Coal Supply/Demand, 1980 to 2000. Task 3. Resource Applications Industrialization System Data Base. Final Review Draft

摘要

This report is a compilation of data and forecasts resulting from an analysis of the coal market and the factors influencing supply and demand. The analyses performed for the forecasts were made on an end-use-sector basis. The sectors analyzed are electric utility, industry demand for steam coal, industry demand for metallurgical coal, residential/commercial, coal demand for synfuel production, and exports. The purpose is to provide coal production and consumption forecasts that can be used to perform detailed, railroad company-specific coal transportation analyses. To make the data applicable for the subsequent transportation analyses, the forecasts have been made for each end-use sector on a regional basis. The supply regions are: Appalachia, East Interior, West Interior and Gulf, Northern Great Plains, and Mountain. The demand regions are the same as the nine Census Bureau regions. Coal production and consumption in the United States are projected to increase dramatically in the next 20 years due to increasing requirements for energy and the unavailability of other sources of energy to supply a substantial portion of this increase. Coal comprises 85 percent of the US recoverable fossil energy reserves and could be mined to supply the increasing energy demands of the US. The NTPSC study found that the additional traffic demands by 1985 may be met by the railways by the way of improved signalization, shorter block sections, centralized traffic control, and other modernization methods without providing for heavy line capacity works. But by 2000 the incremental traffic on some of the major corridors was projected to increase very significantly and is likely to call for special line capacity works involving heavy investment. (ERA citation 06:005724)