GE executive: New uses for Wyo. coal possible

By MEAD GRUVER

CHEYENNE, Wyo.

A $100 million facility that will experiment with turning coal into gas could open up a range of new uses for Wyoming coal, a General Electric executive said.

Research at the High Plains Gasification-Advanced Technology Center will focus on turning Wyoming coal into a gas similar to natural gas. The gas could then be burned to produce power that's cleaner than when coal is burned directly.

The gas also could be used to make other products.

"We can turn it into fuels, we can turn it into plastics, we can turn it into natural gas, we can turn it into all sorts of things," Keith White, GE's director of gasification products, said Thursday in Cheyenne.

The only question, he said, is whether those things will be economical.

Construction of the High Plains Gasification-Advanced Technology Center in Cheyenne is expected to begin next year and finish in late 2012. The facility is a joint project of GE and the University of Wyoming. They will split the cost.

The Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana produces more coal than any other U.S. region. Wyoming produces more coal than any other state and coal drives a large portion of the state's economy.

As a result, Wyoming has an interest in supporting coal amid global pressure to address climate change by relying less on coal-fired power plants to generate electricity.

Powder River Basin coal has low sulfur and is less polluting than other coals. But while coal-to-gas technology has been thoroughly proven, Powder River Basin coal has high moisture, making it difficult to turn into gas, White said at a luncheon hosted by a local economic development group.

Usually the coal-to-gas process involves adding water to coal. The Cheyenne facility will attempt coal-to-gas without adding water.

"When we talk about pumping solids around, that's a challenge," he said.

Doing other things with coal besides burning it isn't anything new. Coal-to-diesel technology has been around almost 100 years.

Yet even that process has inspired hundreds of patents a year lately, said Bill Gern, the university's vice president for research and economic development.

"What is old is new again," he said.