The International Energy Agency expects coal production to nearly double by 2030 in their World Energy Outlook 2008 if no large scale governmental intervention occurs. In this post, I analyse the likelihood of this happening from the perspective of available coal reserves.

My conclusions are that if we look at a global level, taking coal reserve data at face value, the global IEA reference scenario for coal production to 2030 is possible. However, when focusing on China, the country that now produces 41% of all coal, the scenario is unlikely to occur because China possesses insufficient coal reserves to sustain production to 2030 at the level expected by the IEA. Only in a highly optimistic case, if China's coal reserves are more than double those currently known, will China be able to sustain coal production as expected in the IEA reference scenario.

Based on available coal reserve data and scenarios (EWG 2007; Tao and Li 2007), it is much more likely that China will reach a plateau in coal production somewhere between 2015 and 2025. The implications of this are significant, because it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to substitute other energy sources for coal on the vast scale needed for Chinese growth. The quality of reserve data is poor, however. Better reserve data is needed, particularly for China, to have certainty with respect to these findings.

In a follow up post, I will take a look at the short term prospects to 2015 for coal production, imports, exports, and prices in relation to the World Energy Outlook 2008.