Rio Tinto Energy America works diligently to minimize the environmental impacts associated with mining coal. The Company devotes additional resources to focus on product stewardship - minimizing the impacts from burning coal. For example, Rio Tinto Energy and Rio Tinto Energy America are part of a coalition of coal mining and utility companies to participate in the “FutureGen” project, a $1 billion public-private partnership to build the first near zero-emissions coal fueled power plant.  The FutureGen Alliance, an industry consortium of which Rio Tinto is a founding member, is assuming 26 percent of that cost over 10 years under Federal cost sharing rules. 

FutureGen will develop and demonstrate technologies for gasification of different ranks of coal, electricity and hydrogen production, integrated with capture, storage and monitoring of carbon dioxide emissions from coal gasification. The project will be a nominal 275 MW coal gasification plant using a state of the art gasification technology which will demonstrate sequestration and effective long term storage of CO2 and effective H2 separation. Although CO2 underground injection is standard practice in underground oil and gas recovery, this project will demonstrate CO2 storage in deep saline formations, which have the greatest storage potential in the U.S. and worldwide. The project envisions a five year construction followed by a five year demonstration. Startup is planned for 2012.

Coal Gasification