U.S. pushes clean coal effort

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. Energy Department said it is looking to spend up to $340 million on new technologies for generating clean coal power.

The Clean Coal Power Initiative is aimed at accelerating "the commercial deployment of advanced coal technologies to help supply the United States with clean, abundant, and affordable energy," the agency said Monday in a release.

"The solicitation contemplates cooperative agreements between the Government and industry to demonstrate, at commercial scale, new technologies that capture carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-fired power plants and either sequester the CO2 or put it to beneficial use," the agency said.