Title: Forecasting of future coal demand and transportation in China.
Abstract: More than seventy percent of China's primary energy supply depends upon coal, and no radical change is expected to take place in this basic structure during the early part of the next century. An energy supply structure that is so heavily dependent upon coal poses fundamental difficulty to the regionally balanced economic development in China. Main coal mines in China are distributed in the North-West region far from the coastal areas where economic development is rapid and the energy demand is increasing. Seventy percent of coal transport relies on railway, and 40 percent of freight transport by railway is devoted to the coal transport, which places heavier burdens on China's freight and passenger transport system. In this study, a prediction is made of future coal demand in each province of China up until 2010, and an estimate is made for the inter-provincial transport demand of coal. In 2010, the total coal demand in China will be 1.01 Ecal, i.e., 166 % of that in 1994, creating three times the demand in the coal transport by railway. Coal transport demand from Shang-xi Province to He-bei Province, for example, will increase from 0.6 million tons in 1994 to 1.7 million tons in 2010. The estimated transport demand of coal will far exceed the target figures presented in the long-term development plans, suggesting the need for greater investment in railway and other transport systems.