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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gasification Technologies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam Citron who wrote (165)	7/12/2006 9:49:39 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1740

Coal gasification plant in Illinois gets new investor By Christopher Martinand Jim Polson BLOOMBERG NEWS 07/12/2006 stltoday.com NEW YORK — Tenaska Inc., a power producer based in Omaha, Neb., agreed to buy a 50 percent stake in a $1 billion project in Illinois that will convert coal into gas to generate electricity more cleanly than conventional plants. Tenaska is buying the interest from developer Erora Group LLC, the closely held companies said Tuesday in a statement. Tenaska has an option to buy all of the 630-megawatt project planned at Taylorville, in the coal-mining region of central Illinois between Chicago and St. Louis. Terms of the sale weren't disclosed, said Jana Martin, a spokeswoman for Tenaska. Taylorville is 90 miles northeast of St. Louis. Construction may begin in a year with completion in 2010, which would make it the first U.S. commercial plant burning coal gas to drive power-generating turbines, Tenaska said. Such plants emit less air pollution, use less water and leave less waste than coal-burning plants, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a report earlier this month. The Taylorville plant is among $136 billion of new coal-fueled power plants proposed through 2030 to meet rising domestic power demand, according to the Energy Department. Of those, developers have proposed 24 plants using Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle technology. American Electric Power Co., the largest U.S. coal consumer, has proposed two such plants and has hired General Electric Co. to design them. Duke Energy Corp. and NRG Energy Inc. also are planning such plants. Two smaller plants were built a decade ago in Florida and Indiana to test the technology. Declining supplies of natural gas, a competing power-plant fuel, increase the importance of the nation's 250-year supply of coal, according to the Energy Department. Tenaska has helped develop about 9,000 megawatts of generators. Erora, based in Louis-ville, Ky., was set up in 1999 to develop IGCC and other power plants. Illinois is paying $5 million for engineering and design of the plant to help boost use of its coal, which burns dirtier than coal from other states. Illinois has the nation's third-greatest coal reserves, behind Montana and Wyoming, according to the Energy Department. The proposed Taylorville project would supply enough power for 504,000 average U.S. homes.