What it does mean, however, is that the world's looming energy crisis could be even more severe than anyone imagines. In the International Energy Agency's latest long-term forecast, global coal consumption needs to rise 60 percent by 2030 to satisfy economic growth, and coal-fired electricity generating capacity has to double. But if Zittel and Rutledge are right, there is little chance of those predictions being fulfilled. And as global oil production goes into terminal decline within the next decade or so, there is even less chance that synthetic coal-to-liquids fuels can make up the crude deficit.
But the good news is that the imperatives of climate change and peak oil are identical. "In the long run, economies that rely on depletable resources are doomed to fail," Zittel warns. "The coal peak makes it even more urgent to switch to renewable energy without delay."
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