In November 4, 2014, the international environmental protection mechanism of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) issued "the latest research results China coal control project" in Beijing: "2012" (hereinafter referred to as the true cost of Coal Research). Study on the coal produced in China in 2012 during the whole life cycle in the production, transportation, consumption of external cost of money, the results point out that, the current coal pricing mechanism of our country seriously underestimated the environmental and health costs of coal generated in the consumer link, which created the illusion of coal "low price" to a certain extent.
In 2013 the national coal consumption of 36.1 tons of coal, in the national primary energy in the proportion of long-term higher than 65%. Coal supplies power for the economy at the same time also produced serious environmental and ecological problems, how the coal in primary energy accounts for more than to become Chinas center of gravity of energy supply and consumer revolution in recent years to reduce.
This study concluded that, in 2012 our country coal in the whole life cycle is really cost estimate is about 260 yuan / ton, but the body current costs of coal pricing mechanism in China is only about 53 yuan / ton, most of the environmental and health costs are not reflected in the current pricing mechanism, one of the biggest gaps appear on the consumer link. This also led to enterprises and residents in the use of coal is often overlooked on the environment and health damage, leading to excessive use of market failure and coal.
The true cost of coal production, transportation, consumption in China
The cost of coal production is completely in many other factors to consider the value of coal resources, and coal production is related to the ecological protection and the coal city, the sustainable development of coal enterprises and other circumstances, can fully reflect the total expenditure of the cost of coal enterprises. Total coal production cost should include resource cost, production cost, safety cost, the cost of ecological environment and sustainable development cost.
With the rest of the world has high-quality coal resources endowment standards, the problem of water resources Chinese coal mining brings especially. The distribution of water resources uneven Chinese was reverse distribution, coal resources and water resources, Jin Shan Meng Ning new areas such as the lack of water resources is the most, occupy less than the national total 20%; and in 2010 coal production is up to 19 tons, accounting for 60% of national output of coal. The current process China in mining coal mine water (mainly from atmospheric precipitation, surface water, groundwater and wastewater) utilization rate of less than 65%, on the one hand, led to the loss of water resources, a variety of pollutants on the other hand, mine water (suspended solids, heavy metals, minerals and special pollutant water) leads to serious environmental pollution problems the.
Coal mining in large-scale coal mining formed uninterrupted, funnel, drop in the water level and water pollution caused great damage to the water resources. Taking Shanxi as an example, for every 1 tons of coal mined, the destruction of the groundwater dynamic reserves (through a cross-section of the groundwater aquifer) is 1.41 cubic meters, the destruction of groundwater static reserve (stored in the lowest water level below the groundwater aquifers in gravity water) is 1.07 cubic meters, for a total of 2.48 cubic meters. Groundwater resources in China each year due to coal mining and the destruction of the reach billion cubic meters, increase in water shortage area water resources supply and demand contradiction.
Effects of coal on human health is reflected in two aspects: coal production led to the deaths and occupational injury; and coal consumption caused air pollution, especially the effects of PM2.5 on health. In 2013 the national total of 604 coal mine accidents occur, the death of 1067 people; and the coal industry caused by pneumoconiosis miners casualties, far higher than the sum of all kinds of industrial accident casualties: in 2012 China report new cases of pneumoconiosis in 24206 cases, accounting for 88.27% of the total numbers of occupational diseases, including 54.52% from coal industry.
American Cancer Societys study showed that every increase of PM2.5 10 g/m3, total mortality, heart and lung disease mortality and cancer mortality rates were 4%, 6% and 8%; and in the clean urban life in comparison, in the high 10-15% risk of serious pollution of urban life of people suffering from lung cancer. About 70% of Chinas population lives in the annual average of PM2.5 higher than 35 g/m3 area. This study estimated the excess number of deaths in China in 2012, because of coal PM2.5 emissions result is about 670000, due to the excess number of deaths of ischemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer were 84000, 170000, 340000 and 65000.
In addition to the above except for effects of water, ecology, environment and human health, the coal also produce large amounts of greenhouse gases in the process of production and consumption, such as coal mining two carbon dioxide traffic emissions and coal consumption in the process of methane emission, coal transportation process and black carbon emissions. This study shows that tons of coal production, transportation and consumption of the whole cycle greenhouse gas emissions of 2.179 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, of which about 95% occur in the consumer link. The current mainstream model to estimate the global carbon social cost and social cost low limit is our tons of coal production, transportation and consumption of greenhouse gas emissions to 160.8 yuan / ton of coal.
Different areas of damage were monetary and total results show that according to the current technology and end treatment situation of Chinas coal production, transportation and consumption estimates, Chinas 2012 tons of coal produced by the environmental and health impacts of 260 yuan, of which the external damage of coal production cost is 66.3 yuan / tons of coal, accounting for about 25%; external damage of coal transportation cost is 27.8 yuan / tons of coal, accounting for about 11%; external damage of coal consumption for the cost of 166 yuan / tons of coal, accounting for about 64% of.
The current coal price mechanism seriously underestimate the true cost of coal
In spite of all levels of government