According to the company officials, the 100MW combined cycle plant will use a technology that will not require coal to be mined. It can harness the energy content of coal and the coal would be transformed into gas underground.
As reported, the entire process could cost $280m and the company is planning to built the power plant with private financing.
The project involves drilling wells into buried coal seams and injecting compressed air into the wells. That would cause the coal to combust and create gas, which would be converted into electricity at the power plant.
If the project is feasible and wins regulatory approval, CIRI is expected to start gas production by 2014. The underground coal gasification (UCG) power plant is said to capture carbon-based greenhouse gases.
