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Bidding to be pollution-free
Seven states are jockeying to land a power plant prototype that will bring with jobs and a new, cleaner way of powering our lives.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 28, 2006
ST. LOUIS - In a bidding war reminiscent of efforts two decades ago to win the superconducting super collider, seven states are aggressively trying to land a billion-dollar power plant prototype that's virtually pollution-free. Illinois, which has a third of the dozen sites chasing FutureGen, has up to $80-million in incentives on the table, including grants and low-interest loans. Ohio is offering twice that, while Texas has passed a law making it responsible for legal entanglements stemming from the coal-fired plant's carbon dioxide emissions. Some states are ponying up sales-tax relief and free land, pushing the enticements into the hundreds of millions of dollars in the hunt for more than 1,000 construction jobs and 150 permanent positions, along with the researchers and side businesses the plant should attract. Did anyone mention the bragging rights? The finalists will be tapped this summer, with the winner to be announced next year - five years before the plant is expected to be running. Touted as the power plant of tomorrow, FutureGen involves technology that converts coal into highly enriched hydrogen gas that burns cleaner than coal. Plans call for the 275-megawatt plant to capture most of its emissions of carbon dioxide - a "greenhouse" gas widely blamed for global warming - and inject them permanently into underground reservoirs, a process called sequestration. FutureGen, an alliance made up of a handful of coal and electric companies including Peabody Energy Corp., has committed more than $250-million to the project. The U.S. government is putting up about $700-million. The alliance's criteria have included a site's access to coal, water, rail lines, power transmission and underground geology that would allow permanent storage of carbon dioxide waste. Seven states are jockeying to land a power plant prototype that will bring with jobs and a new, cleaner way of powering our lives.
[Last modified June 28, 2006, 01:11:26]
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