J-Power Electric Power Development Company and Kansai Electric Power Company are the latest international utilities to express interest in the Kemper Clean Coal Plant and recently, representatives from both companines took a tour of the facility.

Tim Pinkston, Southern Company’s general manager of gasification technology, and Lee Youngblood, Kemper County energy facility communications manager, led Daisuke Matsushita, Yuji Yamamoto, and Akira Kawabe on an in-depth dive into the Kemper plant’s unique technology, as well as a walking tour of Kemper’s  gasification and acid gas removal areas.

Lee Youngblood stated “This is yet another example of the international interest and international implications of this multi-faceted energy project. Just in the past year to two years, we’ve hosted more than 40 national and international groups who’ve requested to see this facility, including energy leaders, public officials, business leaders and media representatives who are interested in Kemper’s unique lignite gasification technology, its carbon capture capability, or both.”

Just last month Southern Company and KBR, LLC, who jointly developed Kemper’s gasification technology, signed a letter of intent with South Korea’s Alps Energy geared toward deployment of Kemper’s gasification technology within that country’s Saemangeum Industry & Research Area.

This is the sixth international agreement signed between Southern Company and an international entity regarding the potential utilization of Southern and KBR’s patented TRIG gasification process.

Tim Pinkston stated “Although J-Power and Kansai’s visit is not to discuss any sort of agreement, we do feel it’s very important to accommodate these requests and build upon our international relationships. Supplying clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy solutions is truly a global challenge. This project is capable of producing much cleaner energy from coal, the world’s most abundant fossil fuel, and that’s why the world’s energy leaders are watching the Kemper project very closely.”