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Abstract
Energy security has become a worldwide issue in recent years. Coal resources security (CRS), an important part of energy security, has been an emerging concern in many countries, due to the diminishing fossil energy reserve and unbalanced energy structure. However, there is no universally agreed method of constructing indicator system for CRS assessment. Subjectivity in the process of evaluation also affects the results of assessment. Moreover, CRS is a complex system that should be evaluated scientifically under diverse methods. Therefore, we constructed an indicator system and evaluation model of CRS and used a case study of China and 31 provinces in its mainland to evaluate CRS at both national and provincial levels. The indicator system included two subsystems—long-term CRS and short-term CRS. We also chose a few elements and factors that are consistent with China’s reality. Different research methods were used: the entropy-weight-based TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) method is applied to evaluate the degree of CRS, which avoids the subjectivity of weight determination and reflects the relative merit of each indicator; the BP (Back-Propagation) Neural Network method is used to analyze the sensitivity of CRS to each index. The results show that the national level of CRS dropped in the early years but slowly picked up with the help of government intervention. Investment in coal industry development resulted in the immediate effect of improving CRS. The positive impact of maintaining environmental sustainability is stable over either the short, medium, or long term. The degrees of CRS vary significantly across provinces, even between those with similar coal stock levels. Extra attention should be paid to the transportation of coal resources among provinces and intervention to balance supply and demand within the regions.
Highlights
Energy security is crucial to the sustainable development of all countries and always rises high on the policy agenda of governments, considering its linkages with economic growth, trade openness, and the ecological environment [1]
In this article, we will carry out an evaluation of coal resources security (CRS) in China
The amount of outward deployment of coal (M10) refers to the ratio of the total amount that can be allocated to other provinces. These two indicators are consistent with the capacity of coal resources within the province, so they have a positive impact on the CRS
Summary
Energy security is crucial to the sustainable development of all countries and always rises high on the policy agenda of governments, considering its linkages with economic growth, trade openness, and the ecological environment [1]. China is closely connected to the international market, which means it is vulnerable to international terrorism and global geopolitical risks [10] In such a complex context, many scholars have come to understand the CRS from different perspectives and have obtained different results. The definition of CRS is slippery, and it can hold multiple dimensions and present different specificities depending on the district, timeframe, or energy type This uncertainty makes it difficult to identify consistent research methods for analysis, prediction, and policy making [17].
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