The coal industry - problems and prospects

An extremely important part of the world economy is its fuel and energy complex. The share of energy production in the world GDP is at least 10%. The rate of its consumption is growing every year, in proportion to the growth of the world's gross product. And the main sources of energy in our time are gas, oil, coal, oil shales and uranium. Oil and gas still play a major role, but their reserves are gradually decreasing and somewhere around the middle of this century they will be exhausted. At the same time, coal reserves will last for another 200 years, even at the most intensive production.

Therefore, the world coal industry is becoming more and more in demand. Now about 44% of electricity is produced in thermal power plants using coal. It is also indispensable in metallurgy for the smelting of ferrous metals. The majority of coal deposits are concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, North America and CIS countries. For example, China owns the ninth part of coal reserves, and Russia - the sixth. In Kazakhstan, 3.6% of the world's reserves are concentrated.

The leading exporters of coal are countries such as the United States, Australia, South Africa, Venezuela and Colombia. They include Canada, Indonesia, Poland, China and Russia. The coal industry of these countries provides world coal requirements by 90%. And the main importers of this product are some Asian countries, such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, as well as most countries of Western Europe.

The Russian coal industry is 193.3 billion tons of proven coal reserves. This figure includes deposits of anthracite, brown, stone and coking coal. Currently coal is mined in 16 coal basins, which cover 85 municipalities of the Russian Federation. At the same time, 58 municipalities are whole coal-mining territories that were formed around coal enterprises.

Now the coal industry of the Russian Federation is 85 mines, which for a year give out about 383 million tons of coal. For example, in 2011, these mines produced 336 million tons of coal, which is the highest figure after the collapse of the USSR. The largest coal-mining basin now is the Kuznetsk basin. But, in addition to Kuzbass, there are several promising deposits in Russia. These are sections of the Far East, Eastern Siberia and the Kansko-Achinsk basin. The development of these deposits will increase the extraction of Russian coal.

But at the same time, the coal industry is a problem industry. Its main problems are traumatism in enterprises. This is due to the fact that some countries allocate little money to support this industry. As a result, there is a shortage of funds for labor protection, and this leads to injuries and the death of miners. "Leaders" in this plan are such countries as Russia and China. In the mines of these countries, hundreds and even thousands of people die every year.

Even when mining and processing coal is seriously harmful to nature. It is associated primarily with the constant emissions of methane contained in mines, into the earth's atmosphere. Also, coal processing is not an environmentally friendly process. For example, in the production of coke, coal is heated to a certain temperature. As a result, carbon dioxide and other harmful compounds are released into the atmosphere, and in large quantities. All these harmful substances contribute to the occurrence of the greenhouse effect.

But, despite the fact that the characteristics of the coal industry cover a lot of problems, this branch in the modern world still remains one of the most important. Coal is now one of the main energy carriers, since its reserves will last for many years. In addition, the prices for it are stable and much lower than the prices for its direct substitutes. For example, the use of fuel oil in thermal power plants costs 1.5 times more expensive than the use of coal. And if in the near future new sources of energy are not mastered, by 2030 coal will become the main energy carrier.