MOMENT OF TRUTH U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY TO ISSUE FINAL DETERMINATION ON PA.WASTE COAL-TO-LIQUID FUELS PROJECT

WMPI PTY anticipates DOE to release $100 million loan for waste coal to liquids project.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

January 11, 2008

GILBERTON, PA: As the nation clamors for independence from overseas oil and relief from motor fuel prices that are more than $3 per gallon and climbing, the developer of a waste coal-to-liquid fuel project planned for Pennsylvania anticipates the release of a $100 million federal loan for the proposed facility within the next two weeks.

In the meantime the U.S. Department of Energy is reviewing the project and is scheduled to make a decision as to its involvement in the effort. DOE has backed this waste coal to clean fuels project since late 2000.

Under the CCPI solicitation, DOE proposed sharing one-tenth of the cost of constructing the facility with the developer, John W. Rich Jr., president of WMPI PTY, LLC. The plant is the first of its kind in coal-rich Pennsylvania and the United States.

"With oil at $100 per barrel and the country heading into a possible recession, the Department of Energy's timing for this cost share award could not be more meaningful," Rich said. "Hopefully, with continued support from the DOE we can conclude the financing on the plant that will not only produce fuel that is cleaner, has fewer greenhouse gasses, is safer, has no particulate when combusted and is significantly cheaper than the foreign oil based products it will be displacing but also create needed jobs."

The plant, to be located on a 75-acre site near the coal-mining town of Gilberton, the heart of Pennsylvania's Anthracite region, would produce electricity and steam as well as liquid fuels from anthracite waste coal.

This is the first waste coal-to-liquid fuel project in the nation that has received local, state and federal permits. It will take three years to build. Construction would provide about 1,000 jobs and the plant itself would employ about 600 primary and secondary workers.

DOE selected this project under the "Clean Coal Power Initiative" solicitation to demonstrate the integration of two technologies: waste coal gasification and the Fischer-Tropsch process of converting syngas into liquid fuels on a commercial scale.

The power plant portion of the project would use the synthesis gas to drive a combustion turbine, and it would use the heat from the exhaust gas from the turbine to generate steam to drive a steam turbine. Both turbines would generate electricity for export.

On a separate track, the Record of Decision which follows the DOE's "Final Environmental Impact Statement," or EIS, which the department published last November in the Federal Register, should be concluded soon. The EIS evaluated potential impacts of the proposed plant on land use, aesthetics, air quality, geology, water resources, floodplains, wetlands, ecological resources, socioeconomic resources, waste management, human health, and noise.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
John W. Rich, Jr.
President of WMPI PTY, LLC
570-874-1602
jwrich@ultracleanfuels.com
www.ultracleanfuels.com