"DATONG, China — The walls and ceiling of the Nanshan mine shimmer black, carved straight into a 200 million-year-old coal seam running 1,300 feet underground. Black veins of Jurassic-era coal deposits still thread Shanxi province in China's north, enriching public coffers and keeping generations of miners steadily employed.

Last year, China committed to going carbon-neutral by 2060, an ambitious undertaking for a country that still relies on coal for more than half its energy needs. The country has invested heavily in solar, wind and nuclear energy. Yet coal-fired heavy industry still made up about 37% of all its economic activity last year, and some provinces are even planning to increase coal-fired power generation.

These contradictions and the slow, convoluted transition away from coal are already being felt in Datong, an ancient walled city in the heart of China's coal country in Shanxi.

There, miners continue to pump out coal even as the state throttles new mine licenses and funds solar panel farms nearby. Last year, a Shanxi state merger created one of the world's biggest coal companies, pushing out smaller mines as environmental protection rules are enforced more strictly."
     
Emily Feng reports for NPR June 14, 2021. [2]