U.S., U.K To Fund Canadian Clean-Coal Research

The coalition's long-term goal is to develop and commercialize new technology that will virtually eliminate air emissions, including carbon dioxide - one of the so-called greenhouse gases that the Kyoto protocol seeks to reduce.

The California-based Electric Power Research Institute and the International Energy Agency will each contribute $238,000 over three years as full participants in a feasibility study being conducted for the project.

The Canadian coalition expects to select the technology for the "clean coal" plant by next year, retrofit a power plant and operate it as a full-scale demonstration facility.

A new prototype plant using the technology is expected to be built and operating by 2010. The coalition is backed by seven companies - Atco Power, Epcor, Luscar, Nova Scotia Power, Ontario Power Generation, SaskPower and TransAlta - that account for 90 per cent of Canada's coal-fuelled electricity production.

The coalition also gets funding from the Alberta Energy Research Institute and the Alberta, Saskatchewan and federal governments.

Although coal is a cheap and plentiful fuel, it also produces high emission levels, compared with other fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas.