The award coincided with Boyce’s keynote address urging world industry leaders to fight energy inequality with greater use of low-polluting 21st century coal.

Boyce’s contributions to the coal industry include leading industry initiatives in the United States and globally to expand industry commitment and performance for safety; advance best practices in operations, including safety, productivity, resource recovery and land restoration; and the combatting of global energy poverty and increasing access to low-cost electricity.

He has also supported public policies to expand development and deployment of coal conversion and clean coal technologies and sought to increase public awareness and support of 21st century coal.

Boyce has been a leading advocate to alleviate global energy poverty and he called on global leaders to focus on twin energy challenges: creating low-cost energy access to satisfy projected energy growth and addressing the immediate needs of the world’s energy impoverished.

He has also reviewed the policy platform that is essential to achieve these goals.

“Abundant low-cost energy allows everyone to live longer and to live better,” Boyce said.

“With it, we can do almost anything. Without it, we are consigned to short, mean lives. Quite simply: Energy is life, and coal is energy. Today, I call on all of us to recognise the life-giving resource that energy provides and coal’s vital role in securing a strong energy future.”

Boyce said that energy is essential for economies to thrive.

“One cannot begin to comprehend the gruelling fight against energy poverty that weighs on the shoulders of families day after day throughout the developing world. Humanity deserves so much more. I submit that energy poverty is the most serious crisis that our world faces. It’s high time we reset our priorities to address this issue,” he said.

Boyce also challenged the world to deliver more coal more cleanly to help satisfy growing energy needs and achieve important environmental goals using 21st century coal, a concept advanced by the US and China at the 2009 Beijing Summit.

Twenty-first century coal describes today’s high-efficiency supercritical technology as well as the collection of technologies that reduce key power plant emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulates and mercury.

“Greater use of advanced coal is the solution to fight energy inequality and improve emissions. Fuel choices matter and policy choices matter,” he said.