That's the rather arresting finding of new research from the University of Texas, published in the journal Energy (which should be behind a paywall, but someone's helpfully posted it here). The key message in the paper is this:

The global peak of coal production from existing coalfields is predicted to occur close to the year 2011 ... It is unlikely that future mines will reverse the trend predicted in this BAU [Business As Usual] scenario.

Now if true, that obviously has rather far-reaching implications for climate policy - and, indeed, for the most basic assumptions used by the IPCC, as the authors explain:

Based on economic and policy considerations that appear to be unconstrained by geophysics, the IPCC generated forty carbon production and emission scenarios. [Our research] provides a reality check on the magnitude of carbon emissions in a BAU scenario. The resulting base case is significantly below 36 of the 40 carbon emission scenarios from the IPCC ... After 2011,[...]

[Published in NonProfitBlogs - Read the original article]