Duke Energy is working on a $3 billion public-private service
initiative: converting a 160 megawatt coal plant into a 618
megawatt coal gasification plant that would scrub toxins before
leaving its smokestack. Set to materialize in September in
Indiana, the initiative is seen as coal's last hope to clean up
its CO2 emissions and compete with natural gas. The President of
the company, Dough Esamann, is confident that the project will
be the lowest cost energy unit on the system as he will explain
in more detail next month at the EnergyBiz Leadership. The
company will retire 3,000 megawatts of coal units, replacing
them mostly with modern combined cycle gasification. SEE OTHER
TOP STORIES IN THE ENERGY DIGITAL CONTENT NETWORK While coal-
fired generation is still an important source of energy in the
U.S., the majority of the plants built in the mid 20th century
are well past their prime. The roughly 540 coal plants existing
in the U.S. today account for almost half of the country's total
electricity generation a