The Oil Drum: The Coal Question, Revisited

"This is a guest post by Professor Dave Rutledge (DaveR), of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

In the summer of 2007, Professor Kyle Saunders (Professor Goose) invited me to do a guest post for The Oil Drum. This post was "The Coal Question and Climate Change." In the post, Hubbert linearization was applied to make a regional analysis of world coal production. The estimate for long-term production, including both cumulative production and all future production, amounted to 724Gt. Many people, including Dave Summers (Heading Out) and Euan Mearns, made helpful critical comments on the post, particularly concerning British coal production. Overall, I was encouraged by the response. The Oil Drum is a great place to try out new ideas."