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Peak Oil Task Force Report - City of Bloomington - State of Indiana

Peak Oil Task Force Report - City of Bloomington - State of Indiana

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Kentucky and Ohio will be converted into production” 270 is not entirely convincing. Should<br />

global coal production peak early and leave the world hungry for hydrocarbons, it seems<br />

unlikely that these reserves would remain untapped.<br />

<strong>Indiana</strong> currently exports only a small amount <strong>of</strong> coal to power plants in neighboring<br />

states, it is possible to imagine a scenario in which <strong>Indiana</strong> participates in an export boom<br />

and significantly increases its production. Should that happen, there would be an increase<br />

in the size <strong>of</strong> the production divisor in the state’s R/P ratio, reducing the “number <strong>of</strong> years”<br />

that the state’s coal would last. This would especially be the case if demand for coal‐<br />

generated electricity increases significantly because peak oil causes the world to turn to<br />

electric vehicles or coal‐to‐liquids (CTL) production. On the other hand, the increase in<br />

demand could be moderated by rapid penetration <strong>of</strong> wind‐ or solar‐generated electricity<br />

into the marketplace – or, possibly even more likely, as a result <strong>of</strong> the widespread<br />

substitution <strong>of</strong> natural gas for coal (see below).<br />

A careful recent study <strong>of</strong> when world coal production will peak is an article by S.H. Mohr<br />

and G.M. Evans, “Forecasting Coal Production Until 2100,” accepted for publication in the<br />

journal Fuel. According to Mohr and Evans, depending on the actual amount <strong>of</strong> ultimately<br />

recoverable coal in the world, production could “peak between 2010 and 2048 on a mass<br />

basis and between 2011 and 2047 on an energy basis. The Best Guess scenario assumed a<br />

URR [ultimately recoverable resource] <strong>of</strong> 1144 Gt and peaks in 2034 on a mass basis, and<br />

in 2026 on an energy basis.” 271 Given a “best guess” that world coal production will peak in<br />

2026 “on an energy basis,” the <strong>Task</strong> <strong>Force</strong> feels that it would be prudent to assume that the<br />

peak will occur by 2030.<br />

270 Ibid., 38.<br />

271 S.H. Mohr and G.M. Evans, “Forecasting Coal Production Until 2100,”<br />

http://www.theoildrum/com/node/5256.<br />

<strong>Report</strong> <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Bloomington</strong> <strong>Peak</strong> <strong>Oil</strong> <strong>Task</strong> <strong>Force</strong> 236

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