WV receives federal stimulus money for clean coal technology
December 4, 2009 ·
A West Virginia utility will get a large chunk of federal stimulus money to use on clean coal technology.
American Electric Power
Company is getting $334 million for the carbon capture and sequestration demonstration
project at its Mountaineer Power Plant in New Haven.
The announcement was made
this afternoon during a conference call with Energy Secretary Steven Chu who
said the Federal government doesn’t plan to turn its back on coal.
“What this announcement
today is about is trying to utilize this tremendous energy resource that we
have but utilize it in a much cleaner way,” Chu
said.
Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.)
secured the money for the power company and said coal will remain important to
the state’s prosperity.
“But times have changed and
to keep our momentum in this new era we do need to reduce our carbon emissions
and we need to fight harder push farther and make our case each step of the way
that we can adapt and make coal cleaner,” Rockefeller said.
American Electric Power will
use the money to design, construct, and operate a chilled ammonia process that
is expected to capture at least 90 percent of the carbon dioxide the plant
produces.