Indiana Gasification’s emissions permit to develop a USD$2.9billion substitute natural gas plant has been sent to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for final approval. The permit was forwarded on to the EPA after the Indiana State Department of Environmental Management sign off on the application at the beginning of May.
The plant will release a fraction of the emissions that a coal-burning plant puts into the atmosphere and the captured and liquified CO2 created will be carried by pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico for use in oil production. Treating CO2 as a product as opposed to an emission is an important factor of the new plant that many are hoping will be seen as a prototype to be replicated in other environments.