New opportunities for coal industry transformation and development under the background of the level of a moderately developed country and a new “dual control” system

The CPC's Report on the 20th National Congress reiterated that per capita GDP will reach the level of a moderately developed country(referred to as middle income) by 2035, and the rapid expansion of economic scale is bound to drive energy demand and increase energy consumption, posing challenges to energy supply. The “dual carbon” target promotes the “dual control” of energy consumption to the “dual control” of carbon emissions (referred to as the new “dual control”), which will make the carbon control measures more accurate and increase the pressure of low-carbon transition. Under the background of “middle income” and new “dual control”, it will be a challenging and unavoidable major subject of times to coordinate energy supply and low-carbon transformation, grasp the new opportunities of coal industry development, and enable the transformation and upgrading of the coal industry and high-quality development based on the basic national conditions dominated by coal. By reviewing the historical contribution of the coal industry to the development of the Chinese national economy, combined with the characteristics of China’s resource endowment and the reality of economic and social development at the present stage, it is believed that coal will still play an energy security role in the future and support the realization of the “middle income” goal. The problems of safety, ecology, and low intelligence in the process of coal development were deeply analyzed, and it was revealed that the new challenges facing the coal industry under the background of “middle income” and new “dual control” are mainly increased requirements for energy supply and increasing pressure of low-carbon transition. The change law of coal power consumption in different two-carbon periods was calculated: coal power consumption will be 2 billion tons in 2030, and will drop to 500 million tons in 2060, a decrease of 75%, which greatly impacts coal sales and brings huge potential risks to the development of the coal industry. New opportunities for the development of the coal industry in different periods of dual carbon were put forward. From now to the peak period of carbon emissions, the focus will be on promoting the coordinated development of energy conservation and low-carbon. Opportunities should be seized, such as the integration of coal and coal electricity, the integration of coal mine and circular economy industrial park, coordinated development of mining area restoration and ecology, coal feeding education strategy, coupling of mechanized coal mining and intelligent mining, resource utilization and energy utilization of coalbed methane, etc., to provide energy support for achieving the goal of “middle income”, and achieve high-quality development in the guarantee of supply, and provide a basis for green and low-carbon transition development. In the period from carbon peak to carbon neutral, the coupled development of coal and modern coal chemical industry, coal energy and new energy, will be vigorously developed to realize the leapfrog development of green and low-carbon transition based on high-quality development and help the early realization of the goal of carbon neutral.