Talk:Peak coal

Kgrr (talk) 14:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

USA
As far as I can understand, the article contradicts itself when it comes to USA's Peak Coal. The introduction needs to be fixed somehow, to reflect what stands below. Narssarssuaq (talk) 08:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Narssarssuaq is correct that the article contradicts itself. Looking at the graphs in the 1956 Hubbert article cited, it is obvious that US coal production did not peak in 1914, as stated in the intro.  Hubbert himself wrote (p.7) that the US coal production curve shows an "inflection point" about 1914; by inflection point he did not mean peak.  In his article (p.22), Hubbert predicted peak US coal production about the year 2150.  Plazak (talk) 13:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Removed contradictory statements. Plazak (talk) 18:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Propose merging Coal depletion
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see a good rationale for maintaining the stub article Coal depletion. Is there any reason not to convert it to a redirect to this page? Cgingold (talk) 10:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, definitely merge the contents and delete that page. It is just a stub, little information, and the title is so generic as to be useless. 69.108.2.230 (talk) 20:50, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Since no further discussion took place I'll assume that the result was OK for the merge. I'll not add anything since the said page had no content that is not presented here.1exec1 (talk) 21:19, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Source of data
It seems that much of the data comes from one group, Energy_Watch_Group, a group associated with the Green Party in Germany. In fact, the link redirects to the founders Wikipedia page. I come from an area in Canada where there is a lot of coal in the ground but due to much cheaper labour in other parts of the world, all of the mines were shut down. It was not a lack of coal, far from it; it was purely a cost issue. The peak listed for Canada, 1997, coincides with the time when many domestic mines were shutting down due to costs and cheaper coal elsewhere. Perhaps this article (and other similar ones) should look into all of the reasons for peaks. A previous comment noted the US peak of 1914 was an inflection and not a peak; I would wager this is something similar. This does not mean peak coal or any other non-renewable peak is invalid, far from it. Logic dictates that there must be a peak since the creation of these resources occurs in geological time while the consumption occurs in human time. I am only arguing for more balance in the article without allowing special interest groups to run amok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sgaragan (talk • contribs) 18:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed, also in Germany hard coal production has been declining mainly due to cost issues; it's about to be abandoned completely until 2018 since the decades-long coal subsidies are being stopped. Of course, peak coal will occur from a combination of physical and economical reasons; no-one is likely to buy coal for, say, 10 times its current price. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Another equation
this youtube video by Albert A. Bartlett has an equation at 4:36 which differs from others here. its called the "Expiration Time or "T sub E", of a non-renewable resource whose rate of consumption is growing steadily". I think its highly relevant to all of the articles on peak resource use and limits to growth. If anyone else thinks his equation is relevant, can they transcribe it? the math is beyond me, and i cant reconstruct it from the image on screen.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Australia
This deleted can't see what this is meant to prove? Why compare coal usage to human habitation in the country?

"To put this in perspective, 200 years is 0.5% of the time that Australia has been inhabited; if the human habitation of Australia were scaled to fit in a 24-hour day, the most optimistic predictions state that coal will run out in the equivalent of 10 minutes' time." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.188.154.51 (talk) 11:15, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Jules Verne
Coal depletion is an interesting subject that Jules Verne covers in his 1874 novel The Mysterious Island in which Cyrus Smith in Chapter 31 talks of the future. In it he predicts, using the then current consumption of coal per year (~1869-74), that coal would be exhausted in “At least two hundred fifty or three hundred years.” and suggests that the splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen will eventually power the world... Not bad Mr. Verne for for 1874. (CaptianNemo (talk) 05:57, 29 January 2013 (UTC))

Intellectual confusion
Peak coal is defined in the first para; then the second para tells us there are two peaks; then later in the article (e.g. in 'energetic peaks') we hear that there have been multiple peaks. This is nonsense. The root cause of this intellectual confusion is that this theory/hypothesis is not presented as such, for which new data and the outturn of events will tend to validate it or disprove it. It's rather presented as something worthy of a theological belief system, into which new data can only be incorporated in such a way as to postpone the inevitable triumphant (because Hubbert will have been proven correct) day of Peak Coal.

Can we not present the article more in the form of: 1. Here's the theory/hypothesis/prediction of Peak Oil, based on Hubbert's work 2. Here's some initial predictions which have proven to be more or less correct 3. Here's some later data which shows that initial predictions have turned out wrong 4. Here's some predictions which we don't yet know are correct or not.

Or some variant of the above? At the moment we have a belief-based article which is (well done) being slowly accreted with actual outturns, but e.g. the third para is hopeless and the possibility of a decline in coal output occurring due to technological change, rather than depletion, does not seem to be adequately dealt with. Gravuritas (talk) 22:51, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

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Category: Economic theory?
That category has been removed from this article. But there is considerable emphasis in the srticle about the derivation of 'peak oil' from Hubbert's peak theory- which does not just describe a peak, but postulates other aspects of the production rate such as uniform growth and decline; the inevitability of supply exhaustion, etc. That seems to me to be an economic theory. So should the category of economic theory be reinstated for this article?

Alternatively, if 'peak coal' only means that it is a finite resource, which may or may not show one or multiple peaks in production according to comparative costs & attractiveness of other energy sources then it is no longer an economic theory, but much of the article is then inappropriate. 'Peak coal' then becomes more or less meaningless.

So, is 'peak coal' an economic theory, or is it meaningless?

Gravuritas (talk) 15:02, 20 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Hubbert peak theory is obviously the theory and is in Category:Economic theories. Afaics, all articles related to this theory are in Category:Peak resource production which sounds like a good category for these articles. There is no reason to classify these articles as meaningless. Marcocapelle (talk) 15:22, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * If Peak copper is "not a theory", then what is it? Many Minerals (talk) 00:19, 23 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Category:Peak resource production as far as I can tell is not in Category:Economic theories, so none of these 'Peak' articles are economic theories. So let me repeat  Many Minerals's question for the whole set.
 * Gravuritas (talk) 01:38, 23 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Agree with Gravuritas that every finite resource must have a peak sometime, and so what. If that were all, then there would be little content in these articles. What each of these articles emphasize is the theory that the growth, peak, and decline of production can to some extent be predicted, and described mathematically, ala Hubbert. Plazak (talk) 11:52, 23 August 2016 (UTC)


 * So, I suggest then that Category:Peak resource production is put in Category:Economic theories.  I'm not clear on whether each of the individual Peak articles then needs to be categorised individually as an economic theory- or are the categories organised like a tree structure?
 * Gravuritas (talk) 12:51, 23 August 2016 (UTC)