Seven states vie for futuristic power plant

So do other suitors.

Ohio is involved in two proposals. In one it joins with Kentucky and Pennsylvania to create a regional "coal consortium," meaning that if one of those states is a finalist the other two would support that state's bid. The second proposal would locate the plant in either Meigs or Tuscarawas counties in southeast Ohio, rich with recoverable bituminous coal.

Ohio's package of grants, low-interest loans and infrastructure support could total up to $164 million, says Mark Shanahan, chief of the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority, the lead agency in the project.

In Texas, which already has spent $2 million in choosing its two sites for the project, officials are offering $20 million to the FutureGen alliance for use on infrastructure or development.

Lawmakers there also recently passed a law indemnifying the alliance of any legal entanglements arising from the plant's carbon dioxide. As head of the state's FutureGen advisory board, Michael Williams believes that measure "moves Texas significantly ahead in the national competition for FutureGen because no other state has identified a suitable answer to this important question."

Texas has emerged victorious in duels like this before, having outbid Illinois and other states in the 1980s in snatching the super collider, what was to have been a 54-mile underground ring of magnets that would smash protons together.

Though scientists once hoped the $11 billion project would help unlock the secrets of matter and energy, it was just one-fifth complete when Congress pulled the plug on it in 1993 at a cost to taxpayers of $2 billion.

Texas had pledged $1 billion to that effort, which promised a payoff of 4,500 construction and 2,500 permanent jobs.

In bidding for FutureGen, West Virginia is offering 387 acres of state land for the site it has in play.

Wyoming is pitching more than $30 million in incentives — including sales and use tax exemptions — while providing 640 acres of land worth about $900,000.

In addition, Wyoming's proposal notes that C02 produced by the plant could be sold to oil companies that inject it underground to force more oil out of the ground.

North Dakota has not publicly revealed any of its enticements, and messages left with several agencies and officials involved in that recruitment effort went unreturned.

Kentucky's bid includes 215 acres of free land in Henderson County _ near an active coal mine and the confluence of the Green and Ohio rivers _ and $2.4 million in incentives.

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