The study highlighted that the US has enough coal reserves to support 100 GW of new electricity generation capacity.

Chairman of the National Coal Council, Thomas G. Kraemer, said: "We have a vast supply of domestic coal resources to meet soaring energy needs while improving energy security, lowering costs and maintaining the US economy."
According to the study, the US Energy Information Administration projects that energy consumption will increase 27 per cent through 2030 and while coal is an abundant source, the challenge will be in developing cost effective clean coal technology.
If the US was to develop 100 GW of new clean coal generation capacity by 2025, it would mean that coal would satisfy more than 60 per cent of the expected increase in electricity generating capacity by using an additional 375 million tonnes of coal per year.
The National Coal Council revealed its findings as the IGCC partnership between GE Energy and Bechtel announced that it had signed an agreement with Cinergy/PSI to proceed with preliminary engineering and design work for a proposed 600 MW power plant in Indiana that will use integrated gasification combined cycle technology.
The front-end engineering design phase of the project is expected to take approximately one year to complete and will result in site-specific data for construction of the plant. A final decision on construction will be made after the engineering and design are complete and regulatory approvals have been received.
PSI Energy, the Indiana operating company of Cinergy, would own and operate the facility, which would be among the first commercial scale IFCC plants to be built in the US in the last ten years
Provided that the IGCC alliance between GE and Bechtel is awarded the contract for the next phase, GE Energy would supply the IGCC technology for the new plant, while Bechtel would be responsible for engineering, procurement and construction.