States submit proposals to host coal-fired FurtureGen plant

States submit proposals to host coal-fired FutureGen plant

Washington (Platts)--5May2006

The deadline for states to submit proposals for the nation's first
emissions-free coal-fired power plant arrived Thursday with at least seven
states competing for the $1 billion, 275-MW FutureGen project.

All of the submissions will be sorted by Battelle, a member of the FutureGen
Alliance, Fredrick Palmer, external relations committee chair for alliance,
told Platts. "Once all the submissions have been reviewed, the alliance and
the Department of Energy will announce the list of bidders at the Federal
Carbon Capture and Storage Conference in Washington on Tuesday."

States that have submitted proposals include Illinois, Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Kentucky, Wyoming and West Virginia.

Some of those same states have signed agreements with other states eager to
double their chances of landing the project. One such partnership hoping to
cash in on the strength of their collective coal experience and resources is
Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

"Under this partnership all three states would benefit," Kurt Knauss,
spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environment, told Platts
Thursday. "If a site is selected, all of our coal resources would be used and
[state] universities would have access to the plant for research.

"We tried to create an incentive for the federal government to look to our
region, the valuable resources we have. Our argument is, if you select one
state, you only get that state's resources, but by putting our three states
together, you get more resources for the project," Knauss said.

Pennsylvania didn't submit its own FutureGen proposal because it is already in
a partnership with the federal government for a $400 million waste-coal plant.

Ohio submitted two separate proposals for consideration -- one in Tuscarawas
County and the other in Meigs County. Kentucky submitted a minemouth site in
Henderson County.

Illinois submitted four sites in Effingham, Marshall, Mattoon and Tuscola
counties. Indiana didn't submit its own site but partnered with Illinois.
Wyoming proposed a site in Gillette, while West Virginia's site is north of
Point Pleasant. Texas offered sites in Odessa and Jewett.

"DOE and the alliance will evaluate and rank each proposal and come up with a
short list of possible sites sometime in the summer, and DOE will start the
environmental impact statement based on that short list," Melissa McHenry,
spokeswoman for American Electric Power, told Platts. AEP is also a member of
the alliance. "It could take up to a year, maybe mid-2007 before we have a
final site."

Neither Palmer nor McHenry would confirm the states that submitted proposals.

-- Regina Johnson regina_johnson@platts.com

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