Coal: Resources and Future Production

When discussing the future availability of fossil energy resources, the conventional wisdom
has it that globally there is an abundance of coal which allows for an increasing coal
consumption far into the future. This is either regarded as being a good thing enabling the
eventual substitution of declining crude oil and natural gas supplies. Or it is seen as a horror
scenario leading to catastrophic consequences for the world’s climate. But the discussion
rarely focuses on the premise: how much coal is there really?
This paper attempts to give a comprehensive view of global coal resources and past and
current coal production based on a critical analysis of available statistics. This analysis is then
used to provide an outlook on the possible coal production in the coming decades. The result
of the analysis is that there is probably much less coal left to be burnt than most people think.