Peak coal black coal resources could last more than 200 years based on rate of extraction in 2007. This does not account for brown coal stocks. According to calculations conducted for the Hunter Community Environment Centre in Newcastle, the Australian state of New South Wales 10,600 million tonnes of coal reserves would be exhausted by 2042, based on current industry growth and extraction rates of about 3.2 per cent a year. Coal output peaked in 1913 in Britain at 287 Mt and now accounts for less than one percent of world coal extraction. 2007 extraction was around 15 Mt. According to the
Andrew Brown (industrialist) Lithgow still retains the name. The next phase of life was replete with a number of changes to his property which fostered Lithgow's economic development. In 1837 Brown established a water driven flour mill on Cooerwull Brook to process the wheat grown both on his own property and on other properties in the Lithgow Valley. In the 1860s Brown claimed to have found coal on his land, however it was Alfred Carter who was working on property at the time. He used coal to power his flour and later tweed mill. Coal was later to become and still currently is