WEST FINLEY, Pennsylvania — In his first visit to a coal mine since becoming the 15th secretary of energy, Dan Brouillette said the innovations he witnessed at the Consol Energy Pennsylvania mining complex along the Washington County and Greene County lines were some of the most impressive technologies he’s seen in his career in the fossil fuel industry.

“If they can develop that technology and scale it up, it represents a unique marketing opportunity,” he said of experiments that were demonstrated to him at the facility that included not burning coal, but turning waste coal into clean fuel.