New idea of coal mining: scientific mining and sustainable mining capacity.

Aiming at the current status of coal mining problems in China, this paper put forward the concept and connotation of "scientific coal mining" and "sustainable capacity of coal mining". Scientific coal mining is to maximally obtain natural resources on the premise of the harmonized geology and ecological environment under the guidance of outlook of scientific development, and to achieve sustainable mining with safety, high efficiency, green, economy and social harmony on the premise that hazards posed by complicated geological conditions and engineering circumstances were controlled; sustainable capacity of coal mining refers to the maximal coal mining capacity using safe, high-efficient and environment-friendly method on the premise that the reserves for sustainable mining within certain period were guaranteed, mainly including three requirements; safe mining, green mining and high-efficient mining. Accordingly, innovatively proposed the assessment index system and standards of the sustainable capacity of coal mining which are comprised of mining safety level, green level and mechanization level and makes comparative analysis of the current sustainable capacities of coal mining of the five coal production areas in China, the whole China and the advanced coal mining countries in the world. The results show that the coal mining capacity in 2010 scores 42.58 on average, and the coal output which complies with the standards of the sustainable capacity of coal mining and scores over 70 is about 1.078 billion tons, accounting for only 33.27% of the overall coal output; while the sustainable capacities of coal mining of the advanced coal mining countries like the United States of America, Australia, Britain and Germany score over 90. There is still a big gap between the coal mining in China and that in the advanced coal mining countries in the world, so China should extensively disseminate the idea of scientific coal mining and sustainable capacity of coal mining, insist on scientific coal mining, and raise the scientific level of coal mining in an all-round manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]