| Coal is the main energy in China and coal industry is the important foundation industry which is very critical to the country's economy and energy security. The gap between supply and demand of the coal industry also has a certain periodicity, short supply in the 1980s, oversupply in the 1990s, starting in 2002, again the coal market entered a seller's market. But after the so-called "ten-years' golden time" of development, overproduction and imbalance between demand and supply have caused serious damage to the coal industry. Particularly, under this background, based on China's coal concentration rate, researching on how technical innovation can improve coal industry's concentration rate has certain theoretical and practical significance.This paper analyzes the current situation of the coal industry of China, namely the imbalance between supply and demand, as well as the low coal prices. And further, concentration rate of the coal industry of China was calculated, according to the CR4 index calculations, and compared with the circumstance of India, Indonesia and Australia, the value of which indicating that China's coal industry concentration rate is significantly too low. The low China's coal concentration rate leads to excessive competition and lack of coal market control by large enterprise. The reasons are low barriers to enter the coal market and high barriers to exit. Low barriers focus on the low entry requirement of technology, investment and management personnel; high barriers refer to the lack of market mechanism for small and medium enterprises to exit the market and powerful government regulation to guide the loss-making small and medium enterprises to quit coal market.This paper argues that the most fundamental reason lies in the technical threshold is too low, according to the theory of technological innovation, economic growth was driven by the growth of technology, and technology is the basic variable as well as the core variable. Raising the technological threshold tends to bring up the investment threshold and management capabilities threshold too, and the expanding technology gap can accelerate the exit of the under-performance coal enterprises. China's overall technological level of the coal industry still has a certain gap compared with the developed countries, particularly in clean coal technology as the representative of emerging new technologies and development of coal industry, China's coal industry must excise technological innovation. Technological innovation is the inevitable choice for China's coal industry concentration. This paper uses Schumpeterian innovation theory and the theory of industrial organization, emphasizing that only through technological innovation, can force small and medium enterprises lacking ability to achieve technological innovation out of the market, and eliminate backward production capacity, so as to improve industry concentration rate, and achieve a balance between supply and demand of coal to stabilize coal market prices. Specifically, the present situation of the coal industry's implementing of new technologies can be described as that green coal mining and integrated application technology have achieved some results, but there are also some problems, mainly:the use of coal is still more extensive manner; inadequate coal enterprise technology R& D funding, shortage of research personnel; technological innovation's industrialization progress is slow, uncoordinated technical upgrade schedule; low efficiency of the coal industry technology innovation.This paper selects Shandong Energy Xinwen Coal Mining Group as a study case. Analysis on the development of clean coal technology of the US, Europe and Japan, showed the experience of developed countries in the development of clean coal technology, and then introduced the development of new clean coal technology Mining Group. The Xinwen Group is one of the leading raw coal production group in Shandong province, in 2015, the Group completed 48.54 million tons of raw coal output, and sales revenue reached 28.1 billion yuan. In the research and practice of clean coal technology, Xinwen Group started relatively early, with high efficiency of promoting technology to be put into practice. In terms of coal-water slurry technology, industrial coal briquette technology, underground coal gasification technology, coal gangue utilization technology, continuous technological innovation and project practices has led to high technological innovations conversion rate and good economic benefits. In the case of Xinwen Group's overall coal output reduction, advanced production technology mine is still able to achieve a steady growth in coal output, CR4 index kept rising, it has proven technological innovation will help to improve the coal industry concentration rate along with the economic performance of coal enterprises, and finally it will help coal enterprises get out of the current predicament.Based on this, China's coal industry should choose a clear integrated innovation and followed innovation as the path of technological innovation, and further, for green mining and coal comprehension utilization technology should take the path of integration innovation, including:talent and knowledge integration, integration of resources and capabilities, strategies and information integration. For clean coal technology should take the path of followed innovation, based on the research achievements of clean coal technology of the European and American developed countries, re-innovation, and gradually narrow the technology gap between developed countries. This paper aims to, from the perspective of improving China's coal industry concentration, analyst the technological innovation path of China's coal industry. Especially under the background that most coal enterprises are struggling for survival, this research has some theoretical and practical significance. |
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