上海盘古电子商务:China's Peak Coal Has Arrived! 中国的煤炭峰值危机已到来！

At the end of last year, western medias carried a very serious topics: Has China's Peak Coal arrived? This question deserves a lot of attentions from strategic decison makers in China and in other countries, as China is by far the most important coal producing and consuming country in the world. According to BP estimate, China's proven coal reserve is at 114.5 billion metric tons, or 13.3% of the world's total of 860.9 billion tons. On Oct. 8, 2010, Natinal Geographic published an article which reported that a study led by Tad Patzek of University of Texas predicted that global Peak Coal production will occur as early as in 2011.

去年年底的时候，西方媒体有一个很严肃的报道话题：中国的煤炭峰值产量已经到来了吗？这个问题应该引起中国和其他国家战略决策者们的严重关注。中国是全世界占压倒性重要性的煤炭生产和消耗大国。根据英国石油公司(BP)估算，中国的查明煤炭储藏量是1145亿公吨，占全世界总量8609亿吨的13.3%。在2010年10月8日，美国国家地理杂志发表了一篇文章报道说德克萨斯大学的塔德帕杰克领导的一个研究项目预言全球煤炭峰值产量将最早在2011年出现。

Consider that China's coal reserve figure has not been revised since 1992, some researchers believe China's actual remaining coal reserve is as low as 90 billion tons. Cumulative Chinese coal production volume is also roughly 90 billion tons. If that is true, China has produced half of its original coal reserve, so the Peak Coal production volume is about right now. China's coal production has been expanding at a rapid pace of 10% per year growth, reaching 2.46 billion tons in the first 8 months of 2011, or 3.69 billion tons per annum. At this rate, even without further growth, the remaining reserve could only lasts another 25 years! Alarming signs like deteriorating coal quality and the difficult struggles to keep coal production up to meet demand all points to the conclusion that China has passed Peak Coal.

考虑到中国煤炭蕴藏量数据从1992年以来没有更新过，有些研究者认为中国现在实际存在的煤炭储量只有9百亿吨。中国历史累计的煤炭生产总量也差不多达到9百亿吨。如果那是正确的，中国已经生产了原有煤炭资源的一半，因此差不多现在达到煤炭峰值产量了。中国煤炭生产近年在以每年递增10%的速度迅猛增长。在2011年头8个月达24.6亿吨，就是36.9亿吨年产量。按这样速率，即使产量不再增长，剩余储量也只有25年了！日渐恶劣的煤炭品质，以及设法维持产量的重重困难，都在发出警告信号，明确无误的指示，中国已经过了煤炭峰值。

Mean while high level officials in China do not seem to be alarmed at all. Based on their out dated assessments, they believe China's coal can last another hundred years. Are they being too optimistic? Are the numbers of China's potential coal reserve, coal that is supposed to exist but has not been discovered yet, way too exagerated?

在此同时中国的高级官员们似乎一点都没有受到警觉。根据他们过时了的评估，他们相信中国的煤炭至少还可以维持一百年。他们是否过于乐观了？中国的潜在煤炭资源量，那些也许存在但是还没有被发现的煤炭藏量，是否在放卫星，被夸张的太厉害了？

I deviced a way to give a reasonable estimate of the upper bound of China's coal reserve. The numbers I got are pretty persimistic, extending support to the view that China has already reached Peak Coal. My estimation method is inspired by an article by Professor Jeffrey Dukes, titled Burning Buried Sunshine.

我创造了一个方法可以准确得到中国煤炭资源量上限的合理估计。我得到的数据相当悲观，给中国已达到煤炭峰值的论点提供了支持。我的估算方法是受杰弗里·杜克斯教授一篇论文的启发，那篇论文题目是燃烧埋藏的阳光。

We know that coal, petroleum, and even natural gas, are fossil fuels. They were converted to fuel from the biomass of ancient times. We also know that the earth is a very unique life carrying planet, with oxygen in the atmosphere. Free oxygen can not exist for long, as in roughly a few million years the oxygen will be depleted due to formation of oxides with the crust material. Free oxygen can only exist if there are life forms to continuously absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Every single oxygen molecule came from biomass. Astronomers have proposed that we can detect ET lifes on other planets by detecting free oxygen.

我们知道煤炭，石油，以至天然气都是化石燃料。他们是从远古的生物质转换成燃料的。我们也知道地球是个独特的有生命星球，大气层里面有氧气。自由态的氧不可能长久存在。大约只需要几百万年时间，大气中的氧气就可以和地壳物质发生氧化反应而消耗殆尽。只有存在生命形式，源源不断吸收二氧化碳，排出氧气，大气里的自由态氧气才能存在。每一个氧分子必然是从生物质里来源的。天文学家还提出了可以通过探测地外行星有没有自由态的氧气，来探测地外生命的存在。

We can get a precise calculation of the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. The atmosphere pressure on the surface of the earth multiplied by the earth surface area gives us the total weight of the atmosphere gases, which comes to 5x10^18 kilograms. Oxygen constitutes about 1/5 of the atmosphere, so there is about 1x10^18 kilograms of oxygen on earth. Because all oxygen molecules were derived from carbon dioxide, and there is a mass ratio of 12 parts carbon for every 32 parts of oxygen in carbon dioxide, I estimate that there is a total of 375 trillion tons of accumulated carbon of biomass original.

我们可以精确算出大气层里面有多少氧气。地面大气压强，乘上地球表面总面积，就是大气层全部气体的重量，大约有5x10^18公斤。大气中氧气的构成是约1/5，所以氧气总量是1x10^18公斤。因为氧分子都来自二氧化碳分子，而二氧化碳里面12份碳对应32份氧。因此可以估计地球上有总量达375万亿吨的碳来自于生物质的积累。

Consider that 29.2% of the earth surface is land area, and 70.8% is ocean, also consider that the ocean portion of the earth's biosphere is much more active than land portion, roughly FOUR times more biomass is generated per unit of ocean area than that of land area, I estimate that less than 10% of the 375 trillion tons of accumulated biomass carbon would be generated on land. That brings the figure of land based biomass carbon to 35 trillion tons.

考虑到地球表面29.2%是陆地，其余70.8%是海洋。再考虑到海洋生物圈是个远比陆地生物圈活跃的多，单位面积的海洋积累生物质的速率要四倍于陆地。因此我估算那375万亿吨的生物质来源的碳，其中不到10%是在陆地积累。这样陆地上生物质来源碳有35万亿吨。

About half of the 35 trillion tons of land based biomass carbon would be at geological locations where coal formation is possible. That brings to coal forming land carbon to roughly 17.5 trillion tons. But the coal formation is a very wasteful geological process. According to the study of Professor Jeffrey Dukes, only roughly 8% of the original biomass carbon will form coal, the rest simply gets eaten away by germs or otherwise dissipate in the soils. So that means global underground coal reserve should be no more than 8% x 17.5 trillion tons, which is 1400 billion tons. If we assume coal extraction efficiency is 65%, the ultimate recoverable coal that originally exists on earth totals 910 billion tons. Since the dawn of civilization, humen probably have produced an accumulative amount of 200 billion tons of coal, leaving roughly 700 billion tons still under the ground. My estimate, based on a very rough physics model, actually come extremely close to the BP estimate of the global total of 861 billion tons of coal reserve remaining.

源于陆地的35万亿吨生物质碳只有一半会在适宜生成煤炭的地理位置产生，这样有可能生成煤炭的生物质碳仅剩17.5万亿吨。但是生成煤炭的地质过程是个非常浪费的过程。根据杰弗里·杜克斯教授的研究，原始生物质碳只有8%最终转换成煤炭，其余都被细菌吃掉，或者以种种方式耗散在土壤里了。这意味着全球最初埋在地下的煤炭矿藏量不超过8%X17.5万亿吨，就是1.4万亿吨。如果我们假设地下煤炭的开采效率是65%，地球上原存在的最终可开采煤炭总量是9千1百亿吨。自从人类文明起源，人类已经累计开采了2千多亿吨煤炭。地下还有剩下大约7千多亿吨可开采。我的估算，是根据一个粗略的物理模型，但是和英国石油公司估算全球煤炭资源总量8610亿吨非常接近。

Now let's look at China. China's land area is 9.6 million square kilometers. That's 6% of the world's total land area. If China has its fair share of coal formation, China would have 6% x 910 billion tons, or 54.6 billion tons of original coal reserve underground. If China slightly blessed with a little bit more advantage in coal forming geology, China probably has no more than 90 billion tons of original recoverable coal reserve. Let's squeeze the recovery rate of 65% a bit, and assume 80% of original coal could be recovered, which is pushing the limit, China would have 110 billion tons of original recoverable coal. Since China has already produced an accumulative 58 billion tons of coal by the end of 2011, China has now definitely passed the Peak Coal production point, the point when half of the original recoverable coal has been produced. There is 52 billion tons remaining, barely enough to last 15 years at current production rate!

现在来看看中国。中国陆地面积不到9百60万平方公里，是全球陆地面积的6%。如果中国得到比较公平的煤层形成，那么中国应该得到6%乘以9千1百亿吨的煤炭资源，就是546亿吨。如果中国在成煤地质条件上受上天惠顾一些，了不起不会超过9百亿吨可开采的煤炭。我们再在65%的开采率上挖些潜力，假设开采率可以做到80%，这已经超越技术极限，那么中国顶会多有1千1百亿吨原始可开采煤炭。到2011年底中国已经累计生产了580亿吨煤炭。也就是说中国几乎肯定过了煤炭峰值产量，就是原始可开采资的一半已被开采的时点。还剩下520亿吨，按现在生产量几乎不够15年的生产了！

I think my derivation is very reasonable. It starts with an undisputable number, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, and with reasonable estimates at each step and I arrived at a global coal reserve estimate which is in agreement with the BP estimate. Unless geologists can prove that China is extremely blessed with very efficient coal formation geology, which is simply impossible, we have to agree that that official number of one trillion tons of potential discoverable coal reserve, is nothing but a bogus number.

我认为我的推导很合理。推导是从一个无可争辩的数据出发，大气中的氧气总量，然后每一步都有合理的估算，最后得到的全球煤炭资源量和英国石油公司的估计数完全吻合。除非地质学家能证明中国得到上天极为特的殊惠顾，存在极端有效的成煤机制，而这是绝不可能的。我们必须同意，官方数据的一万亿吨所谓潜在可能被发现的煤炭储量，只不过是吹牛皮放卫星罢。

I advice the strategic decision makers in China to accept the conclusion that China's Peak Coal has arrived and that they must now immediately deal with the looming energy crisis in China.

我建议中国战略决策者接受中国煤炭峰值已到来的结论。他们必须刻不容缓处置中国已经在面对的能源危机！

The above is the satellite photo of the Biggest Hole in Asia. It's the now depleted Hai Zhou openpit coal mine. China now digs and consumes 14.5 such big holes worth of coal. How long can China keep digging?

上图是亚洲第一坑的卫星照片。已经被挖掘一空的露天海州煤矿。中国现在一年消耗14.5个这么大坑的煤炭。还能挖多久呢？

The above chart is China's annual coal production volume. To add the production from 2009-2011 I had to break the chart!

上图是中国历年煤炭产量图。为了把2009-2011年数据加上去了，我不得不破窗。

The above chart shows annual coal production of the world and of the top five coal producing nations. Where can China get extra coal supply it needs?

上图是全球以及世界最大五个产煤国的年产量图。中国到哪里可以得到急需的额外煤炭供应呢？

Read: China Energy Depletion - Net Importer of Oil & US Coal?

参读：中国能源枯竭-成为石油和美国煤炭的净进口国？