With a $1 billion budget supplied by the US Department of Energy, FirstGen is out to build the next generation of Coal Fired Power Plant that promises to have near-zero emissions. The first plant is designed to run on a 275MW capacity and will be available by 2012.
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GE has been able to develop a procedure which will make development of Solid-Oxide fuel cells that uses gasified coal as a hydrogen fuel source economically viable. The main stumbling block of this technology has always been the high cost of production of the fuel cell.

The technology touts a 50% energy efficiency of energy conversion, compared to conventional power plants 35%.
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This article is part two in a series that explains into deeper detail China’s plans to leverage their Coal supplies to fuel their energy needs, fight pollution (via gasification) and ween themselves off of foreign oil by converting coal to fuel via liquefaction.

Problems they face during the conversion of existing coal power plants to cleaner burning gasification plants is the steep price in upgrading existing coal fired power plants.

Article here from Technology Review

Great article from MIT’s Technology Review that expounds on China’s energy future that is heavily dependent on their coal reserves. China owns 13% of the worlds known coal reserves. To feed its energy requirement for the future, they are looking at technology to convert their coal to oil via direct liquefaction. Also known as the process invented by Berguis’s which is similar in goal to Fischer-Tropsch but more complicated yet having more fuel yield per ton of coal processed. This in effect could reduce China’s dependence on foreign oil. Their first porcessing plant is expected to be online by 2007.
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