Awards Slated for Clean Coal Projects

The Energy Department said Thursday that it planned to award $540 million to 13 companies to help finance “showcase” ventures in 10 states to develop ways of burning coal with fewer emissions of harmful gases.

The proposed awards, which include three California firms, are part of the department’s “clean coal technology” program, a $5-billion, five-year effort to make coal-burning power plants less polluting and more efficient.

“The technologies to be field-tested by these flagship projects represent environmentally superior ways to use U.S. coal,” said Energy Secretary James D. Watkins in announcing the selections. “They are this country’s best hope for using its most abundant energy resource, coal, while preserving . . . our environment.”

The actual awards of federal money for the ventures are subject to the completion of agreements with the firms involved. Watkins said the negotiations would be completed by December, 1990. The 13 projects were selected from among 48 submitted last August.