SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Illinois has offered more than $80 million in incentives in hope of landing a billion-dollar power plant that could be the prototype for tomorrow's pollution-free electrical generation, Gov. Rod Blagojevich revealed Tuesday.
The package includes a $17 million grant that could be used for various costs tied to the project known as FutureGen, the Democratic governor said. The money is included in the state's fiscal 2007 budget, he said.
State support also includes an estimated $15 million in sales tax exemptions on materials and equipment through local enterprise zones, as well as $50 million set aside by the Illinois Finance Authority for below-market rate loans to the alliance of energy companies joining the U.S. Energy Department in the project.
Additional property and sales tax abatements would be available at the four Illinois sites - Effingham, Marshall, Mattoon and Tuscola - vying for the project, said Andrew Ross, spokesman for the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity
The four Illinois cities are among a dozen from seven states hoping to attract FutureGen, which would turn coal into a hydrogen-rich gas used to produce electricity or fuel pollution-free vehicles.
The energy companies working with the Energy Department on the project have committed $250 million to the project's development, while the U.S. government would invest about $700 million.
Illinois' incentives, Blagojevich said, are ''another strong statement of why we believe Illinois is the logical choice for this unprecedented initiative.''
''We have the coal, the geology and the strong support on the federal, state and local level for bringing the world's cleanest coal plant to Illinois,'' Blagojevich said in a statement.
Illinois officials said FutureGen will whittle its list of potential sites this summer, then choose a location by the end of 2007. The plant is scheduled to be operational by 2012.
Plans call for the plant to capture at least 90 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions and inject them underground. That process - called sequestration - will test whether the gas can be kept underground indefinitely.
Indiana is backing Illinois' bid to land the plant, while Illinois supports related sequestration projects in Indiana, under an agreement between the two states.