Projection of world fossil fuels by country

Abstract

Detailed projections of world fossil fuel production including unconventional sources were created by country and fuel type to estimate possible future fossil fuel production. Four critical countries (China, USA, Canada and Australia) were examined in detail with projections made on the state/province level. Ultimately Recoverable Resources (URR) for fossil fuels were estimated for three scenarios: Low = 48.4 ZJ, Best Guess (BG) = 75.7 ZJ, High = 121.5 ZJ. The scenarios were developed using Geologic Resources Supply-Demand Model (GeRS-DeMo). The Low and Best Guess (BG) scenarios suggest that world fossil fuel production may peak before 2025 and decline rapidly thereafter. The High scenario indicates that fossil fuels may have a strong growth till 2025 followed by a plateau lasting approximately 50 years before declining. All three scenarios suggest that world coal production may peak before 2025 due to peaking Chinese production and that only natural gas could have strong growth in the future. In addition, by converting the fossil fuel projections to greenhouse gas emissions, the projections were compared to IPCC scenarios which indicated that based on current estimates of URR there are insufficient fossil fuels to deliver the higher emission IPCC scenarios A1Fl and RCP8.5.