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> And there's 5 trillion tons of coal in Alaska Say what? There is only 909 billion tonnes of proven coal reserves in the entire world: https://en.wikipedia.o

> And there's 5 trillion tons of coal in Alaska Say what? There is only 909 billion tonnes of proven coal reserves in the entire world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_by_country

Robotbeat 7y ago
Right. Only about 1 trillion in proven reserves, a number which often increases over time due to technology and economics and exploration. I was discussing how much actual coal is there. Coal resources, which is a (relatively) fixed number. The fellow I was responding to was talking about extracting all the oil and gas from the ground (not just that which is today known with high certainty and both technically and economically viable). For instance, look at this graph of US proved oil reserves. It has climbed for most of the last 100 years and peaked in 1970 at about 39 billion barrels, declined and has started rising again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States#/media/File:US_Proved_Crude_Oil_Reserves.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_Sta... ...but that data only goes until 2012. The reserves have kept climbing, and as of 2017 have now equalled their peak of 39 billion barrels: https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/pdf/table_1.pdf https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/pdf/table_1.... In other words, technology and economics has improved access to fossil fuels faster than we can burn it. But it's not like there was a bunch of oil added into the ground. It was there the whole time. Hence why I'm using resources: It's the ultimate limit. We cannot rely on Peak Oil (or Peak Coal for that matter) to stop our reliance on fossil fuels and the ensuing climate change. We just keep getting better and better at extracting them. Trends in automation of mining do not bode well for the climate, either.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > Right. Only about 1 trillion in proven reserves, a number which often increases over time due to technology and economics and exploration. I get that, but you are claiming that the unproven reserves of one portion of the US are more than five times the current proven reserves of the entire world. Where is your evidence for that? > We cannot rely on Peak Oil (or Peak Coal for that matter) to stop our reliance on fossil fuels and the ensuing climate change. No, we need to stop burning them. That is unrelated to extracting them except for extraction being the first step in the process.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    Sorry for not providing the citation right away. Here's the evidence (with discussion and links to source studies) for trillions of tons of coal in Alaska: http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/AlaskaCoal/HowMuchCoal.html http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/AlaskaCoal/HowMuch... In particular, it links to this 2005 USGS study: https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-077/ https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-077/ > "The combined measured, indicated, inferred, and hypothetical coal resources in the three areas are estimated to be 5,526 billion short tons (5,012 billion metric tons), which constitutes about 87 percent of Alaska’s coal" The amount of fossil fuel energy in the ground (if we're very clever about extracting it) is absolutely vast. Enough to provide current needs for hundreds or even thousands of years, but to cook the climate and chemically change the atmosphere to that of a stuffy room long before that.
    - de_watcher 7y ago
      We're just changing climate back to what is was way before us. Current state was created by the organisms who went into the ground. Our turn now.

Robotbeat 7y ago

Right. Only about 1 trillion in proven reserves, a number which often increases over time due to technology and economics and exploration. I was discussing how much actual coal is there. Coal resources, which is a (relatively) fixed number. The fellow I was responding to was talking about extracting all the oil and gas from the ground (not just that which is today known with high certainty and both technically and economically viable). For instance, look at this graph of US proved oil reserves. It has climbed for most of the last 100 years and peaked in 1970 at about 39 billion barrels, declined and has started rising again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States#/media/File:US_Proved_Crude_Oil_Reserves.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_Sta... ...but that data only goes until 2012. The reserves have kept climbing, and as of 2017 have now equalled their peak of 39 billion barrels: https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/pdf/table_1.pdf https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/pdf/table_1.... In other words, technology and economics has improved access to fossil fuels faster than we can burn it. But it's not like there was a bunch of oil added into the ground. It was there the whole time. Hence why I'm using resources: It's the ultimate limit. We cannot rely on Peak Oil (or Peak Coal for that matter) to stop our reliance on fossil fuels and the ensuing climate change. We just keep getting better and better at extracting them. Trends in automation of mining do not bode well for the climate, either.

vonmoltke 7y ago
> Right. Only about 1 trillion in proven reserves, a number which often increases over time due to technology and economics and exploration. I get that, but you are claiming that the unproven reserves of one portion of the US are more than five times the current proven reserves of the entire world. Where is your evidence for that? > We cannot rely on Peak Oil (or Peak Coal for that matter) to stop our reliance on fossil fuels and the ensuing climate change. No, we need to stop burning them. That is unrelated to extracting them except for extraction being the first step in the process.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Sorry for not providing the citation right away. Here's the evidence (with discussion and links to source studies) for trillions of tons of coal in Alaska: http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/AlaskaCoal/HowMuchCoal.html http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/AlaskaCoal/HowMuch... In particular, it links to this 2005 USGS study: https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-077/ https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-077/ > "The combined measured, indicated, inferred, and hypothetical coal resources in the three areas are estimated to be 5,526 billion short tons (5,012 billion metric tons), which constitutes about 87 percent of Alaska’s coal" The amount of fossil fuel energy in the ground (if we're very clever about extracting it) is absolutely vast. Enough to provide current needs for hundreds or even thousands of years, but to cook the climate and chemically change the atmosphere to that of a stuffy room long before that.
  - de_watcher 7y ago
    We're just changing climate back to what is was way before us. Current state was created by the organisms who went into the ground. Our turn now.