Sep. 19--An effort by some of the world's largest coal producers and electric utilities to develop the first zero emissions coal-burning power plant is headed by a Consol Energy Inc. veteran.

Steve Winberg earlier this month was elected chairman of FutureGen Industrial Alliance Inc., a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 following then-President George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech, which targeted $1 billion in funding for the FutureGen program.

"Consol was a charter member in the alliance and, since the alliance is structured as a nonprofit organization, all the revenue streams it will generate, all the revenue from its intellectual property will flow back into the program," said Winberg, a nuclear engineer by trade who's been involved with fossil fuels since 1978.

The plant when constructed will provide a platform, a base for the numerous companies working on a myriad of coal-fuel technologies, and will demonstrate carbon capture and sequestration in a commercial-size facility.

Carbon sequestration is burying liquified carbon dioxide in spent, underground oil, natural gas and salt reservoirs.

Since its founding more than five years ago, the FutureGen alliance has undergone a number of member changes, even withstood the Bush administration's withdrawing funding for 15 months for a single, $1.8 billion facility, in favor of a handful of smaller projects.

Only in June, did the alliance and Secretary of Energy Steve Chu formally agree to "reinstate" a single, 275-megawatt plant, to be constructed at Mattoon, a small town about 50 miles south of Champaign, Ill.

"This important step forward for FutureGen reflects this administration's commitment to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution," Chu said, in a statement. "The FutureGen project holds great promise as a flagship facility to demonstrate carbon capture and storage at commercial scale."

Participating private companies in FutureGen each will contribute no less than $20 million over a period of four to six years.

"The FutureGen project certainly will be a topic of discussion at our conference, coal gasification certainly will be discussed, " said Badie Morsi, executive director of the International Pittsburgh Coal Conference, which begins its 26th annual meeting Sunday in Downtown's Westin Convention Center Hotel.

Morsi is director of the Petroleum Engineering Program at the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering.