NY to support carbon burial demonstration plant
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The state of New York will grant $6 million for a demonstration coal-burning power plant that would permanently store underground emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
The New York Oxy-Coal Alliance, a consortium of companies, including Foster Wheeler Ltd, AES Corp, and Praxair Inc, the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities hope to build the 50 megawatt plant in western New York.
New York Gov. David Patterson said in a release that the research holds the potential to "give New York firms the ability to launch exports of advanced coal technology to the rest of the world."
The plant is expected to create 28 jobs and retain 33 jobs at an existing Jamestown plant.
The state expects the grant will help the group's design team to stay intact during the time it takes to secure federal funding for development of the proposed plant. Grant notification is expected by the middle of 2009.
Carbon capture and burial from power plants and heavy industry holds promise to play a role in fighting emissions of the main gas blamed for global warming, but is expensive and unproven on a commercial scale. Early this year the U.S. Department of Energy pulled funding for the FutureGen Alliance, a proposed carbon capture and sequestration plant, citing rising costs.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
