A Novel Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Approach to the Future of Global Coal Consumption Using Whale Optimization Algorithm and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System

Energy has become an integral part of our society and global economic development in the twenty-first century. Despite tremendous technological advancements, fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) continue to be the world’s primary source of energy. Global energy scenarios indicate a change in coal consumption trends in the future, which in turn will have commercial, geopolitical, and environmental consequences. We investigated coal consumption up to 2030 using a new hybrid method of WOANFIS (whale optimization algorithm and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system). The WOANFIS method’s performance was assessed by the MSE (Mean Squared Error), MAE (Mean Absolute Error), STD (error standard deviation), RMSE (Root Mean Squared Error), and coefficient of correlation (R2) among the real dataset and the WOANFIS result. For the prediction of global coal consumption, the proposed WOANFIS had the best MAE, RMSE, and correlation coefficient (R2) values, which were 0.00113, 0.0047, and 0.98, respectively. Lastly, future global coal consumption was predicted up to 2030 by WOANFIS. Following 150 years of coal dominance, the results demonstrate that WOANFIS is a suitable method for estimating worldwide coal consumption, which makes it possible to plan for the transition away from coal.