For most of the world’s population, the best alternative to oil is coal. Today coal is priced as a dirty solid fuel and for this reason it is often available for a small function of the cost of cleaner oil and natural gas containing the same amount of energy. What’s more, coal is abundant. There is more energy contained in U.S. coal than that contained in all of the remaining oil in the world. China has trillions of tons of coal, 94% of their entire fossil fuel resource. Well over half the world’s population lives in coal rich oil poor nations.