A climate change bill gaining steam in Washington doesn't mean instant death for the coal industry, said one local expert, especially in Illinois where developments in clean coal technology have been researched heavily.

John Mead, director of Southern Illinois University Carbondale's Coal Research Center, said the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation that passed successfully out of the U.S. House last week will put pressure on officials to move away from traditional coal-fired power plants in the Midwest, but in some ways it puts Illinois coal back on a level playing field with its counterparts.

Legislation in the mid-1990s to limit emissions of sulfur dioxide hurt Illinois' coal industry because the regional coal supply had a high concentration of sulfur. Carbon and carbon dioxide, or CO2, which is the focus of the current bill, expected to be taken up by the Senate in the near future, is present in all forms of coal.

"The approach that may help Illinois will be the effort to build lower CO2-emission, coal-fired power plants, which I think is a viable option, but that will take the employment of advanced technology and in many cases a long-term effort," Mead said.

Technology will be the key to making coal usable, he added. Research done at SIUC has already been looking at ways to clean the high sulfur content from Illinois. The recent announcement that the zero-carbon emission coal project, FutureGen, was back on track for Mattoon has also given hope to industry officials in recent weeks.

The Waxman-Markey bill was a narrow victory in the House, but it didn't carry the support of Southern Illinois U.S. Reps. Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, or John Shimkus, R-Collinsville. Both legislators panned the bill as a tax on energy that would hurt industry and consumers.

How Illinois' two Democratic senators, Dick Durbin and Roland Burris, will vote on the measure in the Senate remains unclear.

A spokeswoman for Burris said Monday the senator is generally supportive of President Barack Obama's energy plan but had not seen the full bill to make a comment.

Sen. Durbin was unavailable for comment; his spokespeople did not respond to a request for a statement Monday by deadline.

caleb.hale@thesouthern.com

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