|
11 November 2004 - A $2.5m grant from the Illinois clean coal review board is to help a coal facility become one of the cleanest coal fuelled energy plants in the world.
Steelhead Energy Company LLC, a project development company affiliated with ArcLight Capital Partners, LLC, was awarded the grant for the initial phase of detailed engineering design for the Southern Illinois Clean Energy Centre.
The energy centre will include a coal gasification facility to be located at the site of a new, subsurface coalmine in Williamson County, Illinois. The first facility of its kind in the US, it will use local coal to generate 545 MW of electricity and 95 million standard cubic feet per day of substitute, pipeline quality, natural gas in two separately owned and financed projects.
In a related development, Steelhead Energy has filed an air quality construction permit application with the Illinois environmental protection agency, which will regulate air emissions form the facility. When built, the plant will be among the cleanest coal fuelled energy facilities in the world.
Fluor Corporation, along with ConocoPhillips, will be conducting the detailed engineering design, with the two firms expected to ultimately construct and operate the facility. Both processes first convert the coal into a gas where potential pollutants such as sulphur, mercury and ash are economically removed from the gas prior to combustion. The sulphur and ash may be sold commercially. This approach is said to allow greater removal of these pollutants than is feasible with conventional coal fired power plants.
The Illinois clean coal review board provides grants to innovative technologies seeking to increase the utilization of the extensive coal resources in southern Illinois in an environmentally beneficial manner. Steelhead Energy has promised to repay the grant out of the construction funds for the project.
| 
Articles 
| View all PennWell sites | View all PennWell events
Add RSS Feed
