Chinese state media say a coal mine explosion in a northern region has trapped 36 people, killing 17 of them.

The official Xinhua News Agency says 17 people have been confirmed dead after Saturday's explosion at a coal mine run by the Baoma Mining Co. Ltd. in Inner Mongolia.

Another state news agency, the China News Service, says 100 of the workers managed to escape when the midday blast occurred, but that around 36 others are believed to be trapped at the mine in the city of Chifeng.

Reports say the local government has launched search and rescue operations.

China's mining industry has long been among the world's deadliest.</s>What began as a quiet request for a technical adjustment to a coal mining permit has prompted a deluge of questions about what could become Colorado’s first coal gasification plant.

Bowie Resource Partners last month submitted a proposal to Colorado mining regulators to develop a plant that would process coal waste using heat, pressure and chemicals to create a synthetic gas that could be used to generate electricity or diesel fuel. The plan involves using a new technology — offered by a Bahamian company — that would process up to 72 tons of coal waste a day at the mining company’s Bowie #2 Mine near Paonia, which it idled this year as the coal industry weathers a nationwide collapse.

Last week the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety mailed a dozen letters to stakeholders — local, state and federal officials as well as Western Slope conservation groups — informing them of Bowie Resource’s complete application for a gasification facility.

The Kentucky-based Bowie Resource Partners — with one coal mine in Colorado and three in Utah — is fielding public comments on the proposal, per state requirements for permit revisions. But the company’s representatives in Paonia and Kentucky declined to comment on the plan for a gasification facility.

“We don’t know what’s going on and we have a lot of questions,” said Natasha Leger, interim executive director for the Paonia-based Citizens for a Healthy Community, which advocates for additional environmental protections from oil and gas development in southwest Colorado. “It seems like they are trying to do something under the radar with an unprecedented type of plant and we want answers. This was submitted as a technical revision of a coal mining operation but it sounds like something significantly bigger that the public has a right to weigh in on.”

The application calls for developing a modular “DAXIOM” facility, using technology owned by a El Camino Duro Investments in the Bahamas. The Bowie application calls it a “state-of-the-art gasification process operated in a closed, oxygen-deprived environment … generating virtually no pollution.” Bowie said it would build the facility at the site of its existing coal stockpile at the Bowie #2 Mine. The process would involve incinerating dried, crushed coal waste using machines capable of processing 72 tons a day and operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without interruption. The system would create, according to the application, “next generation, high-performance, ultra-clean alternative transport fuels” like low-sulphur diesel, and would generate a “solid, powder-like” residue waste that could be processed into pellets for use in cement.

The facility would be the first in Colorado and would join only two large-scale Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plants converting coal into synthetic fuels in the U.S.: one in Indiana and one in Mississippi. Coal gasification plants are all over China, though. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy says coal gasification “offers one of the most versatile and clean ways to convert coal into electricity” and predicts the process “will be at the heart of future generations of clean coal technology plants.” The office predicts that small-scale, modular approaches to developing gasification plants — like the one Bowie is proposing, where the company envisions five modular structures — helps reduce the capital cost that has made gasification plants less feasible in recent years.

Still, it’s a first for Colorado regulators.

“We only very recently received this proposal, and we’re still sorting out our role, and potentially that of other relevant agencies,” said Todd Hartman, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. “We’ve not really had an application like this before and still trying to figure out how it fits into our, or others’, review process.”

Delta County officials are still waiting for correspondence from Bowie Resource about the new plan for its coal mine, said county administrator Robbie LeValley.

Fewer locales have borne the brunt of coal’s collapse in Colorado more than Delta County, where an estimated 1,000 jobs have evaporated in the last three years as the coal industry withers. The latest blow came this year when Bowie Resource idled its Bowie #2 Mine, eliminating more than 100 jobs. The shutdown followed Oxbow Mining’s closure of the county’s Elk Creek Mine near Somerset in 2013.

“We have definitely taken an economic hit,” LeValley said. “That’s why we are interested in what Bowie is thinking and we are willing to sit down with them on the restructuring or format or how this might work out.”

LeValley is curious how many workers a gasification plant would employ. Will it employ only a few workers, like Aspen Skiing Co.’s $5.4 million methane capture facility atop the Elk Creek Mine, which generates $150,000 worth of electrical power every month? Or will it need dozens of workers like the coal mine operation?

The more jobs, the better, DeValley said. Delta County has spent the last three years laboring to develop a more diverse economy that relies less on coal. Broadband internet expansion and economic incentive packages and grants are attracting small businesses and manufacturers. But the county still wants mining to “balance with other industries in the county” LeValley said.

The application submitted by Bowie Resource’s contracted consultants at Grand Junction’s J.E. Stover & Associates, said the plant would be capable of processing more than just coal waste, including organic materials, household waste, wood, tires, biomass and hospital waste.

Could the Bowie plant become a processor for all kinds of waste, wonders Ted Zukoski, an attorney with Earthjustice, which provides legal representation to conservation groups.

“Colorado mining regulators should not speed ahead with permitting for this major industrial facility when the public has so little information about the gasification plant or its potential impacts to human health and the environment,” Zukoski said. “There are a ton of questions out there that need answers first.”

Last week, Bowie Resource representatives asked the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety to push back a decision on the gasification proposal to the end of December.

Jeremy Nichols, the climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians, which in 2015 successfully sued the federal government for not addressing climate change impacts when approving coal mine expansions in northwest Colorado, wants a longer delay. He has a litany of questions.

Among his questions: Is the gasification plant’s waste toxic? Is the process toxic? Will the facility process synthetic oil on site? Will that mean there will be oil trains running through the North Fork Valley? Will there be any more coal mining at Bowie #2?

“It’s a stretch to call this clean energy,” Nichols said. “This isn’t a coal mine anymore. This is basically turning it into a refinery. A refinery is a very intensive, complicated, risky endeavor and at the end of the day it’s a very dirty operation. To us, this is another sign that the coal industry is grasping to stay alive and find its future.”</s>Deadly coal-mining accidents are common in China, though the number of deaths has fallen substantially in the past decade, to fewer than 1,000 a year (AFP Photo/)

At least 59 people have been killed in two separate Chinese coal mine blasts, according to death tolls reported by state media.

An explosion Saturday at a colliery in the northern Inner Mongolia region killed 32, Xinhua news agency said.

A total of 181 people were working underground when the gas explosion struck the mine in the city of Chifeng, with 149 managing to escape.

In a separate incident, a blast occurred late Tuesday at a private mine in Qitaihe City, in northeast Heilongjiang province, trapping 22 workers, Xinhua said.

Twenty-one were confirmed dead Friday night, it said, citing provincial authorities.

Rescue efforts were hampered by debris from the blast in some of the tunnels, according to an earlier report.

China is the world's largest coal producer and deadly accidents are common.

A further 33 miners were killed in a colliery explosion on October 31 in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, and in September at least 18 were killed in a mine blast in the northwestern Ningxia region.

Officials say the number dying annually in the country's mines has fallen substantially in the past decade, to fewer than 1,000 a year.

But some rights groups argue the actual figures are significantly higher due to under-reporting in a sector with poor oversight.</s>China is the world's largest coal producer and deadly accidents are common. (Photo: AFP/ Representational Image)

Beijing: At least 59 people have been killed in two separate Chinese coal mine blasts, according to death tolls reported by state media.

An explosion on Saturday at a colliery in the northern Inner Mongolia region killed 32, Xinhua news agency said.

A total of 181 people were working underground when the gas explosion struck the mine in the city of Chifeng, with 149 managing to escape.

In a separate incident, a blast occurred late Tuesday at a private mine in Qitaihe City, in northeast Heilongjiang province, trapping 22 workers, Xinhua said.

Twenty-one were confirmed dead on Friday night, it said, citing provincial authorities.

Rescue efforts were hampered by debris from the blast in some of the tunnels, according to an earlier report.

China is the world's largest coal producer and deadly accidents are common.

A further 33 miners were killed in a colliery explosion on October 31 in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, and in September at least 18 were killed in a mine blast in the northwestern Ningxia region.

Officials say the number dying annually in the country's mines has fallen substantially in the past decade, to fewer than 1,000 a year.

But some rights groups argue the actual figures are significantly higher due to under-reporting in a sector with poor oversight.</s>A lack of stockpiles and worries about electricity blackouts are spurring Chinese officials to reverse curbs that once helped reduce coal production. Mines are reopening. Miners are being lured back with larger paychecks.

JINCHENG, China — America’s uncertain stance toward global warming under the coming administration of Donald Trump has given China a leading role in the fight against climate change. It has called on the United States to recognize established science and to work with other countries to reduce dependence on dirty fuels like coal and oil.

But there is a problem: Even as it does so, China is scrambling to mine and burn more coal.

A lack of stockpiles and worries about electricity blackouts are spurring Chinese officials to reverse curbs that once helped reduce coal production. Mines are reopening. Miners are being lured back with larger paychecks.

China’s response to coal scarcity shows how hard it will be to wean the country off coal. That makes it harder for China and the world to meet emissions targets, as Chinese coal is the world’s largest single source of carbon emissions from human activities.

Here in Jincheng, a smoggy city in China’s coal country, the about-face has led to a steady hum of activity.

On a recent afternoon, other trains stopped to make way for two electric locomotives, their horns blowing, pulling more than 50 empty coal hopper cars ready to be filled. Large coal-carrying trucks now form half-mile lines.

Allan Zhang, an electrician who works at a mine here, said his employer had raised monthly pay by nearly 50 percent since the summer.

Two years ago brought “the autumn of coal, and 2015 and earlier this year were the winter of coal,” Zhang said. “Now is the springtime of coal.”

The revival of coal production shows the flaws in the country’s half-finished evolution from central planning to the free market.

China’s coal problems stem from a series of official decisions that ramped up activity from energy-intensive industries even as they curbed mining output. Speculators in China’s volatile financial markets, already prone to producing bubbles, ran up the price of coal. Weather and other setbacks haven’t helped.

Coal still produces almost three-quarters of China’s electricity, despite ambitious hydroelectric-dam projects and the world’s largest program to install solar panels and build wind turbines. Coal use in China also produces more emissions than all the oil, coal and gas consumed in the United States.

“I get a kick out of people in the West who think China is decarbonizing, because I see no sign of it whatsoever,” said Brock Silvers, a Shanghai banker who has previously served on the boards of two Chinese coal companies.

Troubled by pollution and worries about rising sea levels, China moved in recent months to rein in coal.

Coal production dropped 3 percent last year — a result of that effort, but also a sign of slowing economic growth as well as a gradual shift in the Chinese economy toward American-style consumer spending and away from exports and heavy manufacturing.

That prompted the International Energy Agency to offer an optimistic reassessment this autumn: Chinese coal use peaked in 2013 and would now decline.

China’s reversal now is prompting skepticism. “There is still a peak coming,” said Xizhou Zhou, the head of Asia and Pacific gas and power analysis at IHS Energy, a global consulting group. “It’s still going to increase.”

IHS Energy forecasts that Chinese coal demand will not peak until 2026.

Johannes Trueby, a senior coal and power analyst at the International Energy Agency, said that long-term trends in the Chinese economy meant that China’s coal use would decline overall. But with China stepping up production now, he said, “We cannot exclude the possibility of a transient spike in coal demand in the next couple years that might take demand above 2013.”

The coal situation has put China’s powerful economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, under pressure.

Many executives and Chinese political experts predict that coal problems could be the final straw in a long list of difficulties that could lead President Xi Jinping to replace the agency’s director, Xu Shaoshi. Xu is 65, an age at which Chinese ministers often retire, unless they are kept on to serve their terms or are promoted to vice premier.

As a matter of policy, China says it is still committed to global efforts to stem climate change.

When environmental officials from around the world gathered in Marrakech, Morocco, to discuss climate change last month, Xie Zhenhua, the leader of China’s delegation, took an indirect swipe at Trump, saying, “a wise leader will follow the global and historical trend.”

Two years ago, cutting emissions looked easier for Beijing to achieve. China’s electricity consumption was stalling, and many coal-fired power plants began operating only half the time. But state-owned coal mining enterprises, flush with loans from state-owned banks, kept building more mines, leading to losses and dropping coal prices.

China began closing smaller, privately owned mines, cutting production while clamping down on some of the places that have made Chinese coal mining so dangerous. Just last summer, economic planners told mines they were not allowed to operate more than 276 days a year.

But developments were coming together to push prices up. Chinese investors piled into Chinese commodities markets, betting prices would rise. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as more speculators rushed in and bought more coal when prices rose.

An unusually hot summer and early autumn added to power demand. China’s banking regulators decided to let banks release a flood of mortgages to homebuyers to bolster economic growth. That produced strong demand for electricity from the steel and cement industries.

Along the way, China had a run of bad luck. Flooding disrupted mines and rail routes last spring. A government decision to withdraw many trains from service this year for a new safety improvement campaign made it difficult to deliver supplies quickly. As a result, Chinese coal prices almost doubled from the start of this year until early November.

“It’s actually quite fascinating, how all of these things have come together,” said Arnoud Balhuizen, the president of marketing and supply at BHP Billiton, the Australian mining giant.

In recent weeks, China changed course. It halted most coal trading on commodities markets and encouraged state-owned mines to sign long-term contracts at low prices with power stations. This month, the National Development and Reform Commission raised the number of days that mines could operate to 330 days per year.

China will most likely be able to avoid blackouts, said Chang Yijun, the president of Shanxi Fenwei Energy, a regional coal consulting firm, who added that remaining output caps like the 330-day rule would still limit growth in emissions of greenhouse gases.

Residents in mining towns are delighted. An avenue here in Jincheng is lined with huge billboards, each carrying the same cheery message: “Coal prices are going up, and miners are smiling.”

Zhang, the mine electrician, said that his mine’s workforce had shrunk from 300 two years ago to a maintenance crew of eight early this year, but that it had now expanded to 60 and the mine was still hiring.

The mine’s stockpile of coal has nearly vanished. As more coal is hauled up from far underground, it is trucked away within two hours. “Last spring, there were no lines of trucks,” he said. “Now there are so many.”</s>BEIJING (AP) — A coal mine explosion in a northern Chinese region killed 17 people Saturday and left 10 others trapped, state media and officials said.

Four miners were rescued after the blast, which occurred when 31 people were working underground, said the Chifeng city government in China’s Inner Mongolia region.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported that 17 miners were killed in the blast. Rescuers were searching for the 10 remaining miners trapped by the explosion at a coal mine run by the Baoma Mining Co. Ltd., Xinhua said.

News of the blast came just hours after 21 Chinese miners who were trapped for four days after an explosion hit their unlicensed coal mine were confirmed dead in northeast China’s Heilongjiang province. Four people were arrested in connection with that disaster.

China’s mining industry has long been among the world’s deadliest, and top work safety regulators have acknowledged that some mines cut corners on safety standards due to financial pressure.</s>Rescuers work near the site of a coal mine disaster in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang province, China, November 30, 2016. China Daily/via REUTERS

BEIJING (Reuters) - The death toll from a northern Chinese coal mine disaster rose to 32 on Sunday, state media reported, the latest accident in a country with a poor record of industrial safety.

The blast took place on Saturday in a small mine in the Inner Mongolia region, next to Mongolia, Xinhua news agency said.

A total of 181 workers were initially trapped underground and 149 of them were rescued, Xinhua said.

This was the second major coal mine accident in the past week, coming at a time when the government told miners to resume production to tame high coal prices and meet winter demand.

In the first disaster, authorities confirmed on Friday that 21 people died after a coal mine blast in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

Coal accounts for almost two-thirds of China's energy consumption, but its mines are among the world's deadliest, due to lax enforcement of safety standards.

China has ordered all of the country's coal mines to conduct a safety overhaul in the past month, the deputy director of the country's work safety watchdog said on Friday.

The accidents have alarmed regulators over the past month as China ramps up coal production to meet winter demand. Thirty-three people died in a gas explosion at a coal mine in the southwestern city of Chongqing on Oct. 31.</s>Seventeen people were killed and others were trapped in an explosion at a mine in northern China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region Saturday, the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported, citing local authorities.

It wasn't immediately clear how many people were trapped.

The blast happened around noon at a mine operated by the Baoma Mining Co. in the Yuanbaoshan district of Chifeng city, Xinhua reported.

A rescue operation was underway Saturday. The explosion's cause is under investigation, according to Xinhua.</s>In the first incident, authorities confirmed on Friday night that 21 people died after a coal mine blast in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, the official Xinhua news agency said.

It happened at a private coal mine in Qitaihe city late on Tuesday, trapping 22 workers underground, it said. Rescue work continues to reach the one person left trapped.

On Saturday, 17 people died in a coal mine explosion in northern China's Inner Mongolia region, Xinhua added.

Many others remain trapped, it said, without giving details.

Coal accounts for almost two-thirds of China's energy consumption, but its mines are among the world's deadliest, due to lax enforcement of safety standards.

China has ordered all of the country's coal mines to conduct a safety overhaul in the past month, the deputy director of the country's work safety watchdog said on Friday.

A flurry of accidents have alarmed regulators over the past month as China ramps up coal production to meet winter demand. Thirty-three people died in a gas explosion at a coal mine in the southwestern city of Chongqing on Oct. 31.</s>DENVER — Colorado’s flagging coal industry got a glimmer of hope when the federal government removed one obstacle to expanding the state’s largest mine, but it isn’t a done deal, and further court challenges are likely.

Arch Coal Inc. wants to extend its underground West Elk Mine into untapped federal coal reserves in Gunnison County. On Nov. 17, the U.S. Forest Service proposed a ruling that would clear the way for the company to build temporary roads on more than 30 square miles of largely untouched national forest land to facilitate the expansion.

Arch still needs further approvals before it could build roads or expand. And at least one environmental group said it is willing to renew a three-year legal battle to try to block the plan.

“This is a boneheaded proposal, and we’re going to do everything we can to enforce some common sense here,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ climate and energy director. “I think at this point it’s looking like the only recourse we might have is to go back to federal court.”

West Elk produced 5.1 million tons of coal last year, more than a quarter of the state’s total, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The Forest Service proposal would help West Elk get access to as much as 172 million more tons of federally owned coal, extending the life of the mine by years.

But the company would have to clear several other hurdles, including getting leases from the Bureau of Land Management, which manages the coal.

Arch once had initial consent — but not the final OK — to build temporary roads in the 30-square-mile area under a 2012 state-federal compromise for managing roadless areas in Colorado national forests, called the Colorado Roadless Rule.

But WildEarth Guardians and two other conservation groups sued, saying the federal government failed to examine all the environmental impacts of building the roads, including the effects on climate change of burning the additional coal.

A federal judge agreed with the conservation groups and overturned the approval in 2014.

The Forest Service re-evaluated and concluded that burning the additional coal would produce 443 million metric tons of greenhouse gases. In its Nov. 17 decision, the agency still recommended that Arch be allowed to build the roads, saying that was part of the Colorado Roadless Rule compromise.

Beyond environmental concerns, some critics question the economic wisdom of extending the mine.

“It’s going to add more coal to an oversupplied market,” said Tom Sanzillo of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which advocates reducing dependence on coal. “They may go forward, but financially, we don’t see the rationale.”

Coal production is declining in Colorado and nationwide, driven in part by cheap natural gas prices. The industry also blames President Barack Obama’s drive to reduce the use of fossil fuels — especially the Clean Power Plan, which would curtail greenhouse gas pollution from coal-fired plants.

Colorado produced less than 19 million tons of coal last year, down sharply from 24 million the year before and the lowest amount in at least 10 years, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Colorado coal mines employed about 1,600 people in 2015, down from 2,500 three years earlier. Arch said more than 200 people work at the West Elk mine but did not provide more precise number.

Stan Dempsey Jr., president of the Colorado Mining Association, believes a strengthening economy will help the coal industry. He disputes the argument that market forces are behind the decline in demand.

“That’s completely wrong. That’s a talking point from the environmental community and the Democrats,” he said.

Dempsey expects the administration of President-elect Donald Trump to at least take a hard look at coal restrictions enacted under Obama, but he stopped short of predicting an industry comeback.

“Hard to tell,” he said.
At least 17 are killed in a coal mine explosion in China.