Cracking down on this should be a priority for any nation – but it’s particularly important in China, given its hunger to pay foreign countries for the same gas its own coal mines are throwing away.
Chinese companies have been on a shopping spree in the global gas market lately. China National Petroleum in June signed a 27-year liquefied natural gas deal with Qatar.
LNG imports could double over the coming decade to about 188 billion cubic meters, according to consultants Rystad Energy. Pipelines totaling 85 billion cubic meters from Russia and Turkmenistan could add close to the same amount again.
The country is so desperate for more molecules that it’s started drilling a 10,000m gas well in Sichuan province, one of the deepest ever.
CLEANING UP COAL MINE METHANE
Why has it been so hard to clean up China’s coal mine methane? The technology to do so is fairly straightforward, and widespread in other coal-mining regions such as the US and Australia: Drilling into coal seams to release their gas, and if necessary fracturing the rock to drive more of it out.
Regulations introduced by Beijing during the 2000s even provide incentives and penalties to encourage mine owners to drain their pits before work begins. There’s little firm evidence of success, though. Satellite monitoring indicates that waste gas has, if anything, accelerated.
A separate study that found some positive effects still saw them falling short of government targets. Abandoned pits can also release methane long after mining ceases.
At root, the problem is the same one that plagues the country’s entire coal industry: Government fears about power cuts, combined with an electricity market set-up that makes poor use of renewables and the declining quality of local coal, are twisting the sector out of shape.
Hitting tonnage targets is all that counts. If doing so means skimping on gas recovery and putting workers at risk, it’s seen as a necessary price to pay.
That’s a dangerous mistake. China is compounding the problems of an industry that mines half the world’s coal by failing to deal with its noxious waste products. The sooner it regulates, reins in and shrinks its solid fuel mines, the better for both the planet, and its own pit workers.