China Huaneng plans clean-coal export to U.S.

State-owned power developer China Huaneng Group said it signed an agreement to export its clean coal technology to a 150-megawatt power plant in Pennsylvania.

The agreement calls for China Huaneng's subsidiary Xi'an Thermal Power Research Institute to supply Houston, Texas-based Future Fuels with a two-stage pulverized coal pressure gasification technology. The technology is expected to be incorporated in Future Fuel's 150 MW integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant to be built in 2010 in Schuylkill County, Penn.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Immersive Media has invested $5 million in convertible senior debt for the Schuykill plant, being built by Future Fuels subsidiary Future Power.

The technology can reduce the carbon dioxide emitted from a standard coal-fired power plant, but many in the industry take issue with calling the technology 'clean' because of its environmental cost.

Future Fuels is planning a $1.5 billion clean-coal project for southeastern Kentucky and is undergoing a market syudy for another plant in Wyoming.

China has focused on reducing the emissions from its coal plants by replacing old plants with newer, more efficient models. Those upgrades have reduced the coal needed to produce a kilowatt-hour of electricity from 370 grams in 2005 to 349 grams in 2008 (see China to close 31GW of coal power plants). Some new technologies promise 1 kWh for just 283
grams of coal.

China Huaneng has collaborated with St. Louis, Mo.-based Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) on the GreenGen project in China, a near-zero emissions coal-fueled IGCC power plant in Tianjin, southeast of Beijing (see Peabody joins China's GreenGen clean coal project).

Huaneng is also a member of the FutureGen Alliance, a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop and site a 275 MW technology prototype that also would achieve near-zero emissions with carbon capture and storage (see FutureGen to build plant in Mattoon, Ill.).

Huaneng plans to increase its generating capacity in 2010 to 80 GW, representing 10 percent of the national energy supply. 

In October, the company signed a RMB 5 billion ($735 million) deal to construct a 500 MW wind farm in eastern Inner Mongolia by 2010 (see China plans 2.4GW wind power projects). Huaneng is also one of 50 companies to submit bids for a 10 MW solar power station in Dunhuang, Gansu province, China (see Suntech among 50 global bids for solar project in China).