The successful site will also be home to a visitor center as well as research and training facilities.

“Among the factors that resulted in the selection of the Morgan County site are its high-quality geology, which is well suited for safe and secure long-term storage of CO2, and its close proximity to the Meredosia power plant, which simplifies pipeline routing and substantially reduces the project's overall cost,” the group said last week.

“Further, there has been a strong show of support from community business and elected leaders, as well as significant support from directly affected landowners.”

Alliance chief executive officer Kenneth Humphreys said the alliance wanted to choose the location which best supported its overall mission in the most cost-effective manner.

“This project will put Morgan County and Illinois on the global map as a center of clean energy technology," he said, noting that the capital investment will offer the region an economic boost while also bringing more than 1000 construction jobs and another 1000 service sector jobs.

With the site selected, the FutureGen Alliance is planning to conduct further geologic characterization over the US summer. Should any issues arise regarding the technical, legal, or public acceptability of the preferred site, the Christian and Douglas County sites are on retainer as alternative sites for the project.

FutureGen 2.0 has a total price tag of $US1.3 billion, $1 billion of which has been committed in federal funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It is a smaller version of the original FutureGen project planned for Mattoon, Illinois, which was shelved last year.