry-blower]

Well that's the Climate screwed then

Looking through those graphs, a large percentage of available coal is of pretty low quality (i.e. fair bit of lignite and sub-bituminous coal)
Just saying

[Lord Beria3]

True and I suspect that a a decade or two down the line, we will start scrapping the lower quality coal.

[kenneal - lagger]

I find this quote very revealing

The collapse of the number of gas rigs in the US is due to a collapse of wellhead gas prices, which is ridiculously low compared to the wellhead oil price. This happens because of the lack of gas pipelines (40% of the gas is burned in North Dakota) between new gas production and gas consumption. The lack of new gas pipelines could mean that the long term of the shale gas production is in doubt.

That's not what the likes of RGR would be saying.

Insitu gasification is being pushed hard by its proponents who are saying that beds below 500mm would be viable for gasification as well as beds beneath the sea. That would murder the climate completely.