The Taylorville Energy Center has been approved to receive its final air permit after more than two years of permit and processing activities. The U.S. Appeals Court turned down the Sierra Club’s request the air permit be denied.

The basis for denying the Sierra Club appeal is that the Sierra Club waited too long to voice an objection about the project. The high court decision effectively eliminates the Sierra Clubs sabotage tactics of waiting to the eleventh hour to file a lawsuit and derail thousands of manhours of engineering and millions of dollars of investment.

The air permit now provides a clear path for Taylorville Project to move forward. The project is a commercial scale IGCC facility in Taylorville, Illinois that will gasify coal and produce 630 Megawatts of power for the surrounding communities. The coal gasification process is environmentally friendly. It makes it possible to remove the sulfur from the syngas and therefore the high sulfur coal in the area can be used as a feedstock. The sulfur removal is expected to have an efficiency greater than 99.8%. In addition, mercury, particulates and nitrous oxides will also be removed.