Carbon sources/sinks and emission reduction and sink enhancement in green mining

Abstract

In response to the long-standing environmental problems caused by mining, some green mining concepts and policies have been gradually developed. Nowadays, under the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, green mining is facing some new requirements such as low carbon production and ecological mining. It is necessary to explore the critical directions and key issues of green mining in the new era under the goal of energy saving and emission reduction, and to help the synergistic development of carbon neutrality and green mining. Taking green mining, carbon sources/sinks, emission reduction and sink enhancement as key focuses, through literature review and inductive analysis, the connotation and requirements of green mining under the “dual carbon” goal were summarized, and the research progress on carbon sources/sinks and emission reduction and sink enhancement under the background of green mining was analyzed, the research techniques related to carbon source and carbon sink accounting in mining areas were reviewed, and the strategies for the reduction of emission and increase of sink in green mining were explored. Green mining research has achieved abundant theoretical and practical results, and has a good foundation to face new development challenges. The existing management programs and assessment systems of green mining is complete, while the overall system is qualitative with basic recommended requirements. The method of accounting for the carbon footprint of mines based on the life cycle concept and the IPCC method is relatively mature, but some cautions are still needed in the process of life cycle division and accounting factor selection. Green mining should focus on energy and technology aspects to achieve the goal of emission reduction and sink enhancement. Under the background of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”, the attention of green mining related acceptance standards in energy saving and emission reduction needs to be enhanced, and the degree of quantification and enforceability of the index systems needs to be improved. The coal industry is crucial to both the carbon neutrality target and the green mining development, and needs to strengthen the carbon footprint accounting and emission reduction potential analysis of coal mines. In the study of mine emission reduction, more attention needs to be paid to the analysis of carbon source and carbon sink accounting generated by the reclamation and the scheme design for emission reduction in the whole life cycle of the mine.

Keywords

• carbon peaking and carbon neutrality
• green mining
• carbon footprint
• carbon source
• carbon sink