Europe Running Out of Coal and Gas

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - Many of Europe's leading nations are going to run out of essential fossil fuel reserves including coal and natural gas in less than five years.

A ground-breaking research report from the Global Sustainability Institute in the U.K. has highlighted how the U.K. will run out of coal reserves in 4.5 years while reserves in France and Italy will last around a year. In contrast, countries like Spain and Poland are looking at coal reserves that will last from 30-100 years while Germany and Russia have more than 100 years of reserves. Coal has become more popular in the European electricity mix in recent years due to cheaper imports from the U.S. and Russia but overall, its use is dropping in line with moves to cleaner forms of electricity generation such as renewables and modern-gas fired plants.

Dr Aled Jones, Director of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin, warned: "These maps show vulnerability in many parts of the European Union (E.U.) and they paint a picture of heavily-indebted European economies coming under increasing threat from rising global energy prices. It is vital that those shaping Europe's future political agenda understand our existing economic fragility. The E.U. is becoming ever more reliant on our resource-rich neighbours such as Russia and Norway, and this trend will only continue unless decisive action is taken."

"These maps show little change in the geographical distribution of "years left" of coal, but they do show a general trend for "years left" to have increased," the report highlighted. "This can be attributed to a fall in the rate of consumption of coal in most countries. The data on coal makes one trend very clear -- the abundance of coal in key emerging markets such as Russia, India, China, Latin America and Africa. In addition the US, Canada and Australia have significant coal reserves. Therefore, the world is likely to continue to be able to exploit coal in energy production, either directly or through the conversion of coal into gas or liquid fuels. However, climate change agreements and legislation may impact on the feasibility of coal as a future energy source."

With regards to natural gas, most western European nations have little reserves left. Ireland, U.K., Spain, France, Germany, Italy and others have between 0 and 5 years of reserves while countries like Sweden and Finland have no proven reserves at all. Norway the is only country in the region with reserves estimated to be significantly over 100 years.

According to the Institute: "Four of Europe's largest economies -- Germany, U.K., France and Italy -- have few "years left" of natural gas. In 2010 Italy and France had less than one year of natural gas left. In the U.K., the low figures in 2000, 2005, and 2010 represent a marked decline from earlier years when natural gas was being supplied from the North Sea. The UK's "years left" figure may increase as a result of the development of hydraulic fracturing. Norway with 420 years, and Russia 108 years, these countries have significant capacity to export natural gas".

A similar situation is noted in the oil sector, where Europe is virtually wholly dependent on imports.

"Much of the discussion about 'Peak Oil' overlooks the fact that oil is unevenly distributed globally," the report noted. "Some countries have no oil reserves of their own, or very little (e.g. Japan), and are entirely dependent on the world market and market prices. Other countries, such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, have more than 300 years of oil left at their 2010 rates of internal consumption. The overall geographical pattern is well understood, with the greatest concentration of oil reserves and production in the Middle East, and the highest rates of consumption per head in Western Europe, North America, and Japan. Combining data about both reserves and consumption, the clearest conclusion to be drawn is the vulnerability of Europe, the region with the lowest numbers of "years left". There are also countries outside the region in a similar situation, such as Turkey and Chile."

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