Coal – June 28

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Peak Coal: Depletion Reflected in Prices
Larson Thane, Thane Energy Report
…Depletion is much more than an abstract concept. It is human nature and good business to mine the easily extracted coal first followed by the more difficult coal. As a result, all things being equal, the farther along a state is in its coal depletion, the more difficult its coal will be to mine. Put another way, much of the easy to mine coal is depleted east of the Mississippi, which is why whole mountaintops are now being blown off with explosives to reach the remaining coal.

… in the 1800s, coal was abundant in the U.S. and depletion was not even an issue. However, coal prices were relatively high compared to today because mining was primitive, labor intensive and much more dangerous than today. As technology has progressed, coal mining has become more automated and less dangerous. Thus, technological improvements push coal prices down, while depletion pushes coal prices up. However, depletion wins in the end because the earth only contains so much coal and no matter how far technology progresses, the coal will run out.

This is not to say that we should not be looking for better ways to mine coal. Huge quantities of coal are left in the ground because they are too deep or the coal seams are too thin. The current trend is towards greater automation. Even today it is common to use mining equipment that is remotely controlled so that the miners are safely far from the actual extraction. In the future, the equipment will become smaller and more automated. We can think of future mining being done by coal Roombas that will be able to reach coal that is currently inmineable. Technology will continue to bring us miracles but when the coal is gone, it is gone. …
(26 June 2007)
Courtesy of the author.

Another thought on coal supply
Heading Out, The Oil Drum
…of the coal that is in place, less than 50% will be mined, while the rest will be left in place. Typically, after an area has been mined in this way, the coal that is left is considered lost, since the area that is abandoned may fill with water, or noxious gases, or the roof may, with time, collapse. However there are mines that have been entered many years later where the conditions have remained good.

So the countable reserve for that seam of coal, being won this way, is for less than half the coal in place. Now that does not mean that there are not other ways to mine the coal. However, given how shallow it is, and the need to ensure that the surface remains undisturbed, this, at present is how the mine is planned to be operated.

Now it could be argued that leaving more than half the coal in place is depriving our children of a resource that they might need. However I didn’t want to get into that discussion today, rather I wanted to point out that there are resources not currently considered as reserves, which perhaps might be as the need becomes more apparent.

I am going to try and get hold of a copy of the NRC report this week, and will try and tie this into a greater discussion of what is and is not the state-of-the-world in regard to reserves. But in part that discussion revolves around methods used to extract the coal, and the innovations and creative new techniques that can be developed to do this safely, and with a higher extraction ratio. Unfortunately that is not likely to happen soon.

…There are a significant number of reasons why the coal industry of the United Kingdom has sensibly disappeared, but, as the above figures illustrate, it is not because the UK ran out of coal. It is more that there were alternative, cheaper, and cleaner fuels coming in from the North Sea in large part. The coal is still there, it has just been too expensive to mine, and the question perhaps becomes when will that change?
(28 June 2007)

Congress wants U.S. coal industry destroyed: exec
Steve James and Timothy Gardner, Reuters
A senior coal company executive on Wednesday lambasted U.S. lawmakers for proposing caps on emissions blamed for global warming, saying the Democrats were out to destroy America’s coal industry.

Robert Murray, chairman, president and chief executive of Murray Energy Corp., also blasted the federal government’s mine safety agency for “outrageous” new fines that he warned could put some miners out of business.

“There is no question that the majority party in this country wants to eliminate the coal industry,” Murray told the McCloskey’s Coal USA conference, adding that some Republicans were also advocating tough measures.

A prominent environmentalist was quick to dismiss the remarks. “We don’t see a conflict between protecting the climate and continuing to use reasonable amounts of coal,” David Hawkins, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview.

Murray, who said he was giving testimony to the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday, warned that proposed restrictions on carbon emissions would severely hurt the coal industry, which supplies the fuel for approximately 50 percent of America’s electricity generation.
(27 June 2007)