It’s considered the “power plant of the future” — so cutting-edge, in fact, that the technology doesn’t currently exist to construct it.

The plant wouldn’t spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and would turn other potentially harmful byproducts into usable materials.

And some state leaders want the $1 billion project built in Kansas.

“It would be building a state-of-the-art power plant, or really more than state of the art,” said Lee Allison, state geologist and director of the Kansas Geological Survey, based at Kansas University. “It would be good for the environment and good for the economy.”

As chairman of the State Energy Resources Coordination Council, Allison is planning to appoint a task force to create a formal proposal to lure the plant to Kansas.

Dubbed FutureGen, the project was announced in February 2003 by the U.S. Department of Energy. The department has earmarked $800 million for the project and expects another $200 million to come from utility or state sources. The initiative is part of President Bush’s efforts to address global warming issues.

New science

The technology behind the plant has been tested preliminarily but never used on a large-scale basis, Allison said.

It involves creating a gas version of coal to separate the pure carbon from other impurities, then burning the pure carbon to create electricity. The byproducts, which include carbon dioxide and hydrogen, would be trapped instead of released into the atmosphere. The byproducts could be useful to Kansans, Allison said.

Steam pours from smokestacks at the Lawrence Energy Center north of the city. A new generation of technology for coal-fired energy plants would eliminate carbon dioxide and hydrogen emissions into the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is being pumped into oil reservoirs near Russell in an effort to increase oil production. If the process is successful, it could be expanded to other areas, creating a market for carbon dioxide.

If the Energy Department is someday successful in establishing a “hydrogen economy,” in which hydrogen replaces petroleum as the basis for vehicle fuels, the hydrogen also could be marketed.

Several other states already have made proposals to the Energy Department, which plans to make a decision in 2005. Texas has earmarked $10 million toward its efforts to compete for the project, and West Virginia already has identified six potential sites for its location. Leaders in Illinois and Wyoming also have discussed proposals.

Legislative push

State Rep. Tom Sloan, a Lawrence Republican who serves on the House Utilities Committee, said he thought the project using carbon dioxide to increase oil production could make Kansas a contender.

U.S. Department of Energy: FutureGen FutureGen fact sheet (pdf) 2004 State Energy Plan (pdf) Kansas State Energy Resources Coordination Council

“It’s going to be very competitive, but Kansas has a legitimate opportunity,” he said. “This has great potential for the state of Kansas to reaffirm our leadership in technology that benefits people.”

Sloan said it was too early to know whether the state could provide funding for the project but said he expected the state to make a coordination effort among government, economic development and utility entities.

“From the state’s perspective, we’d be bringing in federal dollars to help build a power plant that would be in operation 30 or 40 years,” he said. “We’d be creating jobs for the community that gets it. It’d be an economic boom for initial construction and ongoing purchases made by the plant.”

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, who represents much of western Kansas, where the plant likely would be located, said the congressman was traveling Friday and unavailable for comment. She said Moran’s staff hadn’t investigated the issue.

Spokeswomen for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore each said they supported the concept of the plant, though they said their staffs hadn’t done enough research to comment on it.

Utility support

The proposal also has the blessing of Westar Energy, the state’s largest utility, which probably would need to be a partner for the plan to proceed. Spokeswoman Karla Olsen said 81 percent of Westar’s electricity was generated by coal, compared with 5 percent produced using natural gas. The remaining 14 percent comes from uranium at the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant near Burlington.

“We’re aware of the efforts, and we support them,” Olsen said. “I suspect most utilities that use coal in power plants would like more environmentally friendly methods and to work with the DOE on the project.”

But the proposal isn’t likely to go without opposition.

Charles Benjamin, attorney for Kansas Sierra Club, said he’d prefer the state work on developing wind energy, noting Kansas was identified as the No. 1 state for potential wind energy in a recent national survey.

Benjamin said he’d rather the state figure out how to get wind power from western Kansas to consumers elsewhere.

“We’d like to see the state putting resources into solving the transmission line issue, and getting wind energy to the rest of the state and to other states,” he said. “You’re using an unlimited resource.”