Banking that coal power plants will come under legal and financial pressure to reduce emissions as part of efforts to reduce global warming, the pilot facility captures and stores around 100,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from West Virginia's Mountaineer plant.

The unit can handle only a fraction of Mountaineer's 1,300 megawatt capacity, burying the captured carbon dioxide 2.1 kilometers (7200 feet) underground.

But Alstom says the same technology could be scaled up and attached to any modern coal plant, limiting emissions and, if carbon taxes are introduced as part of eventual climate change legislation, saving the plant's owners money.

"Mountaineer is the first example of carbon capture that you can feel and touch. It works," said the head of Alstom's power division, Philippe Joubert.

"What we are able to prove now, for the people who want to hear, is that the technology is here, there is no longer any doubt," Joubert told AFP.

The power plant's owner, American Electric Power -- which is part- financing the unit with Alstom -- says carbon dioxide emissions are blocked from entering the atmosphere, liquefied and pumped into an underground aquifer at a rate of 5.5. metric tonnes per hour.

Alstom aims to have a full-scale commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility operational by 2015.

"There is no reason why a coal plant would be without CCS," said Joubert, adding that the major emerging markets of India and China, both significant coal users, would be one of the firm's target markets.

"We know that we are going to double the number of (power) plants in the world from now until 2030, mostly from coal and most of this growth will be in Asia," he said.

According to the International Energy Agency, in 2006 coal accounted for 25 percent of the world's energy needs. Many expect that figure to grow.

In West Virginia, a state that is dotted with decades-old coal mines, local officials hope the technology will help save jobs in an industry seen as a major cause of global warming.

"Coal is going to be needed for the transition to fuel the future," said West Virginia governor Joe Manchin at a Mountaineer ribbon-cutting ceremony.

"That is not going to come soon, but it will come eventually, maybe 30-plus years from now, as we do that we have to have a responsibility to do it better."

Critics say the technology simply extends the life of an industry that produces more of the so-called "greenhouse gas" emissions that contribute to global warming than other fuel and causes large-scale environmental damage to areas where the coal is mined.

They also argue it will drain funding for energy conservation projects or research into renewable fuels.

The Sierra Club, an environmental pressure group, said it was not opposed to carbon capture, but, according to the of West Virginia chapter's Jim Kotcon, there is a need to "assure that it is done safely and is properly monitored."

The Sierra Club warned that pumping West Virginia aquifers full of liquid carbon dioxide may lead to increased seismic activity and could affect the quality of local water.

There are also questions about the cost of the technology.

Alstom believes that an ideal capture and storage unit would handle 250 megawatts of output, or a fifth Mountaineer's current capacity, but today the price tag for such a facility today would be around 670 million according to the firm's most recent estimates.

Despite the costs, the technology has prompted interest in Washington.

The administration of President Barack Obama in its recent 787- billion-dollar stimulus announced over three billion dollars of that money would go to developing carbon capture and storage technologies.

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