THE State of Wisconsin Thread (merged)

azreal60

My local newspaper, also one of two major statewide papers in wisconsin, the wisconsin state journal, has a weekly sunday forum where people can write in letters on various topics. When they introduce a topic they also provide two experts pro and con to help frame the debate.

The topic this previous sunday was oil depletion. It was worded Check the oil:Is the worlds oil supply starting to run out.
Their of course was a oh we will have oil for years and we have and i quote "750 Million years of coal reserves in the united states.
The pro oil depletion guy wasn't much better, but he did at least mention simmonds and oil peaking.

Anyway, I need a couple things from the more up on facts people on this site. I have seen 250 years at current rates as the limit on how much coal we have in the US. Anyone care to get something i can quote to back that up in my letter to the editor?

Oh, and speaking of which, if you wish to send in your own letter to the editor on this topic, the email addy is wsjopine@madison.com. Especially if you live in the wisconsin, I would love to see some of us peak oilers driving home the fact that not only is the situation alot more dire than what the con guy is saying, even the pro guy isn't framing the debate correctly. He mentions peaking almost back handedly, I want it to be the focus of a letter to the editor.

I'm writing mine as we speak, anyone got a website or newspaper article i can quote?
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Azreal60

DoctorDoom · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:59 pm Post subject: Coal

You are correct, 250 years of US reserves at current US production levels. Russia, China, India, and Australia also have large reserves. World-wide (which includes the aforementioned countries) it's 200 years. That assumes consumption remains flat, whereas in fact it's been growing slowly. Coal accounts for over 50% of US electricity production. Other major sources (hydro, and natural gas) are tapped out and won't be able to be expanded to meet growing electricity demand. Not all reserves are of equal quality, there is high-quality, high-energy, low-pollutant coal (anthracite) and there is dirty, low-energy brown coal (lignite).

Here is a link that you may find interesting: Charts

This has reserves in traditional units, but be careful of the "production" numbers because they have been converted to barrels of oil equivalent (BOE).

Another very useful site is BP's "world energy report". Check out World Energy Report

Again, conversion to BOE makes the R/P ratio hard to calculate.
Here's a site that has crunched the numbers: Conversion

According to them the R/P ratio for coal is 225 years.
Obviously it won't last anywhere near that long if it had to meet (say) all of our transportation needs as well as continue to meet electicity demand.
Finally note that coal, like all fossil fuels, will follow its own Hubbert-style curve - we can't consume it on a straight line for 200+ years then drop to zero. Some pundits have put "peak coal" in the 2030s (this assumes large demand increases, though).

retiredguy

I read the article as well. The "plenty" author was H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

The title of his article was the "World's awash in fossil fuels, and more are coming online." Curiously, to support that bold statement, all he offered was: Canadian tar sands, Caspian Sea oil (which he admitted would only supply 1 mbd), more efficient drilling in the US, and US coal reserves. He also mentioned nuclear, hardly a fossil fuel.

I was planning to send a rebuttal of my own to the paper.

PeakOiler

And don't forget to check the reference Matt Savinar has given in his "Articles" section Reference

of Paul Weisz "Physics Today" article, Physics

SinisterBlueCat · Intermediate Crude Joined: Sep 06, 2005 Posts: 950

well, I will say this (hopefully, without sounding stupid) while I understand the problems with the article, I do believe it was concieved and executed in a way as to open the eyes of people, that are largely unaware of the situation, and do it in a manner that does not cause them to panic.

my dear hubby, who lives with a POer, still has a hard time dealing with it on a daily basis. He gets very depressed and hopeless about it at times, then I have to work on getting him to be positve and enjoy today, because as we all know, the future is uncertain and the end is always near.

At least they made an attempt to broach scary and basically uncharted waters...hell, I never hear about peakoil on regular broadcast TV. So, my suggestion in writing your letter to the editor, please be kind and supportive, but let them know you would like to see more and differing ideas presented, instead of just pointing out errors in what they did present.

Starvid

EnergySpin · Fission Joined: Jun 25, 2005 Posts: 2381

3rensho · Tar Sands Joined: Apr 04, 2005 Posts: 80

Unfortunately the 250 years at current depletion levels means about 30~50 years of actual coal. You have to factor in growth. We are still growing at about 3~5% per year in terms of energy usage.

If you take that into account things do not look so peachy for coal.

Z

Grimnir

small_steps

Damn,
Didn't see that until today, did anyone get their rebuttal published?
Have been fed up with the quality of the journalism in those two madison based papers for some time, don't know whether to laugh or cry at the quality (or lack thereof) of the editorials in particular.

MacG · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 1169

Grimnir

They ran a letter to the editor yesterday that recommended peakoil.com. Written by anyone here?