Scientific problems and key technologies for safe and efficient mining of deep coal resources

Under the international background of the unprecedented great change and accelerated evolution in a century, China’s energy industry is facing the dual challenges of the realization of the “double carbon” strategic goal and the stable supply of energy resources. Marching into the deep part of the earth has become the only way for China’s energy resources development. This paper systematically reviews the technical development status of geological survey, intelligent mining, disaster warning, ecological restoration and other fields, and analyzes the applicability of existing technologies for the development of deep mineral resources. Based on the existing technology status and the in-situ storage and mining characteristics of deep mineral resources, this paper extracts the key theoretical and technical problems faced by the whole process of construction and operation of kilometer deep mine, and further points out the future technical research direction to realize the safe and efficient mining of deep coal resources. By analyzing the development trend of emerging technologies such as digital twin, artificial intelligence, and large computing power model, the technology breakthrough paths in important fields such as geological transparency, intelligent mining technology, disaster early warning system, and ecological environment restoration were identified, and a feasible technological development strategy for safe, efficient, intelligent, and green mining of deep mineral resources was constructed. In the future, by gradually making breakthroughs in the dynamic characterization of cross-scale geological body evolution, research on nonlinear coal-rock multiphase and multifield coupling disaster mechanism, research and development of multi-functional materials resistant to high temperature and high pressure and new exploration and mining equipment, construction of pan-adaptive unmanned mining craft, efficient green and accurate restoration of geological ecology, and intelligent decision-making model of mining area construction-production-restoration, the basic technical support for stable, efficient, intelligent and green mining of kilometer deep well resources will be established. The mining of kilometer deep well resources will surely realize less/unmanned mining and full network distributed intelligent control mining, providing core support for the national energy security strategy.