Abstract:With the decrease of petroleum resource, all of countries have to face an extremely important problem of sustainable development of energy and economy and protection of environment. The traditional techniques for using coal led to low energy utilization efficiency, severe pollution and non-sustainability. Therefore, development of clean coal utilization technology has attracted much attention. In this paper, the recent research progress in the development of clean coal utilization technology was reviewed. It involves in the combustion of coal to make power and the conversion of coal to fuels and chemicals. In the last section, how to use coal in future and develop clean and highly efficient technology for utilizing coal was proposed.