Luminant, a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings, has applied for membership in the FutureGen Alliance, a public-private partnership formed to build a coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant.

Luminant’s parent company was known as TXU Corp before it was acquired in November 2007. Fulfilling other merger-related commitments, Luminant had previously terminated permits for eight planned coal-fueled generation plants. The company has also applied for membership in the US Climate Action Partnership.

Donald Evans, non-executive chairman of Energy Future, said: The FutureGen project represents the next step in environmentally friendly coal-fueled generation. There are many emerging technologies and FutureGen will take those technologies from promising to commercially viable. Membership in FutureGen demonstrates our strong support for this project and for improving the way we generate power.

The alliance will use new technologies to generate electricity, while capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide deep beneath the earth.