The coal industry has been and continues to be of critical importance for China's economic modernization. With its huge labour force, country-wide infrastructure, and vital strategic importance for the economy, the industry presents special problems for reformers, and epitomises the problems of reform in the state industrial sector as a whole. This book examines the changes in the structure and operation of the Chinese coal industry from the mid-19th century to the present, concentrating on the years of reform. Although the focus is on the economics of the industry, the book also provides many insights into China's socio-political development.

Coal mining is one of China¿s largest industries, and provides an excellent case study through which to consider the broader issues of China¿s transition from socialism to capitalism, focussing on the shift to a market economy, the rise of rural industry and the situation of China¿s working class. Coal was one of the pillars of the planned economy but, the author argues, its shift to market-based operations has been protracted and difficult, particularly in moving from the artificially low prices of the planned economy to market prescribed prices - a change that had a major impact on the industry¿s financial performance. The book goes on to considers the growth of small rural coal mines as part of the Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs) programme; these small mines have brought prosperity to areas where small manufacturing enterprises are not competitive, but at the same time have been the cause of many social and environmental problems. It also examines the situation of coal miners - arguably one the most vulnerable segments of the Chinese working class - under socialism and under capitalism, paying particular attention to the issue of work safety and coal mine disasters. The book provides a comprehensive and coherent treatment of these issues from the establishment of the People¿s Republic up to 2010.

From 1868–1872, German geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen went on an expedition to China. His reports on what he found there would transform Western interest in China from the land of porcelain and tea to a repository of immense coal reserves. By the 1890s, European and American powers and the Qing state and local elites battled for control over the rights to these valuable mineral deposits. As coal went from a useful commodity to the essential fuel of industrialization, this vast natural resource would prove integral to the struggle for political control of China. Geology served both as the handmaiden to European imperialism and the rallying point of Chinese resistance to Western encroachment. In the late nineteenth century both foreign powers and the Chinese viewed control over mineral resources as the key to modernization and industrialization. When the first China Geological Survey began work in the 1910s, conceptions of natural resources had already shifted, and the Qing state expanded its control over mining rights, setting the precedent for the subsequent Republican and People's Republic of China regimes. In Empires of Coal, Shellen Xiao Wu argues that the changes specific to the late Qing were part of global trends in the nineteenth century, when the rise of science and industrialization destabilized global systems and caused widespread unrest and the toppling of ruling regimes around the world.

‘Coal’ and ‘China’ to some extent have become synonymous. China is by far the largest user of coal in the world. In 2016, coal production in China amounted to 3.21 billion tons, about half of the total global coal production. Coal consumption accounts for more than 65% of primary energy consumption in China. The Chinese coal industry greatly contributes to the economic development in China, the second largest economy in the world. However, periodically, ubiquitous images of smog blanketing major Chinese cities are viewed all over the world. Coal combustion is one of the important contributors to smog, which is considered to be a major environmental and human health problem for China and other countries. News stories also highlight the periodic coal mine disasters that kill hundreds of Chinese coal miners annually. The need to address these and other human health, environmental, and mine safety issues and to maximize resource recovery and use justifies a vigorous coal research effort. This book brings together experts on almost every aspect of coal geology, coal production, composition and use of the coal and its by-products, and coal’s environmental and human health impacts. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of the International Geology Review.

As the greatest coal-producing and consuming nation in the world, China would seem an unlikely haven for wind power. Yet the country now boasts a world-class industry that promises to make low-carbon technology more affordable and available to all. Conducting an empirical study of China's remarkable transition and the possibility of replicating their model elsewhere, Joanna I. Lewis adds greater depth to a theoretical understanding of China's technological innovation systems and its current and future role in a globalized economy. Lewis focuses on China's specific methods of international technology transfer, its forms of international cooperation and competition, and its implementation of effective policies promoting the development of a home-grown industry. Just a decade ago, China maintained only a handful of operating wind turbines—all imported from Europe and the United States. Today, the country is the largest wind power market in the world, with turbines made almost exclusively in its own factories. Following this shift reveals how China's political leaders have responded to domestic energy challenges and how they may confront encroaching climate change. The nation's escalation of its wind power use also demonstrates China's ability to leapfrog to cleaner energy technologies—an option equally viable for other developing countries hoping to bypass gradual industrialization and the "technological lock-in" of hydrocarbon-intensive energy infrastructure. Though setbacks are possible, China could one day come to dominate global wind turbine sales, becoming a hub of technological innovation and a major instigator of low-carbon economic change.

Today's best practice in environmental mine-waste management requires a thorough understanding of the wastes produced. The knowledge of mine wastes represents a new interdisciplinary science and this book provides an introductory, descriptive and analytic overview of the wastes produced in the mineral industry. It describes the characterization, prediction, monitoring, disposal and treatment as well as environmental impacts. Intended for undergraduate courses, it systematically builds the reader’s understanding and knowledge of the wastes produced, their physical and chemical characteristics, and how to deal responsibly with them on a short and long-term basis. The text employs 22 case studies spanning the world’s mineral industry that elucidate best practice and specific challenges in mine-waste management and site rehabilitation.

A forceful reckoning with the relationship between energy and power through the history of what was once East Asia’s largest coal mine. The coal-mining town of Fushun in China’s Northeast is home to a monstrous open pit. First excavated in the early twentieth century, this pit grew like a widening maw over the ensuing decades, as various Chinese and Japanese states endeavored to unearth Fushun’s purportedly “inexhaustible” carbon resources. Today, the depleted mine that remains is a wondrous and terrifying monument to fantasies of a fossil-fueled future and the technologies mobilized in attempts to turn those developmentalist dreams into reality. In Carbon Technocracy, Victor Seow uses the remarkable story of the Fushun colliery to chart how the fossil fuel economy emerged in tandem with the rise of the modern technocratic state. Taking coal as an essential feedstock of national wealth and power, Chinese and Japanese bureaucrats, engineers, and industrialists deployed new technologies like open-pit mining and hydraulic stowage in pursuit of intensive energy extraction. But as much as these mine operators idealized the might of fossil fuel–driven machines, their extractive efforts nevertheless relied heavily on the human labor that those devices were expected to displace. Under the carbon energy regime, countless workers here and elsewhere would be subjected to invasive techniques of labor control, ever-escalating output targets, and the dangers of an increasingly exploited earth. Although Fushun is no longer the coal capital it once was, the pattern of aggressive fossil-fueled development that led to its ascent endures. As we confront a planetary crisis precipitated by our extravagant consumption of carbon, it holds urgent lessons. This is a groundbreaking exploration of how the mutual production of energy and power came to define industrial modernity and the wider world that carbon made.

Jeff Hornibrook provides a unique, microcosmic look at the process of industrialization in one Chinese community at the turn of the twentieth century. Industrialization came late to China, but was ultimately embraced and hastened to aid the state's strategic and military interests. In Pingxiang County in the highlands of Jiangxi Province, coalmining was seasonal work; peasants rented mines from lineage leaders to work after the harvest. These traditions changed in 1896 when the court decided that the county's mines were essential for industrialization. Foreign engineers and Chinese officials arrived to establish the new social and economic order required for mechanized mining, one that would change things for people from all levels of society. The outsiders constructed a Westernized factory town that sat uneasily within the existing community. Mistreatment of the local population, including the forced purchase of gentry-held properties and the integration of peasants into factory-style labor schemes, sparked a series of rebellions that wounded the empire and tore at the fabric of the community. Using stories found in memoirs of elite Chinese and foreign engineers, correspondence between gentry and powerful officials, travelogues of American missionaries and engineers, as well as other sources, Hornibrook offers a fascinating history of the social and political effects of industrialization in Pingxiang County.

Mark Twain observed, “I'm in favour of progress; it's change I don't like.” Coal dominates Indian energy because it’s available domestically and cheap (especially without a carbon tax). If the global focus is on the energy transition, how does India ensure a just transition? Managing winners and losers will be the single largest challenge for India’s energy policy. Coal is entrenched in a complex ecosystem. In some states, it’s amongst the largest contributors to state budgets. The Indian Railways, India’s largest civilian employer, is afloat because it overcharges coal to offset under-recovery from passengers. Coal India Limited, the public sector miner that produces 85% of domestic coal, is the world’s largest coal miner. But despite enormous reserves, India imports about a quarter of consumption. On the flip side, coal faces inevitable pressure from renewable energy, which is the cheapest option for new builds. However, there is significant coal-based power capacity already in place, some of which is underutilized, or even stranded. Low per-capita energy consumption means India must still grow its energy supply. Before India can phase out coal, it must first achieve a plateau of coal. How this happens cost-effectively and with least resistance isn’t just a technical or economic question, it depends on the political economy of coal and its alternatives. Some stakeholders want to kill coal. A wiser option may be to first clean it up, instead of wishing it away. Across 18 chapters, drawing from leading experts in the field, we examine all aspects of coal’s future in India. We find no easy answers, but attempt to combine the big picture with details, bringing them together to offer a range of policy options.

By making available the almost unlimited energy stored in prehistoric plant matter, coal enabled the industrial age – and it still does. Coal today generates more electricity worldwide than any other energy source, helping to drive economic growth in major emerging markets. And yet, continued reliance on this ancient rock carries a high price in smog and greenhouse gases. We use coal because it is cheap: cheap to scrape from the ground, cheap to move, cheap to burn in power plants with inadequate environmental controls. In this book, Mark Thurber explains how coal producers, users, financiers, and technology exporters drive this supply chain, while fragmented environmental movements battle for full incorporation of environmental costs into the global calculus of coal. Delving into the politics of energy versus the environment at local, national, and international levels, Thurber paints a vivid picture of the multi-faceted challenges associated with continued coal production and use in the twenty-first century.