WY: Western Coal - Booming Energy Search?

GILLETTE, WY - JUNE 12: A KFx company executive shows off a handful of the company's K-Fuel or "clean coal," an upgraded coal produced with nearby Powder River Basin coal and under high heat and pressure extracting moisture and toxic pollutants before shipping it to public utilities, June 12, 2006, in Gillette, Wyoming. The $80 million USD northeastern Wyoming project came on line in early 2006 with its first test burn of Powder River Basin coal in March, 2006. K-Fuel is described by KFx as the "unleaded gasoline" equivalent for the coal-fired industry. The company takes low-grade coal, removes 80% of the moisture, increases BTU (heat content) per pound by 30% to 40%, and reduces mercury content by 70% (the element that is credited with fouling water around the world). Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides will also be removed by 30%. The KFx facility, using 8300 BTU coal, will produce annually 750,000 tons of 11,000 BTU coal using the Lurgi Mark 4 process, a modified 50 year-old German engineering procedure (the equivalent eastern Appalachian coal is 11,000 BTU). KFx has an agreement with Kiewit Coal Company to construct a ten unit plant in Gillette and with Arch Coal at Coal Creek for a twenty unit facility within 2 1/2 years. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)