Good argument, Mr S. There's another one. What we're digging up now was laid down... Admittedly, what we will have to dig up if we want (which many of us don't) to continue on this course will be more peat than anthracite, because it isn't getting as long to be squeezed into anthracite.

But even if it were a fact that "...", that fact has no relevance to NOW. We are digging up NOW & we will continue to NOW dig up what took millions of years to lay down. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the bacteria argument, what has been happening to wood in the geological eye-blink for which we've been present is irrelevant. Either we quit the fossil fuel addiction we currently have in the next 50 years or... The world is going to be very different. It's a finite resource in a world where the demand for energy is only ever going to rise (& this is all never mind the damage to the environment).