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.

去年年底的時候，西方媒體有一個很嚴肅的報道話題：中國的煤炭峰值產(chǎn)量已經(jīng)到來了嗎？這個問題應該引起中國和其他國家戰(zhàn)略決策者們的嚴重關注。中國是全世界占壓倒性重要性的煤炭生產(chǎn)和消耗大國。根據(jù)英國石油公司(BP)估算，中國的查明煤炭儲藏量是1145億公噸，占全世界總量8609億噸的13.3%。在2010年10月8日，美國國家地理雜志發(fā)表了一篇文章報道說德克薩斯大學的塔德帕杰克領導的一個研究項目預言全球煤炭峰值產(chǎn)量將最早在2011年出現(xiàn)。

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.

考慮到中國煤炭蘊藏量數(shù)據(jù)從1992年以來沒有更新過，有些研究者認為中國現(xiàn)在實際存在的煤炭儲量只有9百億噸。中國歷史累計的煤炭生產(chǎn)總量也差不多達到9百億噸。如果那是正確的，中國已經(jīng)生產(chǎn)了原有煤炭資源的一半，因此差不多現(xiàn)在達到煤炭峰值產(chǎn)量了。中國煤炭生產(chǎn)近年在以每年遞增10%的速度迅猛增長。在2011年頭8個月達24.6億噸，就是36.9億噸年產(chǎn)量。按這樣速率，即使產(chǎn)量不再增長，剩余儲量也只有25年了！日漸惡劣的煤炭品質，以及設法維持產(chǎn)量的重重困難，都在發(fā)出警告信號，明確無誤的指示，中國已經(jīng)過了煤炭峰值。

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?

在此同時中國的高級官員們似乎一點都沒有受到警覺。根據(jù)他們過時了的評估，他們相信中國的煤炭至少還可以維持一百年。他們是否過于樂觀了？中國的潛在煤炭資源量，那些也許存在但是還沒有被發(fā)現(xiàn)的煤炭藏量，是否在放衛(wèi)星，被夸張的太厲害了？

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.

我創(chuàng)造了一個方法可以準確得到中國煤炭資源量上限的合理估計。我得到的數(shù)據(jù)相當悲觀，給中國已達到煤炭峰值的論點提供了支持。我的估算方法是受杰弗里·杜克斯教授一篇論文的啟發(fā)，那篇論文題目是燃燒埋藏的陽光。

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.

我們知道煤炭，石油，以至天然氣都是化石燃料。他們是從遠古的生物質轉換成燃料的。我們也知道地球是個獨特的有生命星球，大氣層里面有氧氣。自由態(tài)的氧不可能長久存在。大約只需要幾百萬年時間，大氣中的氧氣就可以和地殼物質發(fā)生氧化反應而消耗殆盡。只有存在生命形式，源源不斷吸收二氧化碳，排出氧氣，大氣里的自由態(tài)氧氣才能存在。每一個氧分子必然是從生物質里來源的。天文學家還提出了可以通過探測地外行星有沒有自由態(tài)的氧氣，來探測地外生命的存在。

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.

我們可以精確算出大氣層里面有多少氧氣。地面大氣壓強，乘上地球表面總面積，就是大氣層全部氣體的重量，大約有5x10^18公斤。大氣中氧氣的構成是約1/5，所以氧氣總量是1x10^18公斤。因為氧分子都來自二氧化碳分子，而二氧化碳里面12份碳對應32份氧。因此可以估計地球上有總量達375萬億噸的碳來自于生物質的積累。

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.

考慮到地球表面29.2%是陸地，其余70.8%是海洋。再考慮到海洋生物圈是個遠比陸地生物圈活躍的多，單位面積的海洋積累生物質的速率要四倍于陸地。因此我估算那375萬億噸的生物質來源的碳，其中不到10%是在陸地積累。這樣陸地上生物質來源碳有35萬億噸。

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.

源于陸地的35萬億噸生物質碳只有一半會在適宜生成煤炭的地理位置產(chǎn)生，這樣有可能生成煤炭的生物質碳僅剩17.5萬億噸。但是生成煤炭的地質過程是個非常浪費的過程。根據(jù)杰弗里·杜克斯教授的研究，原始生物質碳只有8%最終轉換成煤炭，其余都被細菌吃掉，或者以種種方式耗散在土壤里了。這意味著全球最初埋在地下的煤炭礦藏量不超過8%X17.5萬億噸，就是1.4萬億噸。如果我們假設地下煤炭的開采效率是65%，地球上原存在的最終可開采煤炭總量是9千1百億噸。自從人類文明起源，人類已經(jīng)累計開采了2千多億噸煤炭。地下還有剩下大約7千多億噸可開采。我的估算，是根據(jù)一個粗略的物理模型，但是和英國石油公司估算全球煤炭資源總量8610億噸非常接近。

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!

現(xiàn)在來看看中國。中國陸地面積不到9百60萬平方公里，是全球陸地面積的6%。如果中國得到比較公平的煤層形成，那么中國應該得到6%乘以9千1百億噸的煤炭資源，就是546億噸。如果中國在成煤地質條件上受上天惠顧一些，了不起不會超過9百億噸可開采的煤炭。我們再在65%的開采率上挖些潛力，假設開采率可以做到80%，這已經(jīng)超越技術極限，那么中國頂會多有1千1百億噸原始可開采煤炭。到2011年底中國已經(jīng)累計生產(chǎn)了580億噸煤炭。也就是說中國幾乎肯定過了煤炭峰值產(chǎn)量，就是原始可開采資的一半已被開采的時點。還剩下520億噸，按現(xiàn)在生產(chǎn)量幾乎不夠15年的生產(chǎn)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.

我認為我的推導很合理。推導是從一個無可爭辯的數(shù)據(jù)出發(fā)，大氣中的氧氣總量，然后每一步都有合理的估算，最后得到的全球煤炭資源量和英國石油公司的估計數(shù)完全吻合。除非地質學家能證明中國得到上天極為特的殊惠顧，存在極端有效的成煤機制，而這是絕不可能的。我們必須同意，官方數(shù)據(jù)的一萬億噸所謂潛在可能被發(fā)現(xiàn)的煤炭儲量，只不過是吹牛皮放衛(wèi)星罷。

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.

我建議中國戰(zhàn)略決策者接受中國煤炭峰值已到來的結論。他們必須刻不容緩處置中國已經(jīng)在面對的能源危機！

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?

上圖是亞洲第一坑的衛(wèi)星照片。已經(jīng)被挖掘一空的露天海州煤礦。中國現(xiàn)在一年消耗14.5個這么大坑的煤炭。還能挖多久呢？

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

上圖是中國歷年煤炭產(chǎn)量圖。為了把2009-2011年數(shù)據(jù)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?

上圖是全球以及世界最大五個產(chǎn)煤國的年產(chǎn)量圖。中國到哪里可以得到急需的額外煤炭供應呢？

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

參讀：中國能源枯竭-成為石油和美國煤炭的凈進口國？