General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

World coal reserves currently stand at a little over 1,000Billion tons, though we are currently discovering coal faster than we are using it. (about 1.4 Centuries at current usage)

World oil reserves are 1.65 trillion barrels. (about 47 years at current usage)

There is of course variation in the estimates/calculations/dates data collected etc

There is also the unknown factor of technology advances changing the picture. eg will some resources currently classified as unrecoverable become recoverable.

Extrapolation of further expected discovery, and usage departing from historical trends also will impact upon estimates.


An estimate from Stanford University is, that the world's oil reserves will run out by 2052, natural gas by 2060 and coal by 2090. The U.S. Energy Information Association said in 2019 that the United States has enough natural gas to last 84 years.

So I think we are going to need coal, not so much to burn as fuel, but to obtain feedstock to supply the world's chemical manufacturing: a role it had previously occupied until displaced by oil.

I guess that deep sources in future will be recovered by drilling rather than traditional mines. (Remember the steerable large diameter drill used to rescue the Chilean miners.)

Underground gasification has been discussed since 1960.
Now that industry likes its coal in powder form, that too will favour robotic mining.

Granted we will have to stop dumping carbon into our atmosphere, but will coal still have a part to play? Maybe not in UK, perhaps by then we will have completely deindustrialised.