Approaching Yangquan, rows of wind turbines appeared on the mountains on both sides of the road, resembling huge lighthouses. The air is fresh and the sky is blue, forming a sharp contrast with the stereotype of coal cities. Yangquan City, located in Shanxi Province, central China, is a famous smokeless coal base. Entering this city, people will see many buildings with coal enterprise logos printed on them, and most households here have connections with coal mines. The history of Yangquan coal mining can be traced back to the Northern Song Dynasty. In the late Qing Dynasty, with the completion of a railway, large-scale coal mining began within the territory. Shanxi is rich in coal resources and is a major coal producing area and energy base in China, supporting China's industrialization and modernization construction. However, with the reduction of resources and the need for environmental protection and energy conservation, the once shiny black gold color is gradually fading away. The Niangziguan Power Plant was a coal based factory built in the 1960s and has been closed for many years now. When it was prosperous, there were more than 5000 workers and their families in the factory, but now only more than 50 people are left behind to manage assets and serve retirees. This power plant was one of the largest power plants in the province at that time, equipped with Shanxi's first 100000 kW high-temperature and high-pressure condensing steam turbine generator. During that time, people's dream was to work as factory workers. In response to the national energy conservation, emission reduction, and environmental protection policies, the Niangziguan Power Plant was shut down in 2009 Wang Yonggang, Deputy General Manager of Niangziguan Power Generation Company under Jinneng Holdings Group, said. China is the world's largest coal producing country. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2023, the proportion of coal consumption in China's total energy consumption will be 55.3%, a decrease of 0.7 percentage points from 2022; The proportion of clean energy consumption such as natural gas, hydropower, nuclear power, wind power, and solar power was 26.4%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points. In 2019, Shanxi Province was officially approved to lead the comprehensive reform pilot of energy revolution. Coal giants are accelerating their path towards green transformation. Yangquan Coal Industry (Group) Co., Ltd. was once one of the important coal enterprises in China. It was renamed Huayang New Material Technology Group Co., Ltd. in 2020, not only engaged in coal production, but also entered the fields of new energy and new materials such as sodium ion batteries, photovoltaics, high-end carbon fibers, and biodegradation. At Shanxi Hua Na Xin Energy Technology Co., Ltd., sodium ion batteries are being produced in the workshop. Wang Kechen, President of Huayang Group Industrial Technology Research Institute, introduced that sodium ion batteries have high safety, low cost, and low temperature resistance. Moreover, sodium reserves are more abundant than lithium, and anthracite is also an excellent raw material for negative electrode materials of sodium ion batteries. At the newly built photovoltaic product manufacturing workshop of Shanxi Huachu Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., workers are busy operating machines for production. Che Linzhi, who had worked as a coal mining team leader at Yangmei No.3 Mine for 10 years, chose to come to Shanxi Huachu Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. to take the employment exam for the new factory due to the depletion of the mine's resources. The exam content includes the basic theory and production procedures of photovoltaic modules Che Linzhi said, "These are brand new to me. I did my homework in advance, and although I didn't score high, I am now familiar with this industry." Wang Wei, the general manager of Shanxi Huachu Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., said that they may be the first generation in Yangquan's history to not engage in coal production and seek alternative energy sources. China is now the world's largest producer of clean energy. China's installed capacity of hydropower, wind power, solar power, and biomass power remains the world's largest. Due to China's large-scale investment in clean energy, the global cost of solar photovoltaic installation decreased by about 82% from 2010 to 2021, while the cost of onshore and offshore wind power installation decreased by about 35% and 41% respectively. Although coal mines are still in production, technology is upgrading and becoming safer and more intelligent. At 415 meters underground in Huayang No.2 Mine, automatic coal excavators have replaced workers in doing the most dangerous tasks. This place is bright and clean, and engineers are issuing mining orders from the ground control room 10 kilometers away. The Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to propose "improving the mechanism for clean and efficient utilization of coal", "accelerating the planning and construction of a new energy system", "improving the work system for adapting to climate change", and "establishing a new mechanism for comprehensive transformation from energy consumption control to carbon emission control". Recently, China issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Comprehensive Green Transformation of Economic and Social Development", which made systematic arrangements for accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation of industrial structure and promoting the green and low-carbon transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. The author of 'The Three Body Problem', Liu Cixin, was born into a family of coal miners in Yangquan and worked as an engineer at the Niangziguan Power Plant for over 20 years. In a science fiction novel he wrote about coal mines, the fictional character Liu Xin's father suffered from pneumoconiosis and demanded that his son never go into the mine again before he passed away. After graduating from university, Liu Xin decided to use advanced science and technology to make coal mining no longer a dangerous thing, and even allow people to dig coal under the blue sky. He introduced coal gasification technology. It is understood that due to the efforts of scientists, including drawing on the design of injectors in the aerospace field, significant progress has been made in underground coal gasification technology. "Now is the time for the Chinese to turn science fiction into reality." Wang Kechen said. On a schematic diagram of the evolution of sodium battery technology in the workshop, Jules Verne is mentioned. He first proposed in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" to use the abundant sodium in the ocean to produce a new powerful electrical device. At present, the sodium ion batteries produced by Huayang Group have been applied in multiple fields such as power vehicles, coal mine emergency power sources, and industrial and commercial energy storage. (New Society)