IAC Report|Energy supply 59
in recent years, however, prompting concern that oil production couldpeak within the next ew decades leading to a period o inevitable declinein available supplies.Global coal supplies—both in terms o known reserves and estimatedtotal resources—are ar more abundant than global supplies o conven-tional oil and natural gas (Table 3.1); or the latter uels, the ratio o knownconventional reserves to current consumption is on the order o 40–60years, whereas known coal reserves are adequate to support another 150years at 2006 rates o consumption. Obviously, any estimate o knownreserves—since reserves are a measure o the resource base that iseconomically retrievable using current technology—is subject to changeover time: as prices rise and/or technology improves, estimated reservescan grow. Nevertheless, price and supply pressures are likely to continue toaect oil and natural gas markets over the next several decades (Table 3.1).The inclusion o unconventional resources greatly expands the potentialresource base, especially or natural gas, i estimates o ‘additional occur-rences’—that is, more speculative hydrocarbon deposits that are not yettechnically accessible or energy purposes, such as methane hydrates—areincluded. This will be discussed urther in the section on unconventionalresources.
Consumption (EJ)
Table 3.1 Consumption, reserves, and resources of fossil fuels
P r o v e n r e s e r v e s ( E J ) e n d 2 0 0 6
b
L i f e t i m e o f p r o v e n r e s e r v e s ( y e a r s ) a t p r e s e n t c o n s u m p t i o n C o n s u m p t i o n t o d a t e ( 1 8 6 0 - 2 0 0 6 ) a s a s h a r e o f p r o v e n r e - s e r v e s R e s o u r c e b a s e ( Z J )
a
L i f e t i m e o f r e s o u r c e b a s e ( y e a r s )
1860 –1998
a
1999 –2006
b
1860 –2006ª
,b
2006
b
Oil5,1411,2396,3801646,8884192%32.4198Natural gas2,3777853,1631097,0146345%49.8461Coal5,9898786,86713019,40414735%199.71,538
Note
: Under
Resource base
, zettajoule (ZJ) equals 03 exajoules (EJ). Resources are defned asconcentrations o naturally occurring solid, liquid, or gaseous material in or on the Earth’s crust in suchorm that economic extraction is potentially easible. The
Resource base
includes proven reserves plusadditional (conventional and unconventional) resources. Unconventional resources could extend lietimeo oil, gas, and coal by a actor o 5-0, but their extraction will involve advanced technologies, highercosts, and possibly serious environmental problems
Sources:
(a) UNDP, UNDESA, WEC, 2000: Table 5.. (b) BP, 200
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