Green mine construction status and existing problems and countermeasures



First, construction status

Mining engineering activities, including coal, have played a huge role in ensuring China's economic and social progress and improving people's living standards, especially in the past 40 years of reform and development, especially in the western region, more than 80% of the GDP of many provinces are contributed by mining engineering activities. However, due to many reasons, mining engineering activities have created great wealth for our country, but also caused serious problems of mine ecological environment. These problems mainly include five types: "three wastes" discharge, ground deformation, aquifer structure damage caused by mining induced water discharge (sudden), water supply, ecological and environmental protection contradictions, desertification and soil erosion; In addition, there are also problems in mining area construction planning and design, mining operation management, mining enterprise culture and credit system construction, mining area and mining area harmony. Therefore, in order to build an upgraded version of China's main energy coal industry, it is necessary to walk out of the green road of efficient development of mineral resources, including coal, and coordinated development of the ecological environment through green mine construction and green mining development.

The concrete evaluation index of green mine construction mainly includes six aspects: mining environment, resource development mode, comprehensive utilization of resources, energy saving and emission reduction, scientific and technological innovation and enterprise construction.

Up to now, after enterprise self-assessment, third-party assessment, provincial verification and recommendation, in addition to Beijing and Shanghai, a total of 1,254 mining enterprises in 29 provinces (municipalities and districts) have been selected into the national Green Mine List database, accounting for about 2.1% of the total number of mines in the country. The level of green mines in different regions varies greatly, with the highest proportion of green mines in Jiangsu Province (12.3%) and the lowest in Tianjin City (0.3%).

Among the 1254 green mining enterprises, there are 284 green coal mines. Shanxi, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Henan, Shandong and other provinces and cities, as important coal energy bases in China, have made an important example in the construction of national green mines.

In addition, on December 11, 2020, the Ministry of Natural Resources announced for the first time a list of 50 green mining development demonstration zones. It indicates that China has gradually moved from the point-like green mine construction to the face-like green mining development demonstration area.

In general, China's green mine construction and green mining development after more than ten years of efforts, from "pilot exploration" to "comprehensive promotion", from "single point mine" to "surface demonstration zone" has achieved remarkable results, its performance:

First, green mine construction, as a starting point for the construction of ecological civilization in the mining field, has been promoted as an important work by most provincial (autonomous regions and municipalities) people's governments, and its concept and method have been accepted by the majority of mining enterprises, basically forming a new pattern of green mine construction in the country;

Second, the green mine construction work system of national, provincial, city and county level joint creation, enterprise construction, third-party evaluation and social supervision has been initially established;

Third, under the premise that the overall level of mine construction in the country is not high, green mine construction has set up a number of models for the country and played a leading role in transforming the mining development mode, promoting the ecological environment of mining areas, scientific mining methods, efficient utilization of resources, standardized enterprise management and harmonious mining communities.

2. Existing problems

However, in the process of green mine construction practice, we also found some areas that need to be improved and perfected, the specific problems are as follows:

1, the enterprise has a deviation in the understanding of the connotation of green mine, and the motivation to create is insufficient

Limited to the industry's promotion and training of green mines is not in place, many people's understanding of green mines has a certain bias, mainly reflected in:

First, some localities and enterprises are only forced by the current ecological environmental protection pressure, do not recognize the deep-seated problems of resource exploitation;

Second, the green mine is considered as a "high input, high cost" mine, which indirectly leads to the promotion of green mine is limited;

Third, some localities and enterprises regard the title of green mine as a shield for ecological environmental protection supervision, paying more attention to "creation", thinking less about "construction", and lacking long-term planning.

2, the level of green mine construction needs to be improved

At present, 1,254 mines included in the national green mine list, accounting for only about 2.1% of the total number of mines in the country, and mainly large and medium-sized mines, but the proportion of small and below mines in China accounted for more than 80%, the green mine construction task is still difficult. Taking coal mines as an example, at present, the number of green coal mines created in China is relatively small, and the mines included in the national green mine list account for only 1.5%, and the proportion of green mines built needs to be improved.

3. Uneven regional development of green mine construction layout

The western region is an important development zone for the distribution of energy and mineral resources in China, but among the 661 national green mine pilots, the western region only accounts for less than 36%. Of the 57 coal enterprises' green mines, only about 25.5% are in the west.

Third, countermeasures and suggestions

1. Strengthen the systematic thinking of green mine construction

First, the construction of green mines should be coordinated by multiple departments in the horizontal management and organization.

Mine construction involves the planning scheme of 3 departments and 5 divisions:

(1) The Department of Mineral Rights Management of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the associations of various mineral species are responsible for the review of mine development and utilization plans;

(2) The Department of Territorial and Spatial Ecological Restoration of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the provincial departments of Natural Resources, responsible for the review of land reclamation and mine geological environment protection and management restoration programs;

(3) The Department of Geological Exploration Management of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the departments of Natural resources of each province, responsible for geological disaster investigation, exploration design, evaluation, management and supervision;

(4) The Environmental Impact Assessment Department of the Ministry of Ecological Environment and the ecological environment departments of each province are responsible for the review of the environmental impact assessment reports of mining area planning and projects;

(5) The Department of Soil and Water Conservation of the Ministry of Water Resources and the provincial departments are responsible for the review of soil and water conservation programs.

Second, the construction of green mines should further improve the joint creation mechanism at the national, provincial, city and county levels in the vertical aspect, and decompose and implement the policies, standards and mechanisms from top to bottom.

Third, the green mine construction and green mining development should take the river basin as the implementation unit and be guided by the systematic concept. Because a river basin not only involves all kinds of mining problems, but also agricultural surface pollution, industrial spot pollution, black and smelly water bodies in urban and rural areas, polluted river wetlands, etc., it is necessary to use the concept of large-scale system engineering, closely combined with the overall planning of local social and economic development, watershed territorial spatial planning, ecological environment planning and disaster prevention and reduction planning, and make full use of natural geographical conditions. According to local conditions, integrated management of "mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand" will be carried out in the region, and integrated planning and construction of "mineral-agriculture-urban complex" will be strengthened.

The fourth is to build a social supervision system composed of the government, enterprises, the public, associations and other parties, and improve the information disclosure mechanism of green mining enterprises.

2. Release policy potential, encourage mining enterprises to adhere to innovation-driven and increase investment in science and technology, and improve the endogenous power of enterprises to build green mines

First, for the mining enterprises that have been included in the national green mine list, it is proposed to give necessary supporting incentive policies to give priority to meeting their related mining land, resource allocation, capacity conversion, capacity release, financial support, tax incentives, listing financing, issuing green mine bonds, realizing the value of green mine ecological products, carbon peak carbon neutrality and other needs.

The second is to use the economic benefit evaluation method and model of green mine construction, according to the economic benefit calculation results of the new technology adopted in green mine construction, quantitative evaluation of the economic effect and ecological environmental benefit obtained by green mine construction, and encourage mining enterprises to take the initiative to build green mines.

3. Improve the legal system and normative system of green mine construction, improve the dynamic management mechanism of green mine list, and build a third-party evaluation and supervision mechanism

First, we will give play to the binding role of laws and the guiding role of standards and norms. The green mine construction requirements rise to the legal level. In the revised Mineral Resources Law and implementation regulations, the requirements and standards for green mine construction are clearly set forth, and the provisions on liability recovery, economic punishment and subsequent compensation are clearly defined, providing a legal basis for the planning and design of green mines and the formulation and implementation of relevant technical standards.

The second is to improve the normative system of green mine construction, revise and improve the relevant standards, norms, guidelines, guidelines and other contents in a timely manner, and promote the formulation of national standards for green mine construction.

Third, improve the dynamic management of the national green mine list. Establish a dynamic update mechanism for the list, strengthen periodic spot checks in mines, and remove mining enterprises that do not meet the standards from the list in a timely manner.

Fourth, establish a third-party evaluation and supervision mechanism for green mine construction. Strengthen the supervision of third-party evaluation agencies for green mine construction, establish and improve the responsibility system of third-party evaluation agencies, increase the punishment and punishment of third-party violations, and ensure the fairness and openness of selection, evaluation and list management. Explore the adoption of "green certification" into the CNCA voluntary certification field directory, and promote the standardization and standardization of third-party assessment.

4. Encourage "development-type" construction of green mines

The mining environment positive effect resources such as "three wastes" resources, underground space resources, mine surface site resources, residual resources and other resources have been developed and utilized, and efforts have been made to turn waste into treasure and harm into benefit, and the income after the positive effect development and utilization of the mine environment with resource attributes has been used to supplement green mine construction and reduce the re-investment in green mine construction.

5. Accelerate the establishment of ecological restoration funds for abandoned mines left over from history and do a good job in market operation

There are large historical abandoned mines in the country, and the government is responsible for ecological restoration. The treatment of abandoned mines left over from history is an urgent task and a large investment. Depending on the difficulty of treatment, the treatment cost is about 200,000-300,000 yuan/hectare. At present, there is a serious shortage of investment in mine ecological restoration, and the annual special transfer payment from the central government is about 2 billion yuan for the treatment of historical abandoned mines, and local governments generally rarely set up special funds. To achieve the goal of building a beautiful China, we must establish a stable investment mechanism that can meet the needs. Therefore, it is suggested that in the provinces with large coal resources development, such as Shanxi, Shaanxi, Mongolia, Henan and Lu provinces with large coal mining volume in the Yellow River basin, the ecological restoration fund of historical abandoned mines should be established at the provincial level, and the fund should be calculated from the sales income of mineral products of enterprises according to a certain proportion for the ecological restoration of abandoned mines in the whole province. At the same time, with the guidance of the fund, through healthy market operation, who repairs, who benefits, attract social capital investment, and solve the "bottleneck" problem of capital investment.