The United States is the world’s second-largest producer, surpassing the two next important producer states (India and Australia) by nearly a factor of three. Its reserves are so large that America has sometimes been called “the Saudi Arabia of coal.” The U.S. has already passed its peak of production for high-quality coal (from the Appalachian mountains and the Illinois basin) and has seen production of bituminous coal decline since 1990. However, growing extraction of sub-bituminous coal in Wyoming has more than compensated for this. Taking reserves into account, the authors of the report conclude that growth in total volumes can continue for 10 to 15 years. However, in terms of energy content U.S. coal production peaked in 1998 at 598 million tons of oil equivalents (Mtoe); by 2005 this had fallen to 576 Mtoe.
This forecast for a near-term peak in U.S. coal extraction flies in the face of frequently repeated statements that the nation has 200 years’ worth of coal reserves at current levels of consumption. The report notes: “all of these reserves will probably not be converted into production volumes, as most of them are of low quality with high sulfur content or other restrictions.” It also points out that “the productivity of mines in terms of produced tons per miner steadily increased until 2000, but declines since then.”
The report’s key findings regarding future U.S. coal production are summed up in the following paragraph:
Three federal states (Montana, Illinois, Wyoming) own more than 70% of US coal reserves. Over the last 20 years two of these three states (Montana and Illinois) have been producing at remarkably low levels in relation to their reported reserves. Moreover, the production in Montana has remained constant for the last 10 years and the production in Illinois has steadily declined by 50% since 1986. This casts severe doubts on the reliability of their reported reserves. Even if these reported recoverable reserves do exist, some other reasons prevented their extraction and it is therefore very uncertain whether these reserves will ever be converted into produced volumes. Considering the insights of the regional analysis it is very likely that bituminous coal production in the US already has peaked, and that total coal production will peak between 2020 and 2030.
The report is somewhat more pessimistic than a previous independent analysis of future U.S. coal production by Gregson Vaux (“The Peak in U.S. Coal Production”), which gave America 30 to 50 years till peak.
