The imminent reality of peak oil production should be clear to all by now (see “Normally staid IEA says oil will peak in 2020“).

Now some very serious people are suggesting that there is a lot less accessible coal out there than most folks believe. If we are nearing peak coal (and peak oil), then we would need to embrace the rapid transition to a clean energy economy almost as urgently as we need to embrace it to avoid destroying the climate.

Let’s start with the U.S. Geological Survey’s stunning 131-page analysis from December, “Assessment of Coal Geology, Resources, and Reserves in the Gillette Coalfield, Powder River Basin, Wyoming” [big PDF]:

The Gillette coalfield, within the Powder River Basin in east-central Wyoming, is the most prolific coalfield in the United States. In 2006, production from the coalfield totaled over 431 million short tons of coal, which represented over 37 percent of the Nation’s total yearly production.

The “total original coal resource in the Gillette coalfield” without applying any restrictions, “was calculated to be 201 billion short tons.” Then USGS subtracts out the inaccessible coal, and then mining and processing losses, which leaves 77 billion tons, and finally:

Coal reserves are the portion of the recoverable coal that can be mined, processed, and marketed at a profit at the time of the economic evaluation. With a discounted cash flow at 8 percent rate of return, the coal reserves estimate for the Gillette coalfield is 10.1 billion short tons of coal (6 percent of the original resource total) for the 6 coal beds evaluated.

Ouch! And this analysis was done at a time of soaring coal prices.

The National Research Council’s Committee on Coal Research, Technology, and Resource Assessments to Inform Energy Policy wrote in a 2007 report:

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Part I introduced urban heat island mitigation (UHIM). It discussed how lighter colored (or reflective) roofs and pavement, plus urban trees, can save energy, cut CO2 emissions, cool a city, and reduce smog.

But a global “cool roofs” strategy can achieve far bigger benefits — the equivalent of several trillion dollars worth of CO2 reductions — since it can increase the albedo (reflectivity) of the planet, thereby directly reducing the absorption of incoming solar radiation and hence planetary warming. The strategy proposed below “is equivalent to taking the world’s approximately 600 million cars off the road for 18 years.”

[100 m2 (~1000 ft2) of a white roof, replacing a dark roof, offsets the emission of 10 tonnes of CO2.]

This is technically geoengineering, although I’d call it geoengineering light or geo-reverse-engineering, since we are mostly undoing the albedo decrease caused by all the dark roofs and dark pavement we have covered the planet with.

A forthcoming article in Climatic Change, “Global Cooling: Increasing World-wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2,” provides the detailed calculations. A two-page non-technical summary, “White Roofs Cool the World, Directly Offset CO2 and Delay Global Warming,” has been written by two of the country’s leading UHIM experts: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Hashem Akbari and California Energy Commissioner Arthur Rosenfeld (coauthors with me on “Paint the Town White–and Green“). I reprint it below:

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[I am reprinting a post from the excellent blog Solve Climate on one individual who is trying to make a difference in a rather unusual way.]

On December 24th we [Solve Climate] carried a report about Tim DeChristopher’s heroic act of civil disobedience: he went to an auction of public lands and outbid oil and gas companies for 22,500 acres of land — in order to protect it from fossil fuel development. The price? A whopping $1.8 million the University of Utah student doesn’t have.

The downpayment is due on January 9th, a mere $45,000, and on the advice of the legal team working to protect him and keep him out of jail, DeChristopher is trying to raise the money. So far, he’s got $18,000 in hand, and a campaign that’s gaining steam.

Below is DeChristopher’s appeal letter, and the link for making a contribution is here.

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Andy Revkin is tracking the story at Dot Earth.

The drop-off in demand — and in carbon emissions — is certainly temporary, but may provide a window of opportunity for Obama to begin crucial negotiations with the world’s other big emitter. If the planet is to have any chance of stabilizing at 450 ppm, we must cap emissions by 2020, and China must cap emissions by 2020 (see “Must-read IEA report explains what must be done to avoid 6°C warming“).

E&E News PM (subs. req’d) reports:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said today that she has enough votes to pass cap-and-trade legislation aimed at curbing the effects of global warming but would not commit to holding a vote in 2009.

The more Hill staffers and others I talk to, the less likely I think it is there will be a climate bill finalized and passed this year. Then again, more important than passing a climate bill this year is:

• Passing a stimulus with hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for clean energy (see “A Strategy for Green Recovery“)
• Passing the biggest energy bill in history, with a primary emphasis on renewables and energy efficiency
• Using EPA’s existing authority to stop building new coal plants (see “Obama to declare CO2 a dangerous pollutant“)
• Starting serious negotiations with the big global emitters, especially China (see “What will make Obama a great president, Part 2: A climate deal with China“).

At the same time, 2009 must also see serious work on a comprehensive climate bill that can be passed in 2010 — one with a 2020 target for CO2 emissions below 1990 levels the subject of a future post). The E&E story continues:
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I use the excellent Climate Ark news feed, so I’m delighted to congratulate them on their tenth anniversary.

Here is their news release:

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