Energy expert Zhang Yousheng: China's coal resource development limit is 4 billion tons

Zhang Yousheng, an expert from the Energy Development Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that the scale of development of coal resources should not exceed 4 billion tons.

Zhang Yousheng pointed out that our country is rich in coal, lean in oil, and less gas. Coal is the main body of our country's energy structure. Now it is indeed the main body of our supply, and the future is still our main body. The issue of rational development of coal resources should be discussed more frequently in recent years and is also a hot issue in the energy sector. Coal has grown by more than 200 million tons in recent years. What about coal resources? Judging from the following aspects, in terms of coal resources, although the proven reserves of coal in our country have continued to increase in recent years, its recoverable quantity has remained at 2/1/25. What we really develop and use for our human beings is to bring it out through certain technological means. With the increase in the value of this coal, the original coal resources with higher marginal costs can also be developed. Its data is higher than the original. Why does it not drop its data? We cannot use the so-called 5.5 petascale coal as Our future energy supply rankings are either starting points or starting points.

The development and utilization of coal will inevitably bring about the destruction of the ecological environment. The areas where the coal is concentrated are all regions where the ecological environment is relatively fragile. The mining of coal resources must use water. We must use water for coating, or else people cannot work in that environment. Second, our coal must be washed after it has been produced. If we don't use dry stones, it will be meaningless and inefficient. An old expert from the Ministry of Coal led the implementation of an implementation project. Within the scope of our country’s water resources carrying capacity, we proposed a figure of about 3 billion tons of development upper limit. We believe that because of the inevitable damage to the water resources caused by the exploitation of coal resources, although your development process will be promoted below, your oil will become more and more binding on water resources. Therefore, from the perspective of water resources alone, its effective and reasonable scale should not exceed 3 billion tons.

In addition, our country’s coal resources and geology have given poor conditions, the depth of coal is relatively deep, coal is thick, and it is suitable for open-mining. The conditions for mining are relatively complicated, and the overall situation is relatively complex. The western part is better and the east is worse. This condition has led to serious problems in the production of coal mines in our country and the working environment has been rather harsh. Here is a table, the main coal mining countries in the world are mainly based on farmland mining. Only 6% of our country's coal resources are suitable for open pit mining. The proportion of open-pit mining in the United States is now about 61%, Germany is close to 80%, and South Africa is now close to 40%. This kind of mining conditions is not the same, and our country has also reached the level of safety of the world’s major coal-producing countries, making it harder than ever. In this case, because our coal production is relatively large, according to 0.9, the safety level of coal mines in China is still relatively poor in the emerging countries in the world.

The exploitation of coal resources must have water resources, and the exploitation of coal resources will also destroy the ecological environment in and around the mining area. Therefore, the destruction of land resources may be seen in some of the old coal resource production areas in the eastern part of our country, including Xuzhou, In Huainan and Shandong, the original fertile farmland was turned into a paddy field, and the peasants became fishermen and they could only rely on fish farming. Therefore, the development of coal resources has caused irreconcilable damage to the surrounding ecological environment, which has brought serious impact.

According to the new energy country strategic research and coal research results, taking into account various constraints, according to the so-called bucket principle or short board principle, the development limit of coal resources may not exceed 4 billion tons.