But before doing so, pay attention to this very important note: solar energy potential and energy potential shown for the other renewable energy resources is annual potential, while the energy potential shown for the fossil fuel resources is
total recoverable reserves.
«
Total recoverable reserves of coal around the world are estimated at 1,001 billion tons — enough to last approximately 180 years at current consumption levels»
Not exact matches
This identified
Total Prospective Resources of 187 mio barrels, which boiled down to Expected Probable
Recoverable Reserves of 47 mio barrels.
In 2006, the estimated
recoverable reserves totaled 263,781 million short tons.
Wiki also has estimates with data from several sources; these lie well below the WEC estimate of «inferred
total fossil fuel resources», which I cited (and which is several times higher than the «proven
recoverable reserves» estimate).
As of January 1, 2017, EIA estimated that the remaining U.S.
recoverable coal
reserves totaled over 254 billion short tons, from a DRB of 476 billion short tons.
The WEC 2010 estimate I have used is at the high end of the range with between 800 and 900 Gt of «proven
reserves» worldwide and a «
total inferred
recoverable resource» of 1,900 Gt.
Of those US
reserves, a 1975 USGS assessment of coal resources in the US found Alaskan
recoverable reserves (5.3 billion tons) to be about 3 % of the
total US
recoverable reserves at the time (192 billion tons)...
For instance, using the emission factor for coal from IPCC [48], coal resources given by the Global Energy Assessment [114] amount to 7300 — 11000 Gt C. Similarly, using emission factors from IPCC [48],
total recoverable fossil energy
reserves and resources estimated by GEA [114] are approximately 15000 Gt C.