DENVER - Evergreen Energy Inc. (NYSE Arca: EEE) announced today that its Chinese business development equity joint venture, Evergreen-China Energy Technology Co., Ltd., has received official approval and endorsement from China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) for the development of K-Fuel® refined coal technology in the People’s Republic of China.

Earlier this month the Denver-based company said it is repositioning its business model away from from industrial production and toward a licensing, joint ventures and partnerships  platform for its carbon information management and cleaner coal technologies.

The Denver-based company says that the NDRC approval marks a noteworthy step forward for K-Fuel technology deployment in China. The NDRC formulates and implements strategies of Chinese national economic and social development, and its approval of the Evergreen-China joint venture signifies an official Chinese government stamp of approval for using K-Fuel technology to upgrade China’s vast lignite (brown) coal reserves.

The approval is crucial to K-Fuel technology’s growth in China because no new foreign technology can take root there without NDRC review and approval. The commission constantly monitors new technologies and proposed foreign investments and decides whether they will benefit greater China and are worthy of receiving state resources.

In addition, NDRC approval affords greater intellectual
property protection for foreign technologies making their first
inroads into China, and it gives license to state-owned
entities to move forward with foreign technology joint ventures
knowing that they have official state approval.

As a preamble to the NDRC approval, Evergreen established a
50-50 equity joint venture between Evergreen Energy, Inc. and a
Chinese entity that was established in March 2007 to develop
new energy, environmental and light industry ventures.

Evergreen Energy Inc. and the Chinese entity next executed a
master license agreement for the use of Evergreen’s patented
K-Fuel refined coal technology.

The joint venture and a major state-owned Chinese energy entity
will now focus on evaluating two proposed K-Fuel plant sites in
the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. China has billions of
tons of lower-rank (lignite, brown, sub-bituminous) coals
located thousands of miles from where they are needed. K-Fuel
technology is proven to raise the heating value of Inner
Mongolian coal by more than 25 percent while removing
significant amounts of mercury and improving the handling and
shipping characteristics of the coal.

These performance upgrades support China’s national goals to
reduce dependence on foreign coals, make better use of domestic
coal supplies and achieve environmental improvements.