He told the Associated Press China was ahead of the US on the advanced coal technologies front and was employing the technologies with the development of gasification plants.
“I think that the next step is that we want to continue to observe what they’re doing in regard to gasification and how those gasification projects evolve,” Mead said.
“The gasification of coal is not a one size fits all. Each one is a little bit different.”
Mead returned late last week from the conference, which was held in China’s largest coal-producing area, the Shaanxi province.
He joined representatives from China as well as Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO.
Mead said he had returned confident that Wyoming should continue looking at export opportunities while also learning from China’s efforts.
“As a continent, I think there are opportunities for Asia to accept imports of Wyoming coal,” he told the AP, though he also said there would be some obstacles.
The primary concerns of opponents to the movement of Wyoming trains to the northwestern US with coal bound for China have been dust, noise and other environmental issues.
Wyoming is the US’ largest coal-producing state.
It was seeking markets for its production as it hit headwinds from a nationwide slump in demand.
Coal tax revenues were considered a keystone to the state’s economy.
Much of the drop in demand stemmed from rock-bottom natural gas prices.
According to federal figures the picture of coal for the nation is not the brightest lately, with the share of US electricity coming from coal expected to drop below 40% this year – the lowest since 1949 when this type of data collection commenced.
China’s problem has been quite different in that it is exceeding its domestic production and is importing from Australia.
“They and we discussed that we have this great resource – coal,” Mead told the AP.
“And we have to find the best ways for the use of the coal.
“We don’t want to leave the coal in the ground and that necessarily is going to involve better technology with regard to clean uses of coal.”
