Monday's announcement of a proposed coal-to-liquids plant in Marshall County gives local coal miners hope for a solid future, Consol Energy Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer J. Brett Harvey said.

The $800 million investment at the former CSX yard/Blattner Truss Co. property in Benwood means that coal and coal waste from Consol's Shoemaker Mine will directly supply the new coal-to-liquids plant.

And that means continued employment in the local mines.

Miners "see their future," Harvey said. "They're excited. They're tired of having everyone beat up on the business (because of environmental concerns). They're working hard, and they're underappreciated. This is going to take coal to a whole new phase."

The local project is a joint venture between Consol and Houston-based Synthesis Energy Systems Inc. SES has technology known as U-Gas that will gasify coal, with the resulting products being made into methanol for the chemical industry and up to 100 million gallons of 87-octane gasoline annually.

The project is the first in the United State for SES, which also has a working coal-to-liquids plant in China and two others currently under development. Also, SES earlier this month announced plans for a second U.S. plant in Mississippi.

Tim Vail, SES' president and CEO, said his company also has entered into a joint venture with Dallas-based North American Coal Corp., a subsidiary of NACCO Industries Inc. The two companies will conduct a pre-feasibility study to explore the development of a coal-to-liquids facility at North American Coal's Red Hills Mine operations near Ackerman, Miss.

Vail said Monday that ignoring coal as an answer to the nation's energy problems would be "a big mistake." He said an SES coal-to-liquids plant in China is successful and is a sign of what is possible in Marshall County and elsewhere in the U.S.

"It's a tremendous opportunity," Vail said. "We started in China, and we (plan) to take what we've learned and launch it with Consol. Coal needs to be part of the strategy. The technology exists, and it can be done clean with the carbon emissions reduced. It's a huge deal."

Like the facility in Marshall County, the one proposed for Mississippi is expected to produce gasoline, chemical feedstocks and/or synthetic natural gas. Following the completion of the pre-feasibility study, SES and North American Coal will determine if they will engage in a front-end engineering design study to further develop the opportunity.

The local plant already has had its pre-feasibility study completed and is in what is known as the front-end engineering design phase.