Selection of Coal Transportation Company Based on Fuzzy SWARA-COPRAS Approach

Background: Coal production and marketing enterprises can significantly reduce transportation costs and improve their competitiveness by choosing appropriate road transportation companies. Methods: Based on this, a trapezoidal fuzzy SWARA-COPRAS method is proposed to select coal transportation companies. The trapezoidal fuzzy SWARA method is used to determine the index weight of coal transportation companies. The ranking of coal transportation companies is determined using the trapezoidal fuzzy COPRAS method. Results: Taking a coal production and marketing enterprise in Hubei, China as an example, the application of the trapezoidal fuzzy SWARA-COPRAS method is illustrated, and the coal transportation companies are sorted and analyzed for sensitivity. Conclusions: Compared with the results of other methods, the effectiveness and practicability of the trapezoidal fuzzy SWARA-COPRAS method are verified.

Can Compulsory Ecological Compensation for Land Damaged by Mining Activities Mitigate CO2 Emissions in China?

Chinese government has proposed a national contribution plan that involves achieving the peak CO2 emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. To explore the pathway of achieving carbon neutrality, we tried to use resources taxes and land reclamation deposits as compulsory ecological compensation (CEC). In order to test if CEC can affect CO2 emissions, energy intensity was selected as the intermediate variable. We found that the CO2 emissions trend in China is consistent with environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis and proved that CEC displayed a spillover effect on energy intensity. Likely, energy intensity presented a spillover effect on CO2 emissions. Therefore, CEC will spatially affect CO2 emissions. The generalized spatial two-stage least-squares estimate model was used to identify the impact mechanism of coal production on energy intensity with CEC as the instrumental variable. The results indicated that reducing coal production in neighboring regions may cause the mitigation of local CO2 emissions. Finally, regression analyses carried out by region suggested regional cooperation should be carried out in the process of carbon mitigation.

Effect of Resource Economy on the Standard of Living in the Kemerovo Region

This review article introduces a comparative analysis of the standard of living in the Kemerovo region aka Kuzbass in 2005–2019. The research objective was to identify the reasons behind the decline in the living standards and the growing negative migration. Considering that Kuzbass is a coal region, the analysis was performed in the context of resource economy. It featured Russian and foreign studies on the theory of living standards and welfare, resource economy, and fair economy. The authors defined the concept of the standard of living as elements of human existence that depend on the socio-economic development of society and one's personal income. The standard of living in the Kemerovo region, which has enormous natural resources, is deteriorating from year to year, despite its increasing coal production and GRP. Most indicators appeared to be lower than Russia's average; in fact, the gap may reach 50–60 %. Poor living standards are an urgent problem for many resource regions. Regional strategies and programs seem unable to improve the situation, which requires state decisions to change the mechanisms of distribution of the gross regional product in favor of resource regions. By changing tax and budget legislation, the state should redirect financial flows from big resource companies to local problem areas.

ESTIMATION OF THE DYNAMICS OF FACTOR CONTRIBUTIONS IN A LINEAR REGRESSION MODEL

Разработаны две алгоритмические схемы оценивания параметров линейной регрессии с требованием равенства нулю ошибки аппроксимации для заданного наблюдения и на их основе способы расчета динамических оценок вкладов факторов, входящих в состав правой части линейной регрессионной модели, в значения зависимой переменной. Одна из этих схем основана на решении задачи квадратичного программирования, а вторая предусматривает использование взвешенного метода наименьших квадратов. Организованный при этом итерационный процесс предполагает пересчет матрицы весовых коэффициентов для каждого наблюдения обрабатываемой выборки данных. Рассчитаны вклады следующих факторов для регрессионной модели погрузки на железнодорожном транспорте: объема добычи угля, объема вывезенной древесины, рабочего парка груженых железнодорожных вагонов (в среднем в сутки). Установлено, что наибольшее влияние на выходную переменную оказывает объем добычи угля, хотя это влияние и имеет некоторую общую тенденцию к снижению: почти на 4 пункта за 14 лет. Также несколько ослабевает, на 3 пункта, влияние и второго по значимости фактора - рабочего парка груженых железнодорожных вагонов. А наименее значимый показатель (объем вывезенной древесины) имеет явную тенденцию к усилению своего влияния, которое выросло почти на 7 пунктов I developed two algorithmic schemes for estimating the parameters of linear regression with the requirement that the approximation error for a given observation is zero and, on their basis, methods for calculating the dynamic estimates of the contributions of the factors included in the right side of the linear regression model to the values of the dependent variable. One of these schemes is based on solving a quadratic programming problem, and the second involves the use of a weighted least squares method. The iterative process organized in this case involves recalculating the matrix of weighting coefficients for each observation of the processed data sample. I calculated the contributions of the following factors for the regression model of loading on railway transport: the volume of coal production, the volume of exported timber, the working fleet of loaded railway cars (on average per day). I found that the largest influence on the output variable is exerted by the volume of coal production, although this influence has some general tendency to decrease - by almost 4 points over 14 years. Also, the influence of the second most important factor - the working fleet of loaded railway cars, is also weakening by 3 points. But the least significant indicator - the volume of exported timber - has a clear tendency to increase its influence, which has grown by almost 7 points

Social-Economic Problems of Development of the City of Sulyukta (Kyrgyzstan) in the Years of Independence (1991-2020)

The article deals with the social-economic development of the city of Sulyukta. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan, embarked on the path of perestroika. Economic and political difficulties are leading to major economic changes in the region. These changes have changed the economy, society and culture. The social-economic crisis throughout the post-Soviet region had a negative impact on all industries, including manufacturing. The crisis greatly affected the coal production of the city of Sulyukta. In the last years of Soviet power, especially in the first years of independence, coal production in Sulyukta fell sharply. The main reasons for this were the breakdown of old economic ties, the demands of new market conditions and low demand for coal. In this context, the economic situation in the city of Sulyukta has worsened.

Decreasing methane emissions from China's coal mining with rebounded coal production

China is the world’s largest anthropogenic methane (CH4) emitter, with coal mine methane (CMM) as one of the main contributors. However, previous studies have not reach consensus on the magnitude and trend of China’s CMM emissions since 2010. Through distribution fitting and Monte Carlo methods, dynamic emission factors (EFs) of CMM at the province-level were derived with high confidence; along with the updated data on surface mining, abandoned coal mines, and methane utilization, we revealed that China’s annual CMM emissions were estimated at 20.11 Tg between 2010 and 2019 with a decline of 0.93 Tg yr-1. Although coal production was revived in 2017, we found that the growing trend of China’s CMM emissions since 2012 were curbed by the previously-overlooked factors including the growth of CMM utilization and coal production from surface mining, and decrease of emission factors driven by the closure of high CH4-content coal mines and a regional production shift to lower-emission areas.

The North-South Gas Corridor in the Context of Poland’s Gas Transmission System—A Perfect Opportunity to Diversify Gas Resources

The energy sector in Poland is currently calling for dynamic redevelopment and cleaner energy. This country is world famous for its high level of coal production, from which it does not want to retreat in the next two decades. For this reason, it is safer to gradually reduce the use of coal while increasing the consumption of gas and simultaneously developing green energy. However, the Polish gas sector is still dependent on Russian gas supplied through the Yamal gas pipeline. Taking into consideration Polish geopolitics, this state of affairs poses a huge challenge and a threat to Poland’s energy security. That is why the concept of the North-South Gas Corridor was introduced. It is intended to be a network of gas pipelines that connect the countries of Central and South Europe to two gas terminals (in Poland and Croatia), which will supply gas from a chosen source. This article presents the current condition of the gas sector in Poland. It focuses on the North-South Gas Corridor project and its impact on the energy security of Poland. An analysis of documents and field research shows that the North-South Gas Corridor provides Poland with an opportunity to diversify the sources and directions of gas supply over the next few years.