Friday, February 22, 2008 8:19 PM CST
Coal company set to establish local office
Planned project near Oakland will mine coal for fuel plant
By ROB STROUD, Staff Writer
rstroud@jg-tc.com
OAKLAND — The developer of a planned coal-based fuel plant and mine near Oakland has signed a lease for an office near the town square.
Project engineering manager George Besch said he and a computer technician will start working sometime this spring out of the field office at 26. E. Main St., a former dentist’s office. Besch, a Charleston resident, said the lease will become active March 1, but it will take at least a month to get the office ready for use.
“The front door will be open if you would like to see us,” Besch said.
According to Besch, the office will also provide a place for the project’s consultants and contractors to work while they are in Oakland. In addition, he said work space will be set aside for the Embarras Valley Coal Association.
American Clean Coal Fuels, based in Portland, Ore., plans to mine the association’s coal to supply a coal-to-synthetic transportation fuel plant. Besch said this facility will be developed under the name of Illinois Clean Fuels LLC, which was recently formed.
Besch said the coal association was instrumental in helping American Clean Coal Fuels create an aerial map of the 61,000 acres of association land in Coles, Douglas and Edgar counties. He said this map will be essential as the company creates digital models for its project.
Association Chairman Joe McCoskey said the group also will provide access for the company to gather additional geological information by drilling later this year at various sites.
“We are eager and raring to go,” McCoskey said of the project.
American Clean Coal Fuels Director Stephen Johnson said the company will start developing detailed engineering work for the plant in about two months. He said the company also will soon begin the estimated 18-month process of obtaining state permits for the plant and mine. He said the location for the facilities is being finalized.
“I think in short order we will have full financing for all the work that needs to be done over the next two years,” Johnson said. Once the engineering work is completed, he said, additional private financing for construction can be secured fairly easily.
Coal association member Jim Miller said after seeing the FutureGen project’s federal funding jeopardized, he is thankful that the Oakland coal project is going to be privately funded. He said the federal government is not doing enough to offset the United States’ dependence on foreign oil.
“I am an absolute believer that this is the future,” Miller said of American Clean Coal Fuels’ plans.
American Clean Coal Fuel’s facility is expected to process about 4.3 million tons of coal per year into 400 million gallons of biodegradable synthetic transportation fuel. The facility is slated to use gasification technology and to sequester the resulting carbon dioxide, much like FutureGen.
Johnson said the plan is for the facility to start off producing transportation fuel that is composed of 25-percent plant-based biomass and steadily increase the percentage over time. He said the goal is to eventually create carbon neutral transportation fuel.
“We use coal as a bridge that allows us to economically make the transition to a sustainable fuel source,” Johnson said.
For more information on American Clean Coal Fuels, visit www.cleancoalfuels.com.
Contact Rob Stroud at rstroud@jg-tc.com or 348-5734.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
