BEIJING -
Inefficient, outmoded mining techniques and the
blind pursuit of profit by some colliery owners
have led to huge waste in China's coal mining
industry.
The "recovery rate" for China's
coal resources is only 30%, less than half the
world's average, according to the 2007 Energy Blue
Paper recently released by the Social Sciences
Publishing House.
"To produce one ton of
coal in China, we consume five to 20 tons
of
coal resources. In developed countries, they only
consume 1.2 to 1.3 tons," said Dr Cui Minxuan,
chief editor of the blue paper and a researcher
with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The world's largest coal producer and
consumer produced 2.38 billion tons of raw coal
last year, up 8% year-on-year. Its raw coal output
surged 15% to 495 million tons in the first
quarter.
But the story behind the
breakneck expansion is also one of ghastly waste.
Shanxi, China's largest coal producing province,
is estimated to have consumed 20 billion tons of
mineral resources since the late 1970s to produce
only 8 billion tons of coal.
The nearly 6
billion cubic meters of coal-bed gas wasted in
Shanxi every year represent about 50% to the total
amount of gas transferred by the government from
the west to the east. To complete the picture, 1.2
billion tons of water resources is thrown away
each year.
Appalled, the National
Development and Reform Commission(NDRC) has set a
goal of lifting the mineral resource recovery rate
by 35% by 2010 from the 2005 level.
If the
objective is reached, China could save 250 million
tons of coal, 3.25 billion cubic meters of
coal-bed gas and seven million tons of oil a year
by 2010, said NDRC.
Last year,
resource-rich provinces like Heilongjiang,
Shandong, Shanxi, Henan and Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region handed over 3.4 billion yuan in
mineral resource exploitation tax to the central
government, almost 60% of the total.
The
money will be used to improve the environment,
support the transformation of mining cities and
tackle social problems generated by mining.
In mid-March, east China's Shandong
province took the lead in banning the construction
of collieries with an annual output of less than
450,000 tons and encouraging the construction of
up-to-date million-ton giant collieries.
The provincial government said that
closing down small coal mines with an annual
output of less than 90,000 tons would not be
enough. Local reserves can only sustain the coal
mining industry for 20 years, it said, so
efficiency and costs are the top concern.
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