RE: Why are we still using coal?
January 12, 2014 at 2:38 pm
(This post was last modified: January 12, 2014 at 2:44 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Coal is cheap to mine (roughly half the price of natural gas for a given amount of energy output), stupendously plentiful (The US has enough to supply the world for 500 years, Russia and china has an like amount), and tend to occur in deposits in area of geopolitical stability near center of energy demand (US, Russia, china, Germany, Britain, etc).
Unless we move off of fossil fuel all together, coal is likely to outlast all other fossil fuel by a big margin. At present rate of consumption, oil and natural gas reserves might last another century even with fracking. At the end of that century the coal reserves would still be barely touched.
That's why regardless of its high greenhouse gas emission (roughly twice that of natural gas for given amount of energy output) it will like always be a remain a substantial part of the world's energy sources for a long time.
Unless we move off of fossil fuel all together, coal is likely to outlast all other fossil fuel by a big margin. At present rate of consumption, oil and natural gas reserves might last another century even with fracking. At the end of that century the coal reserves would still be barely touched.
That's why regardless of its high greenhouse gas emission (roughly twice that of natural gas for given amount of energy output) it will like always be a remain a substantial part of the world's energy sources for a long time.
