CONSOL Energy and AES Greenidge Announce Successful Demonstration of Multi-Pollutant...

CONSOL Energy and AES Greenidge Announce Successful Demonstration of
Multi-Pollutant Control Technology for Smaller Coal-Fired Plants

Emissions of Sulfur Dioxide, Mercury, Particulate Matter and Acid Gases
Reduced By More than 95 Percent

PITTSBURGH and ARLINGTON, Va., April 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CONSOL Energy
Inc. (NYSE: CNX) and AES Greenidge LLC, part of AES Eastern Energy, L.P., a
wholly-owned subsidiary of The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES), announced today
that they have successfully demonstrated a compact, cost-effective
multi-pollutant control technology that is well suited for reducing air
emissions from smaller coal-fired power plants. There are more than 400
smaller coal-fired plants, with capacities between 50 MW and 300 MW that are
currently operating in the U.S.

The demonstration project was part of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)
Power Plant Improvement Initiative and also included Babcock Power
Environmental Inc. as engineering, procurement and construction contractor.
The DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory oversaw the project through a
cooperative agreement with CONSOL.

The multi-pollutant control technology was installed on AES Greenidge's 100 MW
Unit 4 in Dresden, New York, and began operating in early 2007. Performance
testing data collected through June 2008 showed average removal efficiencies
of 96 percent for sulfur dioxide, 95 percent for sulfur trioxide, 97 percent
for hydrogen chloride, and 98 percent for mercury. Emissions of nitrogen
oxides were also significantly reduced and particulate matter emissions were
reduced by more than 98 percent relative to the emission rate observed prior
to installation of the technology.

"CONSOL Energy is pleased to have played a major role, along with the DOE and
AES Greenidge, in demonstrating this highly effective multi-pollutant control
technology," said J. Brett Harvey, CONSOL Energy's president and CEO. "We
believe it will help our customers meet increasingly stringent environmental
regulations with their smaller plants. These plants have a combined capacity
of almost 60,000 MW and collectively they are essential to our nation's
electricity supply."

"The multi-pollutant control project with CONSOL Energy, Babcock Power
Environmental, and the DOE has enabled us to deliver a valuable source of
electricity for the region, while continuing to lower emissions in a
cost-effective way. This project is an example of the initiatives AES Eastern
Energy has taken to reduce total air emissions," said Doug Roll, Plant Manager
at AES Greenidge.

Since acquiring its New York plants in 1999, AES Eastern Energy has invested
approximately $150 million in environmental modifications that have
substantially reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide, mercury, particulate
matter, nitrogen oxide and acid gases.

The multi-pollutant control system at AES Greenidge cost 40 percent less to
construct and required significantly less land area than conventional
selective catalytic reduction and wet flue gas desulfurization technologies
when applied to a 100 MW unit. The system included Fuel Tech's NOxOUT
CASCADE(R) hybrid selective non-catalytic reduction / selective catalytic
reduction technology to control nitrogen oxides and Babcock Power's
Turbosorp(R) circulating fluidized bed dry scrubbing technology to control
sulfur dioxide, mercury, sulfur trioxide, hydrogen chloride, and particulate
matter.

The project at AES Greenidge represented the first application in which these
technologies were combined to form an integrated multi-pollutant control
system, as well as the first application of either technology to a unit firing
high-sulfur coal.

About CONSOL Energy

CONSOL Energy Inc., a high-Btu bituminous coal and natural gas company, is a
member of the Standard & Poor's 500 Equity Index and has annual revenues of
$4.7 billion. It has 17 bituminous coal mining complexes in six states and
reports proven and probable coal reserves of 4.5 billion tons. It received the
U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining National Award for
Excellence in Surface Mining for the company's innovative reclamation
practices in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Also in 2003, the company was listed in
Information Week magazine's "Information Week 500" list for its information
technology operations. In 2002, the company received a U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency Climate Protection Award. Additional information about the
company can be found at its web site: www.consolenergy.com. CNX Gas is a
natural gas exploration and production company, and is a majority-owned
subsidiary of CONSOL Energy Inc. Both companies are headquartered in the
Pittsburgh area.

For purposes of this press release, references to "CONSOL Energy," the
"company," "we," "our," or "us" or similar words (other than the legal names
of companies) shall include CONSOL Energy Inc. and its respective
subsidiaries.

Forward-Looking Statements
Various statements in this document, including those that express a belief,
expectation, or intention, as well as those that are not statements of
historical fact, are forward-looking statements (as defined in Section 21E of
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995). The forward-looking statements may include projections
and estimates concerning the timing and success of specific projects, our
future production, revenues, income and capital spending. When we use the
words "believe," "intend," "expect," "may," "should," "anticipate," "could,"
"would," "will," "estimate," "plan," "predict," "project," or their negatives,
or other similar expressions, the statements which include those words are
usually forward-looking statements. When we describe strategy that involves
risks or uncertainties, we are making forward-looking statements. The
forward-looking statements in this document speak only as of the date of this
document; we disclaim any obligation to update these statements unless
required by securities law, and we caution you not to rely on them unduly. We
have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and
assumptions about future events. While our management considers these
expectations and assumptions to be reasonable, they are inherently subject to
significant business, economic, competitive, regulatory and other risks,
contingencies and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and
many of which are beyond our control. These risks, uncertainties and
contingencies include, but are not limited to: the deteriorating economic
conditions; an extended decline in prices we receive for our coal and gas
affecting our operating results and cash flows; reliance on customers honoring
existing contracts, extending existing contracts or entering into new
long-term contracts for coal; reliance on major customers; our inability to
collect payments from customers if their creditworthiness declines; the
disruption of rail, barge and other systems that deliver our coal; a loss of
our competitive position because of the competitive nature of the coal
industry and the gas industry, or a loss of our competitive position because
of overcapacity in these industries impairing our profitability; our inability
to hire qualified people to meet replacement or expansion needs; coal users
switching to other fuels in order to comply with various environmental
standards related to coal combustion; the inability to produce a sufficient
amount of coal to fulfill our customers' requirements which could result in
our customers initiating claims against us; foreign currency fluctuations
could adversely affect the competitiveness of our coal abroad; the risks
inherent in coal mining being subject to unexpected disruptions, including
geological conditions, equipment failure, timing of completion of significant
construction or repair of equipment, fires, accidents and weather conditions
which could impact financial results; increases in the price of commodities
used in our mining operations could impact our cost of production; obtaining
governmental permits and approvals for our operations; the effects of
proposals to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; the effects of government
regulation; the effects of stringent federal and state employee health and
safety regulations; the effects of mine closing, reclamation and certain other
liabilities; uncertainties in estimating our economically recoverable coal and
gas reserves; the outcomes of various legal proceedings, which proceedings are
more fully described in our reports filed under the Securities Exchange Act of
1934; increased exposure to employee related long-term liabilities; minimum
funding requirements by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (the Pension Act)
coupled with the significant investment and plan asset losses suffered during
the current economic decline has exposed us to making additional required cash
contributions to fund the pension benefit plans which we sponsor and the
multi-employer pension benefit plans in which we participate; lump sum
payments made to retiring salaried employees pursuant to our defined benefit
pension plan; our ability to comply with laws or regulations requiring that we
obtain surety bonds for workers' compensation and other statutory
requirements; acquisitions that we recently have made or may make in the
future including the accuracy of our assessment of the acquired businesses and
their risks, achieving any anticipated synergies, integrating the acquisitions
and unanticipated changes that could affect assumptions we may have made; the
anti-takeover effects of our rights plan could prevent a change of control;
risks in exploring for and producing gas; new gas development projects and
exploration for gas in areas where we have little or no proven gas reserves;
the disruption of pipeline systems which deliver our gas; the availability of
field services, equipment and personnel for drilling and producing gas;
replacing our natural gas reserves which if not replaced will cause our gas
reserves and gas production to decline; costs associated with perfecting title
for gas rights in some of our properties; location of a vast majority of our
gas producing properties in three counties in southwestern Virginia, making us
vulnerable to risks associated with having our gas production concentrated in
one area; other persons could have ownership rights in our advanced gas
extraction techniques which could force us to cease using those techniques or
pay royalties; our ability to acquire water supplies needed for drilling, or
our ability to dispose of water used or removed from strata at a reasonable
cost and within applicable environmental rules; the coalbeds and other strata
from which we produce methane gas frequently contain impurities that may
hamper production; the enactment of Pennsylvania severance tax on natural gas
may impact results of existing operations and impact the economic viability of
exploiting new gas drilling and production opportunities in Pennsylvania; our
hedging activities may prevent us from benefiting from price increases and may
expose us to other risks; and other factors discussed in our Annual Report on
Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2008 under "Risk Factors," as
updated by any subsequent Form 10-Qs, which are on file at the Securities and
Exchange Commission.

About The AES Corporation

The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES) is a global power company with generation and
distribution businesses. Through our diverse portfolio of thermal and
renewable fuel sources, we safely provide affordable and sustainable energy to
29 countries. Our workforce of 25,000 people is committed to operational
excellence and meeting the world's changing power needs. Our 2008 revenues
were $16 billion and we manage more than $35 billion in total assets. To learn
more, please visit www.aes.com.

Safe Harbor Disclosure

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of
the Securities Act of 1933 and of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such
forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those related to
future earnings, growth and financial and operating performance.
Forward-looking statements are not intended to be a guarantee of future
results, but instead constitute AES's current expectations based on reasonable
assumptions. Forecasted financial information is based on certain material
assumptions. These assumptions include, but are not limited to, our accurate
projections of future interest rates, commodity price and foreign currency
pricing, continued normal levels of operating performance and electricity
volume at our distribution companies and operational performance at our
generation businesses consistent with historical levels, as well as
achievements of planned productivity improvements and incremental growth
investments at normalized investment levels and rates of return consistent
with prior experience.

Actual results could differ materially from those projected in our
forward-looking statements due to risks, uncertainties and other factors.
Important factors that could affect actual results are discussed in AES's
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not
limited to, the risks discussed under Item 1A "Risk Factors" in AES's 2008
Annual Report on Form 10-K. Readers are encouraged to read AES's filings to
learn more about the risk factors associated with AES's business. AES
undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements,
whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE CONSOL Energy Inc.

Joseph Cerenzia, CONSOL Energy Inc., +1-724-485-4062; or Meghan Dotter, AES,
+1-703-682-6670