Energy 179 (2019) 1e11

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Life cycle energy efficiency evaluation for coal development and

utilization
Ning Wang a, Ruifang Shen b, Zongguo Wen c, *, Djavan De Clercq c
a
Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing Key Lab of Green Development Decision Based on Big Data, Beijing, 100192, China
b
School of Information, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, 100070, China
c
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (SKLESPC), School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The energy conversion efficiency of coal utilization is a focal point in modern energy management
Received 12 December 2018 practices and in academic literature. This paper explores life cycle energy efficiency of coal (LEEC), which
Received in revised form encompasses six distinct stages from the design of coal mines to the comprehensive reuse of resources.
31 March 2019
First, the study analyzes improvements to the evaluation of efficiencies in energy systems. Secondly, it
Accepted 18 April 2019
Available online 24 April 2019
proposes a multi-stage energy efficiency analysis and constructs an innovative LEEC model for coal
exploitation and utilization. Thirdly, the energy efficiency of coal exploitation and utilization was eval-
uated, and found that total efficiency in China increased from 33.11% in 2010 to 37.69% in 2014, saving
Keywords:
Energy efficiency
126 Mtce of energy. Finally, this study found that mine design is the most important stage in improving
Life cycle assessment energy efficiency, followed by the coal processing stage. Moreover, we found that coal processing has an
Coal resource indirect contribution to other stages in the life cycle utilization of coal, such as reducing transportation
Energy conservation capacity. The primary research contribution is the development of a comprehensive LEEC model for the
Sensitivity analysis entire life cycle of coal, rather than just single-stage evaluation. This lays the foundation for further
Carbon emission studies on energy efficiency of industrial chains and across entire systems.
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction 27.6%, the lowest level since 2004 [2].

Coal is crucial to global energy systems and a major source of
greenhouse gas emissions, especially in China where the ratio of
production and consumption of coal in the energy mix is much
higher than the global average. Improving energy efficiency in the
entire process of coal development and utilization is thus a higher
priority, and a necessary means to save energy and reduce carbon
emissions, yet there are certain deficiencies in the research of this
field.
1.1. Coal as an energy source globally and in China
World coal consumption reached 3732 million tons of oil
equivalent (Mtoe) in 2016 [1], falling by 1.7% over the previous year.
But in 2017, world coal consumption increased by 25 million tons of
oil equivalent (Mtoe), or 1%, the first instance of positive growth
since 2013. Despite this, the share of coal in primary energy fell to
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wenzg@tsinghua.edu.cn (Z. Wen).
China was the largest coal consumption country in the world
and consumed 1887.6 Mtoe in 2016, followed by India (411.9 Mtoe),
the United States (358.4 Mtoe) and Japan (119.9 Mtoe). These major
consumer countries have their own development characteristics of
coal. For instance, the demand for coal in India increased more than
6% per year before 2015, the effect of the variability in coal quality
and fuel mix is significantly higher than the other variables, and the
use of clean coal is suggested to stabilize the specific energy con-
sumption for the market of India [3]. In Japan, coal consumption has
rapidly increased since the late 1990s, and the Japanese govern-
ment is promoting R&D on clean coal technology to increase energy
efficiency and carbon capture capability, and decrease pollutants
emissions in the meantime [4]. Although Qi et al. [5] considered
that China has entered the era of post-coal growth and indicates
that peak coal consumption has already arrived in 2013, coal still
accounted for 70% of the total energy consumption profile in the
past 10 years. In addition, even after three years of successive
decline, China's coal consumption (0.5%, 4 Mtoe) increased in 2017
[2]. This is mainly due to the increase in coal consumption in the
secondary industry, especially for electricity and heat, which is

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2019.04.111
0360-5442/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11
Nomenclature
LEEC Life cycle energy efficiency from coal resource
development to utilization
ECP Energy conservation potential
LCA Life cycle assessment
CMM Coal mine methane
IEA International Energy Agency
WWF World Wide Fund for Nature
EPA Environmental Protection Agency (USA)
NEA National Energy Administration (China)
consistent with other research results that secondary industries
contribute the most in energy consumption intensity [6]. Therefore,
further efforts are required to reach the goal of a 62% of coal energy
ratio by 2020 in China's energy action plans [7].
1.2. Energy efficiency is way to reduce carbon emissions
Global aggregate carbon intensity barely improved since 1990
because of a geographical shift in energy production from devel-
oped to developing countries with higher carbon intensity [8].
Despite this, scenario modelling conducted by the International
Energy Agency (IEA) in 2014 [9] showed that energy-efficiency
measures could contribute to about 40% of carbon abatements
required by 2050. In order to reduce the increment of total energy
demand to one third by 2040, improving energy efficiency will be
crucial [10]. Under the U.S-China Joint Announcement on Climate
Change released in 2014, China plans to reach peak CO2 emissions
by 2030, or earlier if possible, but current policies are likely not to
be sufficient to achieve the 2030 targets. Since coal use is a sig-
nificant source of CO2 emissions and air pollution, China has come
under increasing international and domestic pressure to reach peak
emissions [11]. Raw coal is the largest primary source of carbon
emissions among the 17 fossil fuel types, with an average per-
centage of 58.2% [12]. Jiang's [13] study indicates that the reduction
in carbon emissions from coal use in China and emissions from oil
use in developed countries are mainly attributable to the change in
carbon intensity and improvement in energy efficiency. Especially
in China, the government has a two-pronged strategy for tackling
climate change - increasing energy efficiency in manufacturing and
controlling regional emissions [14].
As a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report [15] revealed,
the high proportion of coal consumption has become a bottleneck
for improving energy system efficiency. In this context, important
questions need to be answered to break through this bottleneck:
what is the current level of energy efficiency across the entire coal
life cycle? Across the life cycle, where is there potential for the
energy efficiency? What methodologies and technologies can be
used to identify the opportunities and achieve the target of 62% of
coal ratio?
1.3. Energy efficiency and life cycle energy efficiency
Energy efficiency is an important component of global energy
strategy, and associated methodologies/policies have been widely
researched. With regard to the energy life cycle system research
beyond coal utilization, some prior academic research [16e18] on
life cycle energy conservation has mainly focused on buildings
(houses, school buildings, and commercial buildings). Moreover,
other literature has focused on life cycle energy efficiency in elec-
tricity production technologies [19], biogas [20], municipal solid
waste [21], automotive [22], and the other industries. The life cycle
assessment (LCA) methods of these studies provide a reference for
coal evaluation, and most of them which used energy system effi-
ciency include resource exploitation efficiency, energy efficiency at
the intermediate stages, and energy efficiency of consumption [23].
Generally speaking, the coal industry value chain includes three
segments of coal production, transportation and coal utilization
[24]. As for research related to coal development and utilization, Hu
[15] systematically studied the energy efficiency of the coal system
in China, and divided the coal system into six steps such as coal
input, coal transportation, etc. and eventually computed China's
energy efficiency in coal systems to be 31.71% in 2012. Other studies
placed more focus on individual stages of the entire coal life cycle,
for instance, Zhu et al. [25] compared energy transmission routes
from the perspective of energy conversion efficiency. Xie et al. [26]
used a data envelopment analysis model and find that the effi-
ciency of coal is lower than that of oil and clean energy (but failed to
provide specific energy efficiency research data). Song et al. [27]
evaluated the energy efficiency of 34 coal-fired power units in
China.
The above analysis revealed the following three problems: (1)
Few studies have been conducted on entire coal life cycle efficiency
assessments that encompass the development design, exploitation,
transportation, and utilization. For instance, the energy conserva-
tion potential (ECP) in the increase of recovery rate and the recy-
cling usage of coal gangue has not been fully exploited. Although
the study by Hu [15] extends research scope to electricity end-use
such as motors and electric furnaces, it lacks the important com-
ponents of life cycle energy efficiency from coal resource devel-
opment to utilization (LEEC) such as coal mine design and reuse of
coal mine methane (CMM) or mining water. (2) Most prior research
has employed traditional thermodynamic analysis methods from
the perspective of energy equilibrium, and exploring the energy
efficiency of certain stage. However, there is no clear research on
energy distribution so far, between different vital stages [28] and its
impacts on entire system energy efficiency. For example, the lack of
analyzing coal mine design, coal washing, and coal exploitation
[29] resulted the gaps in energy efficiency research across the
entire coal industry. (3) No analysis has been conducted on the
interaction between these various stages. A clear analysis of the
impacts between each stage of the life cycle is essential because
there may be significant correlation between these stages in terms
of energy consumption.
Since coal is an important energy production and consumption
sector in many counties, it is thus vital to research energy efficiency
across the entire life cycle and identify the core stages where en-
ergy savings can be realized. Therefore, this paper designed the
LEEC model to calculate energy efficiency potential with the
objective of providing a systematical methodology for energy
conservation in the coal energy industry. Extending upon prior
research on energy system efficiency, this paper constructs an
innovative LEEC analysis model and fills in the gaps of energy
distribution between different stage. Based on the findings, in-
depth policy suggestions are provided regarding the energy man-
agement of the whole process of coal exploitation and utilization.
2. Methodology behind the LEEC model
2.1. The system boundary of the model
Considering energy input and output, the traditional energy
analysis models can be divided into three categories: the first is the
traditional thermodynamic energy efficiency method; the second is
the physics-thermodynamic method, where the energy input is
calculated in units of heat, and the output is measured in physical
 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11
units, such as the weight of the product; the third is an economic-
related method by monetizing inputs and/or outputs. Due to the
price fluctuations of coal and related products, and the complexity
of the whole process, we avoid economic and physical analyses and
choose the first method. As Section 1.3 indicates, traditional energy
analysis focuses on three stages: raw coal production, processing
and utilization (such as coal powered electricity, furnace burning,
and the coal chemicals industry). However, it neglects compre-
hensive energy efficiency across the whole system. On the other
hand, LEEC analysis is based on energy conservation across the
entire coal life cycle, and has extended the analyzed boundary to six
major stages (Fig. 1): coal mine design, coal production, coal pro-
cessing, transportation logistics, conversion utilization, and
resource reuse.
The LEEC model is used to evaluate the overall efficiency of
converting coal to energy or other end-use products. To charac-
terize the LEEC model, this section develops a function that in-
corporates the six aforementioned stages in the life cycle.
2.2. Model construction
2.2.1. Model construction
According to energy efficiency assessment methods adopted by
the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, systematic
energy efficiency is the product of energy extraction efficiency,
intermediate link efficiency and end-use energy efficiency [30], and
where LEEC is defined as the ratio of energy output to energy input.
The equation can be expressed as:
Y5
h¼ h  1 þ hR ¼ hD  hE  hP  hL  hU  1 þ hR (1)
i¼1 i
where h is the LEEC (%); hD , hE , hP , hL , hU and hR represent
(respectively) energy conversion efficiencies of coal mine design,
coal exploitation, coal processing, logistics/transportation, conver-
sion utilization, and resource reuse (%).
2.2.2. Influential factors and parameters
The main factors and parameters that influence the model are
listed in Table 1. Energy efficiency of stages are affected by factors,
and factors are calculated by parameters.
Fig. 1. System boundary of the LEEC model.
3
2.3. Energy efficiency of various stages across the life cycle
2.3.1. Coal mine design
Based on census results of the coal recovery rate by the China
Ministry of Land and Resources, the average recovery rate of China's
coal mines in 2004 was 64%. In addition, according to efficiency
statistics of 6372 mines, the recovery rate of the mining area was
83.29% in 2011 [31]. In 2014, the National Energy Administration
(NEA) released a policy document [32] proposing that by 2020, the
recovery rate of different mining areas will reach 70%e90%.
Calculated by logarithmic fitting, the average recovery rate of coal
mines in 2014 was about 74.26%, meaning that energy efficiency hD
was 74.26% (Table 2).
2.3.2. Coal exploitation
Energy consumption during coal exploitation is divided into two
parts: energy consumption of mining devices (mainly including
ventilation, drainage, lifting, and transport) and energy production
for assisting the process (including industrial electricity and boilers
for heating). The energy conversion efficiency of coal exploitation is
represented by Formula (2).
hE ¼ ðCP  CECÞ=CP  100% (2)
where CP is total raw coal production (tce), and CEC is the
comprehensive energy consumption of raw coal (tce). The energy
efficiency for the period 2010e2014 is shown in Table 3.
2.3.3. Coal processing
The main activity in coal processing is coal washing, which itself
has negative environmental impacts for gangue emissions. How-
ever, it has additional positive impacts in other stages, such as a
reduced weight during transport, which also needs to be
considered.
(1) Coal washing
The washing ratio of China's coal has increased rapidly. In 2015,
the quantity of coal being washed was more than 2.4 billion t, about
20% of which was gangue. Without washing, a great amount of
transport capacity is wasted, resulting in reduced LEEC. The energy
conversion efficiency of coal washing represented by:
4 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11

Table 1
Influential factors in the LEEC model.

Stage Factors Parameters

Mine design Percentage recovery
Coal exploitation Total energy consumption
(production)
Coal processing Raw coal washing and processing
Briquette, coal blending and coal
water slurry
Logistics and Railway, water way, highway
transportation
Conversion utilization Coal-fired power generation
Industrial boiler combustion
Coal chemical industry
Civil and business use
Resource reuse Gangue: power generation,
building materials
CMM
Mining water
Raw coal production, Mining area producing reserves, Recovery rate of the mining area
Raw coal production, Comprehensive energy consumption of raw coal production
Raw coal supply, Amount of washing gangue, Washing loss and energy consumption
Energy saving of processed coal power generation, reducing gangue transportation volume and improving energy
efficiency of boiler system
Total energy consumption of briquette, coal blending and coal water slurry
Improve combustion efficiency from Briquette, Coal Blending and Coal Water Slurry
Average distance and comprehensive energy consumption of transportation, Coal transport volume and
proportion
Coal-fired power generation, Total coal consumption, Coal consumption proportion, Service power
consumption rate
Energy conversion efficiency, Coal consumption proportion of industrial boilers
Coal consumption and energy loss of 12 kinds of products
Energy conversion efficiency, the proportion of coal consumption
Coal production, gangue production and utilization, gangue (includes tunneling gangue) used for power
generation and building materials
Energy conservation of gangue electricity and building materials
Utilization of CMM emission
Energy conservation of gas-based power generation
Utilization of mining water
Energy recuperation of mining water

Note: The parameters in italics refer to those especially useful for improving system energy efficiency.

Table 2 Table 4
Energy conversion efficiency of coal mine design. Energy conversion efficiency of coal washing and other coal processing techniques.

Factors/Parameters 2010 2012 2014 Factors/Parameters 2010 2012 2014

Coal output (100 Mt) 32.35 36.45 38.70 Coal production (100 Mt) 32.35 36.45 38.7
Producing reserves in mining areas (100 Mt) 45.86 50.63 52.11 *Coal Washing (100 Mt) 16.47 20.48 23.61
Conversion efficiency hD (%) 70.54 72.00 74.26 *Gangue (100 Mt) 2.96 3.69 4.25
*Washing consumption (Mtce) 2.95 3.3288 3.4621
Washing Energy loss (Mtce) 94.85 112.54 106.23
Energy conversion efficiency of washing hP1 91.69% 92.08% 93.49%

Improvement to power generation efficiency 17.41% 19.30% 19.11%

hP1 ¼ ðCW  ECLÞ=CW  100% (3) *Blending (100 Mt) 7.94 8.26 8.6
*Briquette (100 Mt) 0.2 0.22 0.24
where CW is the total amount of coal washing (tce) and ECL is *Water slurry (100 Mt) 0.25 0.3 0.34
Logistics Contribution to System efficiency 0.0723% 0.0738% 0.0725%
energy consumption and losses of coal washing (tce). As shown in
Table 4, the energy conversion efficiency of coal washing in 2014 Energy efficiency of coal processing hP 94.46% 94.43% 95.27%
was 93.49%. System contribution rate of coal processing hPc 11.14% 12.30% 12.57%

Note: The data with asterisk (*) are from the statistics of the China Coal Processing
(2) Other techniques and Utilization Association (CCPUA).

In addition to coal washing, other processing techniques include

coal blending, briquetting and coal water slurry:
hP2;3;4 ¼ ðTP  ECCPÞ=TP  100%
where TP is total processing quantity of raw coal (t) and ECCP is
energy consumption of coal processing (t).
Coal blending and briquetting is a very important technique in
realizing high efficiency and clean coal combustion. The heat effi-
ciency of industrial boilers based on briquettes can be enhanced by
10%e17%. In addition, dust emissions from combusting briquettes
can be reduced by 71%e89%, while SO2 and NOx can be reduced by
50%e60% [35]. The energy conversion efficiency of coal blending
and briquetting has changed relatively little over time. In 2014, the
level of coal blending and briquetting was 860 Mt and 24 Mt
respectively, with a corresponding energy consumption of 0.28
(4) Mtce and 0.0079 Mtce. In addition, the energy conversion effi-
ciencies for hP2 and hP3 are both 99.95%.
At present, the designed production capacity of China's coal
water slurry process has already surpassed 50 Mt/a. The energy
consumption of coal water slurry is about 40 kWh/t slurry. Heat
efficiency can be improved to more than 84% compared to the
traditional coal combustion process, where efficiency reaches 70%e
80% [36]. In 2014, the coal water slurry output was 34 Mt and the
total energy consumption of coal water slurry was 0.44 Mtce. Based

Table 3
Energy conversion efficiency of coal exploitation.

Factors/Parameters 2010 2012 2014

Raw coal production (100 Mtce) [33] 23.11 26.04 27.64

Comprehensive energy consumption of coal production (kgce/t) [29,34] 18.00 17.09 16.38
Energy consumption in production (Mtce) 58.21 62.27 63.37
Energy conversion efficiency hE (%) 97.48% 97.61% 97.71%
 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11
on Formula (4), the energy conversion efficiency in coal water
slurry was thus 98.18%.
(3) Energy conversion efficiency and system contribution of coal
processing
The energy conversion efficiency in coal processing is the
weighted average of the above mentioned four techniques, repre-
sented by the following formula:
X
4
hP ¼ hPi  ai
i¼1
where hPi is the energy conversion efficiency of conversion tech-
nique i and ai is the proportion of coal used in technique i (%).
The contribution of coal washing to the LEEC can be seen in
three areas: Firstly, washing gangue helps to save transport ca-
pacity. Secondly, washing gangue reduction also improves power
generation efficiency. For every 1% reduction in the ash content of
coal, its consumption in power generation reduces by 2e5 g/kWh
[37]. The third aspect is an improvement in boiler efficiency. By
using high quality washed coal, coal-fired power generation effi-
ciency can be increased by 1.47% [38]. Moreover, coal blending,
briquetting and coal water slurry can also help to improve energy
conversion efficiency by 5%e10%.
The energy efficiency contribution to the LEEC model from coal
processing is:
hPc ¼ ðECT þ ECCÞ=CCRP  100%
where ECT is energy conservation from transport capacity (t), ECC is
energy conservation from improving combustion efficiency (t);
CCRP is the total amount of coal consumed in coal processing (t). As
is shown in Table 4, the energy efficiency contribution to the LEEC
model (hPc ) of coal processing in 2014 is 12.57%.
2.3.4. Transportation logistics
From 1990 to 2014, the total carbon emissions of transportation
rose by 16% in the United States (EPA, 2016 [39]). Across the Or-
ganization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in
2012 the average transmission and distribution losses as a percent
of generation were 7%. this indicator is 6% in China. Approximately
10% of all greenhouse gas emissions in China derive from road
transport emissions [40]. China's unique coal transportation model
of “transporting northern and western coal to the southern and
eastern districts” is a result of the distribution of coal resources.
Coal transportation is a bottleneck in China's economic devel-
opment [41], as it mainly depends on railways, water transport and
highways (among which railway transportation is the most com-
mon method). In 2010, coal transported by railway reached 2 billion
tons, accounting for 61.5% [42] of total coal transportation. Coal
transported by water was 1.014 billion t, accounting for 31.18% of
the total. Coal transported by highway (mainly in Shanxi, Shaanxi
and Inner Mongolia) [43] was 238 Mt, accounting for 7.32% of the
total. The energy conversion efficiency in transportation logistics
can be represented by:
CV  1  PLR  LEC
hL ¼  100%
CV
where CV is calorific value of coal (tce), PLR is physical loss rate (%),
and LEC is logistics energy consumption (tce). The energy conser-
vation efficiency of transportation is the weighted average of the
three methods of transportation. The energy conversion efficiency
in transportation logistics is shown in Table 5.
5
2.3.5. Conversion utilization
In recent years, coal consumption of coal-based electricity, in-
dustrial boilers and the coal chemical industry accounted for more
than 90% of China's total coal consumption. Based on the weighted
calculations, the energy conversion efficiency of the conversion
utilization in 2014 was 54.81%.
(1) Coal based power generation
The energy conversion efficiency of the coal-based power gen-
eration process is represented by the following formula:
(5)
hU1 ¼ PG  ð1  APRÞ=CCP  100% (8)
where PG is Power generation of coal (tce), APR is auxiliary power
ratio (%), and CCP is coal Consumption for power (tce). As is shown
in Table 6, in 2014, the energy conversion efficiency of thermal
electric generation hU1 was 36.27%.
(2) Coal based industrial boilers
Research by Zhang [45] states that the average energy efficiency
of China's industrial boilers was about 60%e75%. This is 15%e20%
lower than that of foreign countries' advanced technology. In
research by Cen [46] and the other related literature, the average
energy efficiency of different combustion methods is between 65%
and 90%. This research estimates that in 2014, the average energy
conversion efficiency of industrial boilers hU2 was around 70%
(Table 7).
(6)
(3) Coal chemical industry
The energy conversion efficiency of the coal chemical industry
in 2010 [47] is shown in Table 8.
The energy efficiency in coal chemical processing is the
weighted average of the twelve main products, and the calculation
formula is:
X
12
hU3 ¼ hU3i  ai (9)
i¼1
where ai is the proportion of coal consumption that each coal
chemical product consumed (%) and hU3i is the energy efficiency of
coal chemical product i (%).
Via a weighted average calculation, the energy efficiency in the
coal chemical industry was computed to be 76.15% in 2010. Based
on this result, the energy efficiency in 2014 was 77.14%, as shown in
Table 9.
(4) Civil and business use
About 5% of coal consumption is used as fuel and heating for
civil and business use. The coal consumption in 2010 and 2014 was
135 Mt and 102 Mt respectively, and it was mainly used for boiler
burning [33]. This research calculated the energy efficiency of this
process in a similar way to the energy conversion efficiency (hU2 ) of
coal-based industrial boilers.
(7)
2.3.6. Resource reuse
There are three main ways for resource reuse.
(1) Gangue
Gangue can be classified as either tunneling gangue or washing
6 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11

Table 5
The energy conversion efficiency in transportation logistics.

Factors/Parameters 2010 2012 2014

Coal transport volume (100 Mtce) 23.22 25.45 26.39

Energy consumption in transportation (Mtce) 18.33 18.56 17.42
Unit energy consumption in transportation (kgce/tcoal) 5.64 5.21 4.715
Energy conversion efficiency hL (considerate physical loss) 98.61% 98.67% 98.74%

Table 6 Table 9
Energy conversion efficiency of coal based power generation and industrial boilers Comprehensive energy conversion efficiency in coal chemical industry.
[44].
Factors and Parameters 2010 2012 2014
Factors/Parameters 2010 2012 2014
Coal consumption in coal chemical (100 Mt) [47] 6.9 7.8 9.7
Coal Power generation (1015calaries) 2.77 3.19 3.53 Energy conversion efficiency hU3 (%) 76.15% 76.50% 77.14%
Coal consumption (1015calaries) 8.04 8.473 9.244
Plant electricity rate (%) 5.43% 5.10% 4.83%
Energy conversion efficiency hU1 (%) 32.53% 35.77% 36.27%
CMM and mining water in resource reuse is related to the coal
reserves of the mining area, thus the LEEC in resource reuse can be
Table 7
shown as:
Energy conversion efficiency of industrial boilers.
hR ¼ ECR=MRD  100% (10)
Factors/Parameters 2010 2012 2014

Coal consumption of industrial boilers (100 Mt) 6.6 7.2 7 where ECR is energy conservation of resource reuse (tce) and MRD
Energy conversion efficiency hU2 (%) 68% 69% 70% is coal mining-employed reserves in the district (tce). The
improvement ratio of the LEEC in resource reuse is shown in Fig. 2,
among which the improvement ratio in 2014 hR was 1.15%, twice
gangue. Washing gangue is produced from washed coal, which can that of 2010, revealing that the resource utilization developed
save transport capacity. For a supposed 2 billion tons of coal rapidly in the past years.
transported by railway an estimated distance of 600 km, 216 t km in
transport capacity can be saved by washing [48]. Furthermore,
3. Results and discussion
washing gangue can be used for low heat recovery in power gen-
eration and/or in brick making. For example, in making bricks: if
3.1. Life cycle energy efficiency
36 Mt of gangue is used, 1.2 Mtce [49] of energy can be saved.
Based on the energy efficiency of the six stages analyzed in
(2) Coal mine methane (CMM)
section 2, according to the evaluation model (Formula (1)), the LEEC
in 2014 reached 37.69% (Fig. 3), representing a 4.58% total increase
CMM is generally used for generating power for civil and in-
compared to 2010. Raw coal production was 3.87 billion tons in
dustrial applications. According to previous research by Wang
2014, and 126 Mtce of energy was conserved compared to 2010 due
(2015) [50], 9.176 m3 of CMM emissions are generated for one ton of
to the increase in LEEC. This indicates that energy efficiency in the
coal, and the energy conservation by using CMM in 2014 is about
coal industry has made significant gains during the 12th Five-year
0.5 Mtce.
Plan. Details for each stage are shown in Table 11 and corre-
sponding analysis is provided below.
(3) Mining water
(1) Resource reuse has the highest relative increase in efficiency,
Water heat pump technology for mining water can save energy,
exceeding 100%. This is mainly due to government market-
and users can get more than 4 kW of electricity when 1 kW is
based policy promotion for the launch of new projects. In
consumed by the heat pump [51]. At present, water heat pumps
particular, new tax policies published by State Administra-
have been used in many coal mines, and about 0.13 Mtce can be
tion of Taxation [52] led to great progress in the reuse of coal
saved every year.
gangue and CMM.
Detailed calculation data for reuse of gangue, CMM and mining
(2) The relative increase of conversion efficiency in the mine
water are shown in Table 10.
design and conversion utilization stages is relatively high;
over 4.6%. This illustrates that important advances have been
(4) Efficiency calculations
made. Regarding coal mine design, the Chinese state has
developed a series of recovery management systems such as

Table 8
Energy conversion efficiency of main products in coal chemical industry in 2010.

Products Coal use proportion Energy efficiency Products Coal use proportion Energy efficiency

Coke 73.90% 87% Natural gas 0.60% 54%

Semi coke 4.50% 82% Methanol 3.20% 46%
Flint 2.40% Dimethyl ether 1.30% 44%
Synthetic ammonia 11.50% 43% Olefin 0.50% 37.4%
Ethylene glycol 0.10% 26% Acetic acid 0.70% 44%
Indirect liquefaction 0.10% 41% Direct liquefaction 0.60% 49%
 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11 7

Table 10
Comprehensive reuse of gangue, CMM and mining water over the years.

Resources Factors/Parameters 2010 2012 2014

*Gangue Gangue reuse (100 Mt) 3.75 4.5 4.92

Power generation Power generation (billion kwh) 36.1 74.6 105
Energy conservation (Mtce) 11.73 24.25 34.13
Building materials Building materials (billion bricks) 12.99 12.50 11.58
Energy conservation (Mtce) 3.899 3.630 3.475
CMM methane reuse (billion m3) 2.194 3.374 3.822
Energy conservation (Mtce) 2.852 4.386 4.969
*Mining water Mining water reuse (100 Mt) 36 42 44.4
Energy conservation (Mtce) 0.030 0.130 0.137

Note: the heat of methane per cubic meter is equivalent to 1.3 kilo standard coal.
The data with asterisk (*) are from the Statistics of CCPUA.

Fig. 2. The improvement ratio of resource reuse to the LEEC.

the “Interim Provisions on the Management of Coal mine Re-

covery Rate”. As for the conversion utilization stage, policies
such as “Developing Large Units and Suppressing Small
Units” has improved the energy efficiency of coal-fired po-
wer generation and coal-fired boilers.
(3) The relative increase of coal exploitation and transportation
logistics is less than 0.3%, and future ECP in these two stages
will be limited, since the energy-saving technological
transformation of coal production was largely completed
during the 11th Five-year plan. Further improvements in
energy efficiency are limited. The relative increase in trans-
portation logistics is small because there is no fundamental
change in the transport mode and structure.
(4) The relative increase of coal processing is merely 0.86%,
Fig. 3. The LEEC with coal processing contribution. which shows very limited potential for savings from coal

Table 11
Life cycle Energy Efficiency of Coal (LEEC) based on six stages.

Analysis Results 2010 2012 2014 Total increase (%) Relative increase (%)

Coal mine design (hD ) 70.54% 72.00% 74.26% 3.72% 4.61%

Coal exploitation (hE ) 97.48% 97.61% 97.71% 0.23% 0.24%
Coal Processing (hP ) 94.46% 94.43% 95.27% 0.81% 0.86%
Transportation logistics (hL ) 98.61% 98.67% 98.74% 0.13% 0.13%
Conversion utilization (hU ) 51.38% 54.04% 54.81% 3.15% 6.13%
Resource reuse (hR ) 0.57% 0.90% 1.15% 0.58% 101.75%
LEEC (h) 33.11% 35.70% 37.69% 4.58% 13.75%
System contribution of coal processing 3.32% 3.91% 4.20% 0.88% e
8 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11
washing. However, coal processing is essential to improve-
ment of the system's energy efficiency. Coal gangue and coal
slime from washing are used in power generation for
comprehensive utilization. In addition, long-distance trans-
port of coal gangue can be avoided, saving energy con-
sumption during transport. Over the research period, the
total contribution amount of coal processing to overall sys-
tem efficiency is between 3.3% and 4.2%, and the energy
savings reached 116 Mtce in 2014. As policy efforts continue
to increase, future potential is expected to remain high.
(5) There are few other studies that consider the same bound-
aries as this study. Only the WWF report written by Hu
(2014) [15] is similar, which found that the total energy ef-
ficiency of the coal system in 2012 was 31.71%. In Hu's
research, the inclusion of an additional end-use for coal
while omitting the initial coal mine design stage had an
energy efficiency of 41.45% in 2012, which is higher than the
35.70% found in this research. The main reason is that pa-
rameters for calculating energy efficiency of coal processing
and the power station in Hu's research were higher than
those of this study. Hu estimated that the potential of the
power station and energy transmission had not been fully
tapped. Meanwhile, our study puts a greater emphasis on
exploring the potential savings from coal mine design,
resource reuse, etc.
3.2. Potential analysis and contribution rate
The ECP is defined as the contribution towards total energy
savings from each stage by 2020. As shown in Table 12, in order to
clarify the impact of relative increase on its corresponding energy
savings, this paper (1) calculated energy savings by increasing en-
ergy efficiency by 1% at each stage. (2) According to the annual
fitted data of energy efficiency trends combined with surveys of
industry experts, the expected energy efficiency improvement ratio
in 2020 was calculated. In this step, a fitting model was used for
indicators and stages with better annual data integrity from 2005 to
2014, such as for coal mine design, coal exploitation, coal pro-
cessing and transportation logistics; otherwise, for the stages
lacking data, such as for conversion utilization (coal chemical) and
resource reuse, we refer to governmental planning data and expert
surveys to bridge data gaps. (3) Energy savings in 2020 is calculated
as Energy savings from a 1% efficiency increase (Mtce)  Expected
efficiency improvement by 2020 (%). (4) Finally the ECP is
computed based on the energy savings contribution from each
stage by 2020.
The contribution of the six stages to the improvement of energy
conversion efficiency and the future ECP of each stage are analyzed
in Fig. 4. It was found that the increasing amount of energy effi-
ciency in each stage and the contribution to the overall system are
positively correlated. The circular area indicates ECP, the size of the
bubble represents the energy savings potential in 2020.
Table 12
Energy Conservation Potential (ECP) analysis in 2020.
Stages Energy savings from a 1% efficiency increase (Mtce)
Coal mine design 27.64
Coal exploitation 27.72
Coal processing 16.86
Transportation logistics 18.85
Conversion utilization 26.13
Resource reuse 27.23
(1) The contribution from mine design reaches 43.18%, which is
the highest, but the recovery rate at this stage is only 74.26%
at present. As safe and more efficient coal mining is vigor-
ously implemented during the 13th Five-year Plan, the re-
covery rate of high (extra-high), medium-high and thin coal
bed mining areas will surpass 70%, 85% and 90% respectively
[32]. This means there is still plenty of room for efficiency
improvements by 2020. Such improvements may continue to
make a significant contribution to the LEEC.
(2) The contribution from coal exploitation and transportation
logistics totals 4.13% by 2020. Energy saving retrofitting has
been almost completed in the past ten years, meaning that
future ECP is restricted by technological development to only
6.4%.
(3) The contribution from conversion utilization reaches 36.50%,
which illustrates that remarkable energy saving achieve-
ments were made in coal-fired power generation, industrial
boilers, and coal chemical industry during the study period.
However, as energy saving costs get higher and the marginal
utility diminishes, the ECP is expected to be greatly reduced.
(4) The contribution from resource reuse is 6.75%. Circular
economy principles in mining will be further developed in
the future. For instance, The NEA Action Plan stated that by
2020, the reuse rate of coal gangue should be no less than
80% [53]. Moreover, proven reserves of CMM will reach 1
trillion m3 [54]. Therefore, resource reuse will still have great
ECP with 15.3%.
(5) The contribution from coal processing to the LEEC is merely
9.44%. While this amount may seem low, it is in fact
considerable given the increase in coal combustion efficiency
and savings in coal gangue transportation capacity after
processing. As inferred in Table 11, the contribution of coal
processing to LEEC increased by 0.88%. This is because energy
efficiency from washing in 2014 was 24.6 Mtce more than
that in 2010. In accordance with NEA policy [53], the raw coal
washing rate will surpass 80% by 2020. It is predicted that the
ECP of the whole system will increase to 15.5% by 2020. This
demonstrates the important role of processing in promoting
efficiency of the whole industrial chain.
3.3. Systematic sensitivity analysis
There are uncertainties in the endogenous factors of the six
stages (Table 1). Therefore, sensitivity analysis is carried out on key
endogenous parameters for each stage of the LCA, such as the re-
covery rate of the mining area, comprehensive energy consumption
of raw coal production, amount of washing gangue, comprehensive
energy consumption of transportation, coal-fired power genera-
tion, coke production, and gangue used for power generation.
A large number of approaches are used for performing a sensi-
tivity analysis. One of the simplest and most common approaches is
that of changing one-factor-at-a-time (OAT), to see what effect this
process on the output [55]. The OAT is commonly used in LCA
Expected efficiency improvement by 2020 Energy savings by 2020 (Mtce) ECP
2.33% 64.41 48.2%
0.29% 8.04 6.0%
1.23% 20.74 15.5%
0.10% 1.89 1.4%
0.69% 18.03 13.5%
0.75% 20.42 15.3%
 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11 9

Fig. 4. The ECP and contribution rate to the efficiency improvement.

models, and adopted in this study by increasing or decreasing the
key parameters by 10%. The value of the rate of change represents
the sensitivity of the parameters [56]. The result (Fig. 5) shows that
the main impacted parameters are recovery rate of the mining area
(10.1021%e10.1248%), coal-fired power generation (4.5879%e
3.4074%), coke production (4.2426%e2.7911%), and washing coal
amount (0.3973%e0.3479%). This result is consistent with the
future energy savings potential analyzed in Fig. 4, and confirms the
analysis of the key stages in the previous section.
(2) Market-based measures. First, launch projects under the
3.4. Solutions to improve the LEEC
In order to achieve the goal of improving energy efficiency po-
tential, numerous policies should be adopted to further enhance
LEEC, with major points outlined below.
(1) Government policies. First, unified management across the
entire process of coal exploration and utilization should be
realized. Setting up regulatory authorities related to LEEC
and implementing unified management for each stage like
coal exploration, clean utilization, comprehensive resource
recovery etc. Moreover, a scientific and reasonable managing
mechanism can be formed to enhance the level of coopera-
tion across the whole process. Second, use counteraction
mechanisms for standard coal end-use to enhancing the
stages of coal processing and conversion utilization. This
involves establishing a third-party coal quality inspection
and certification system, and developing some related pol-
icies such as management methods for commercial coal's
quality identification. By means of coal identification, coal of
different ranks can be gradually provided to different clients.
Third, strengthen the preferential tax policies to develop
resource utilization. Encourage coal industries to improve
recovery rate, and preferential enterprise income tax or value
added tax policies should be implemented on the resources
that exceed the approved mining recovery rate.
energy efficiency “leaders” scheme, and energy use rights
trading. Energy efficiency “leaders” are the products or en-
terprises that have the highest energy efficiency, which
should be expanded to coal processing and coal chemical
industries as soon as possible. The energy use rights trading
is launching a pilot project in provinces such as Henan and
Fujian provinces, but it is progressing slowly and the actual
effect has not met expectations. On the basis of the above
pilots, China should learn from a market-based scheme from
India - Perform, Achieve, and Trade (PAT) - to achieve energy
efficiency improvements in various sectors [57]. Second,
launch a special energy efficiency fund for LEEC. A propor-
tionate amount (2e5 yuan per ton) of money shall be
deducted from the operating costs according to the raw coal
output, which is specially invested in enterprises' energy
conservation. The special energy efficiency fund is set up to
ensure a stable capital source for supporting energy

Fig. 5. Systematic sensitivity analysis of key parameters in six stages.

10 N. Wang et al. / Energy 179 (2019) 1e11
Fig. 6. The technology roadmap of improving the LEEC.
conservation equipment and skills. In addition, considering
the transformation of a coal-based economy will continue for
a long time, the government should invest more in clean coal
technology.
(3) Technical means. Some highly efficient technologies in coal
exploitation, coal processing, and coal chemical industries
have been used (Fig. 6). However, these advanced technolo-
gies are usually retained in a small number of state-owned
enterprises in well-developed regions. There are many op-
portunities to improve the LEEC by promoting more tech-
nologies from “leaders” to other enterprises, and focusing on
low energy-efficiency enterprises where more technically
and economically feasible technologies can be installed.
4. Conclusion
This study expanded upon the scope of traditional research and
improved the methodology of energy efficiency analysis across the
life cycle of coal by carrying out an in-depth LEEC evaluation,
analyzing future ECP and the contribution from each stage in the
industrial chain towards overall energy efficiency. Several impor-
tant findings were discovered in this research.
Firstly, this study expanded LEEC evaluation from a single stage
to six stages (comprising the whole process), and found that LEEC
in China reached 37.69% by 2014, a total increase of 4.58% compared
to 2010. Throughout the life cycle, mine design has the highest
potential for increasing energy efficiency, followed by coal pro-
cessing, conversion utilization and resource reuse. Therefore, more
effort should be made to boost these four stages (particularly coal
mine design) to further increase the energy efficiency across the
entire life cycle.
Secondly, the LEEC model provides an overall evaluation of
energy conservation from the perspective of systemic efficiency,
rather than merely focusing on localized optimization. Attention
should be directed towards strengthening efforts in coal washing
and processing in the future, which are important for improving
LEEC and reducing overall energy consumption of the system. In
addition to government policies, market-oriented energy efficiency
policies and mechanisms such as energy efficiency “leaders”, en-
ergy use rights trading and energy efficiency funding for LEEC
should be promoted.
Thirdly, policy research and technological improvements of
energy efficiency should be enhanced at key points in the future.
For instance, promote mine backfilling technology and coal un-
derground utilization technology for the coal mine design stage;
underground pre-processing technology, heavy medium and
moving sieve jig coal washing technology for the coal processing
stage; and the energy efficiency of conversion utilization and
resource reuse.
Finally, this study has certain limitations in the collection of data
for the coal chemical industry, due to the decentralization of project
sites and incomplete statistics. Data prior to 2010 is not available. In
spite of this, the rapid development of China's coal chemical in-
dustry consumes more and more raw coal, and its energy efficiency
should be a key direction of further research.
Acknowledgements
We thank the China Coal Processing and Utilization Association
for providing the LEEC data. This project is supported by the Na-
tional Key Research and Development Program of China
(2018YFF0215701, 2016YFB0601305), National Science Fund for
Distinguished Young Scholars of China (71825006), and Volvo
Group in a research project of the Research Center for Green
Economy and Sustainable Development, Tsinghua University. The
contents of this paper reflect the views of the authors and do not
necessarily indicate acceptance by the sponsors.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2019.04.111.
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