Hiroyuki Kachi | June 12, 2009 Article from: Dow Jones Newswires...

Hiroyuki Kachi | June 12, 2009
Article from: Dow Jones Newswires
MITSUBISHI Heavy Industries today said it was in talks for a coal-fired power generation plant using clean-coal technology in Australia, with an entity affiliated to the Queensland government.

The comment came after the Nikkei reported in this morning’s edition that the Japanese heavy machinery maker was close to securing a deal to build the world's first large-scale coal gasification power plant in Queensland.

The total orders from the project are estimated at 200 billion yen ($2.5bn) and the facility is slated to start operating in 2015, Nikkei reported.

But a Mitsubishi Heavy spokesman said the company had not signed any contract and no decision had been made.

Coal gasification is a process that converts solid coal into a gas that then may be used to generate electricity.

The plant would also employ carbon-capture and sequestration techniques, whereby carbon dioxide is stored in rock formations to prevent it from entering the atmosphere and adding to global warming.