As important suppliers of energy resources, mining areas have made huge contributions to China’s socio-economic development. However, some factors are inhibiting the further development of mining areas and, thereby pose a threat to social stability, as wel as resource and energy security in the country. In 2012, the National Development and Reform Commission formulated a project aiming to support the sustainable development of mining areas. This study collected and compiled the project’s first-hand survey data from 128 mining areas across China and comprehensively investigated the current development status of the country’s mining areas. The problems facing the development of China’s mining areas are analyzed, and four speciifc suggestions are provided, namely：promote industry transformation, remove institutional constraints, improve people’s livelihoods to maintain the stability of mining areas, and protect the environment to provide a clean, healthy living environment for mining area residents. This paper provides the ifrst comprehensive and systematic picture of China’s mining areas and highlights the importance of mining areas for the country’s economic and social development.
Based on an analysis of the status of biomass energy sources worldwide including China, this paper concludes that the development of the biomass energy industry in China is limited by factors asfollows：food security; lack of understanding of domestic sources; the deficiency of the policy environment; and environmental protection. There are also other challenges such as： low overall level of industry development; not having yet established a complete biomass energy industry system; high production costs; weak market competition; lack of investment in research and technology; low level of market admittance threshold; and disorder of industry development. Therefore, proposed policies aimed at promoting the healthy and rapid development of the biomass energy industry are as follows： improving the policy and regulatory system to enable the biomass energy industry to develop; greater evaluation of biomass energy material resources; accelerating the development of biomass energy conversion and use technologies; establishing the demonstration bases of biomass energy industry.
