A spokesman for Centrica said building work could start in 2009, with a start up as early as 2012.

Clean coal technology combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is seen as a quick fix for slashing the carbon emissions widely thought to cause climate change.

The prospect of being able to bury most of the harmful emissions from coal-fired power plants, combined with a surge in the cost of alternative fuels like gas, has led to a resurgence in coal's popularity amongst power generators.

Centrica is the latest utility to announce its clean coal ambitions for the UK.

German energy giant E.ON announced plans in May to build a CCS plant next to its gas-fired power station at Killingholme, while RWE npower said in September it was looking into whether CCS technology could be used at its Tilbury power plant near London from 2016.

But while the energy industry trumpets the climate-change combating credentials of their various CCS proposals, doubts linger over their financial viability.

Much still depends on government support for the technology and the long-term cost of carbon emissions.

E.ON said its project would only go ahead with backing from the government, while RWE and Centrica's projects are also subject to carbon emissions prices and support for clean coal.

CLEAN COAL CLAIMS

Centrica said its new plant would be cleaner than those proposed by its rivals.

"If built it would be the lowest emitting coal-fired plant in the UK," the company spokesman said.

Centrica has teamed up with clean coal power plant developer Progressive Energy to develop a plant in Teesside, northeast England, which will combine gasification technology to produce synthetic gas from coal, and capture and store the carbon byproduct under the North Sea.

One of the options being considered is pumping the CO2 gas into deposits under the North Sea to help push more oil out of the UK's ageing oilfields.

Centrica is to take an 85 percent stake in a joint venture with Progressive, called Coastal Energy. After the two-year development phase, Centrica will have the option to buy the remaining shares in Coastal Energy before building work begins.

It will also take a 55 percent stake in CO2 pipeline and storage joint venture Coots which, subject to further financing, would dispose of the Teesside power plant's emissions in the North Sea, the company spokesman said.