How can China use coal to reach for a better life for its people, but stop choking on its own growth. Part of the answer was on display at a recent Coal Industry Exhibition in Beijing.
Flashy videos and polished displays at the Exhibition hit a new set of themes ? sustainability. Safety. And what?s being called ?clean coal.? At an associated international coal industry conference, Wu Yongping, chairman of the Datong Coal Mine Group, one of China?s biggest coal companies, said his company is starting to embrace a new green culture.
?Green recycling, green technology and green culture will be our core values,? he said. ?We will create a standard to help transform the coal industry. This includes how we mine for coal, and how we use it. We need to reduce our use of energy, our emissions and the environmental damage we do as much as possible, while maximizing the value of the coal we use.?
?There are ways to generate electricity from coal with pretty much zero emissions,? says Ming Sung, who heads the nonprofit Clean Air Task Force in China, and who helped design Shell?s first coal gasification plant in the United States in the 1980s. ?The key thing to have clean coal ? you need first to gasify the coal. Make coal into a gas, either above ground ? which is a traditional coal gasification technology. Or you can go underground. It?s very efficient, and very low-cost. And that is the technology I feel will change the landscape.?
Add to My Watchlist
What is My Watchlist?