International Journal of Clean Coal and Energy, 2013, 2, 55-57
Published Online November 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ijcce)
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ijcce.2013.24006
Open Access IJCCE
IJCCE: A Communication Platform for Cleaner
Production and Sustainability
Jianjun Zhang
School of Land and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China
Received August 25, 2013; revised September 26, 2013; accepted October 4, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Jianjun Zhang. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Introduction
It is clear that global climate change and global warming
has been the world-wide focus of concern as well as one
of the most serious problems human beings have to face.
The terrible situations seem to shock the scientists’
brains for a long time. Both in developed and developing
countries, scientists and engineers attempt to seek for
solutions to mitigate and even control environmental
degradation. So, the improvement of technology and
management is extremely essential in the current stage.
Clean coal and energy seems an old topic but actually a
new one because the related issues have greatly impacted
people’s daily life and the solutions need intervening by
governments. It has become not only an academic topic
but also a social one. By writing this communication, I
want to spend a little time unraveling the thoughtful
framework of running IJCCE by posing and answering
four questions as below. In fact, these questions regulate
the order of knowing IJCCE for authors and readers.
 Whom does IJCCE serve for?
 Why can IJCCE attract people’s attention?
 What can IJCCE bring to the world?
 How can IJCCE transmit new/good information to the
world?
2. Question I: Whom Does IJCCE
Serve for?
When you see this question, there may be an “interroga-
tion mark” or an “exclamatory mark” into your brain.
Yes, there is a simple question, but why is it posed? Here,
I want to emphasize that the people IJCCE serves for are
not only fixed on scientists or engineers. How to keep
healthy environment and how to further keep economic
sustainability within environmental improvements? To
reach the trade-offs between economy and environment,
we need more concerns from enterprises and govern-
ments. That is to say, IJCCE serves for two kinds of peo-
ple, policy-making supporters and policy makers, com-
posed of researchers, officers or even related civilians.
These people become whom IJCCE serves for as long as
they are involved in the activities related to clear coal
and energy. IJCCE is to establish such a communication
platform for article contributors, readers, information
transmitters and research communicators etc. across the
world, through which they can obtain the information
about related theory, technology and study cases they
need and also transmit the ideas, methods, practices and
experience to the world.
3. Question II: Why Can IJCCE Attract
People’s Attention?
There are also some journals concerning about clean coal
and energy, but each journal has its characteristics. As a
new journal in the field of clean coal and energy, IJCCE
keeps its own characteristics and still attract people’s
attention as it grasps the new directions in which it is
likely to process in future. Besides, the information
IJCCE transmits to the world implies two key points:
cleaner production and sustainability, covering the re-
lated issues of coal and energy in theory, technology and
practice. To respond to this question, let’s focus on the
objects of IJCCE.
Currently, the study on clean coal and energy is not
only confined to the quality of products and production
process, and the research objects have been extended to a
series of issues caused by the extraction of coal and en-
ergy. In general, the objects are categorized by their rela-
tionships with coal and energy into five types: new and
renewable energy, upgrading technologies, economical
and governmental issues, safety and security issues and
environmental impacts.
 The first type of objects covers new findings in ex-
traction process or technological upgrading of newly
developed renewable energy, including solar energy,
wind energy, geothermal energy, hydro energy etc.

J. J. ZHANG
56
Most people have been very familiar with some or
even all of them, but how to raise efficiency is still a
serious problem. With the development of science
and technology, more and more alternative energy
and resources, such as biomass energy, will be de-
veloped and applied in daily production and living,
which will greatly change human living styles one
day.
 For the second type of objects, it is emphasized more
on advanced technology in energy processing, in-
cluding refined coal, nanotechnology and biotech-
nology, production of coal liquid, storage and trans-
portation, future technology etc. When we cannot
avoid consuming non-renewable energy and resources
and yet have to face energy-induced environmental
issues, the upgrading of technology becomes an im-
portant way but also the only way to mitigate envi-
ronmental deterioration. The technological updating,
macro or micro, in any step of energy exploration,
production, processing, storage or transportation has a
significant influence on improving the capacity of
cleaner production.
 The third type of objects is focused on economical
and governmental issues related to coal industries, in-
cluding coal business, international trade regulations,
governmental policy etc. Social development and
prosperity cannot live without economic contributions.
Financial and political support is the essential basis of
technological upgrading. Besides, economical and
governmental involvement can promote the wide-
spread applications in industrial production and gov-
ernmental policy making. Here, IJCCE wants to
deepen the understanding of cleaner production and
sustainability, not only within environmental consid-
erations but taking economical understanding into
account, aiming at minimizing waste and emissions
and maximizing product output.
 About safety and security issues, the objects refer to
any aspect in technology, operation and management,
which has a possible negative impact on people and
production. These issues, bundled with coal and en-
ergy processing, are the precondition of regular pro-
duction. And they themselves are one of the key con-
siderations in cleaner production and sustainability.
 The fifth type of objects is closely related to envi-
ronments composed of land, water, vegetation, soil,
air, dust and even noise, possibly impacted by the ex-
traction of coal and energy. According to the research
frontier and tendency in this field, I want to address
the essential extending of clean coal and energy to
environments, not only carbon emissions, but more
related issues need considering, such as mined land
reclamation, mine water treatment, contaminated soil
remediation etc. Actually, solving extraction-induced
issues has played an important role in cleaner produc-
tion and sustainability.
Thus, IJCCE covers a series of contents about clean
coal and sustainability, from theory to practice, from
technology to management and from research to applica-
tion. Authors and readers can find their own space and
also share their ideas, methods and experience. On that,
IJCCE, as a free talking forum, provides a variety of arti-
cle types and welcomes opinions, discussion, debate and
even possible cooperation, a symbol of academic diver-
sity. IJCCE encourages the publication of quantitative
and qualitative studies rich in advanced technology,
methodology and experience, especially in innovative
study cases, which are published as new ideas, research
processes and results, technological innovation, case
studies etc. IJCCE is also concerned about the develop-
ment of this field in clean coal and energy, so the article
reviews and book reviews are taken into account for pub-
lication. What is more, this journal will track the dy-
namic news and intend to discuss cleaner production and
sustainability as a professional field, and therefore con-
ference reports and industrial reports are accepted by
IJCCE. Besides, this journal will call for papers pub-
lished in a special issue according to authors’ and read-
ers’ requirements and hot topics. What I would like to
emphasize that coal and energy in developing countries
will be given more attention as these countries need ad-
dress their difficulties and more aspire to introduce ad-
vanced technology and experience. As an open and free
professional field and a public space, in which ideas and
practices can be tested and accepted, IJCCE will give
authors and readers more opportunities and ways for the
expression of common academic concerns.
4. Question III: What Can IJCCE
Bring to the World?
Extending from the extraction steps (exploration, pro-
duction, processing, storage and transportation) of coal
and energy to project management and policy making
(economical, managerial, business, environmental, safety
and security issues), IJCCE, as a dissemination tool, aims
at transmitting advanced knowledge and experience re-
lated to coal and energy for cleaner production and sus-
tainability. For the surviving of a journal, the quality is
its concrete foundation but what the journal can bring to
the world also determines how far it can go forward.
Why IJCCE attract people’s attention tells us what it can
bring to the world. I adopt five phrases starting with C,
entitled “5C”s, to respond to this question. What IJCCE
can bring to the world is, actually, all kinds of informa-
tion. Let’s see the category as follows:
 Conceptual Idea
As an academic journal, the contributors of IJCCE are
composed of researchers, scholars, engineers and teach-
Open Access IJCCE

J. J. ZHANG
Open Access IJCCE
57
ers etc. Their research frameworks and conceptual ideas
from a program are presented in the publications. Per-
haps these ideas are only the ones in brains, but they may
still be the foundation for other relevant programs.
 Clean Technology
Besides conceptual idea, IJCCE will introduce ad-
vanced clean technology to the world. The success of
cleaner production starts from the upgrading of tech-
nologies, even from the improvement of a technical pa-
rameter. The successful technology published in IJCCE
can be tested and shared across the world.
 Commercial Opportunity
Though clean coal and energy is aimed at environ-
mental improvement, the research and applications, as
mentioned above, cannot survive without economic sup-
port and driving. On the face of it, IJCCE provides a
communication platform for addressing ideas and tech-
nologies, but commercial hunters can gasp economic
information. In fact, it is a virtuous circle of “proposing
ideas and technologies→operating commercial business
→upgrading ideas and technologies”.
 Constructive Experience
Constructive experience is mainly fixed on energy ex-
traction and industrial management. Ideas and technolo-
gies are very important, but successful experience can
effectively save manpower, resources and money. This
piece of information needs bundling with advanced ideas
and technologies together for the maximum of cleaner
production and sustainability.
 Cooperation
The authors and readers of IJCCE, professional in one
aspect of the field, come from all over the world. But one
program needs a number of experts to reach the achieve-
ments, so this journal builds a bridge for linking them
together. Additionally, developing countries also need
the technological helps and support from developed
countries. IJCCE wants to transmit relevant information
to world for assisting people, enterprises, research insti-
tutions and governments in seeking for their cooperative
partners.
5. Question IV: How Can IJCCE Transmit
New/Good Information to the World?
According to various requirements and different cultural
backgrounds of authors and readers, we accept a variety
of types of contributions, including research paper, re-
view paper, report, communication, viewpoint, profile
etc. Our service initiative is to transmit authors’ ideas
and practices to the world. However, the authors are
subject to a rigorous and fair peer-review process like
other journals. First-round, second-round and even third-
round reviews are essential during the process. Once one
article is accepted, it will be available online soon
through Open-Access publishing in Scientific Research
Publishing. Different from traditional publishing, Open-
Access publishing makes authors’ work immediately and
permanently available online for everyone, worldwide,
and the readers can easily and freely download authors’
articles to get what they want to transmit at the first time.
What is more, a distinguished group of scholars and en-
gineers with experience and expertise in the field of clean
coal and energy, from Australia, China, Poland, Spain,
the United Kingdom and the United States, have ac-
cepted invitations to join the editorial board, to support
the development of IJCCE and this field. We will also
transmit new/good information published in IJCCE to the
world by our influence and ways.
Having responded to the four questions, I believe that
you have known more about this new journal. IJCCE is
to provide an even greater focus on the articles which are
closely related to clean coal and energy and to develop
this field in such a way as ensure that this journal reflects
leading findings and developments in cleaner production
and sustainability across the world. What we have been
doing for IJCCE will amount to little without the support
of authors and readers, and your active participation will
be significant and crucial to create a truly academic plat-
form in cleaner production and sustainability. I am sure
that IJCCE will devote itself to the healthy, peaceful and
sustainable development of human society in the future.