Company Plans $1 Billion Clean Fuels Plant In W.Va.

A Colorado company plans to build a $1 billion coal-to-liquid fuel plant in southern West Virginia to take advantage of the area’s abundance of coal and mining infrastructure. Rentech, Inc. and the public Mingo County Redevelopment Authority announced recently a joint development agreement that aims to build a plant that would employ up to 400 full-time workers by 2012. The proposed plant would convert synthesis gas, a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide produced from coal, into 3 million to 9 million barrels of clean-burning transportation fuel per year, the redevelopment authority said. Construction of the plant could take three to four years.