What would happen if all the coal in the world were to become depleted...

[LeighB]

...(in the very near future)? What would happen? I know there is oil and gas to rely on also, but coal is a major resource - so what would happen if it were to become completely depleted?

 

[Bennyboots]

There would be outages galore. Coal fired power plants make up about half of the electricity generated in the US. There would be a scramble to get other forms of power generation online as quickly as possible. Rural areas would most likely loose power for the longest periods of time with the cities being the focus of the government. However I don't think we need to worry about running out of coal since at the end of 2006 the recoverable coal reserves amounted around 800 or 900 gigatons. (That is a shitload)

 

[frogger249]

Probably a lot of countries would go to war. There would be maybe even world chaos and we would have another financial crisis because we have not got enough alternative energy sources in use. However countries like Australia would probably stop selling all coal and use the rest of it while starting up alternative fuel sources. Countries like china, India, and japan to go to war with us so we would quickly have to make alliances and separate our friends from our foes.

As for the worlds energy source each country would have to use different types of renewable energy sources depending on their terrain, climate and environmental conditions etc.. and transportation such as cars, planes and boats etc.... would completely change from using fossil fuels to renewable sources.