Located at the site of the massive 'Schwarze Pumpe' ('Black Pump') power station in eastern Germany, Sweden's Vattenfall said the new technology has the potential to allow coal to be burnt without releasing harmful greenhouse gases.

'Today industrial history is being written,' Vattenfall Europe's chief executive Tuomo Hatakka told a news conference. 'Coal has a future -- but not the carbon dioxide emissions from it.'

The new method being developed by Vattenfall is called Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS, which captures the greenhouse gases produced when fossil fuels are combusted. This prevents the greenhouse gases escaping into the Earth's atmosphere and contributing to global warming. The captured carbon dioxide is compressed until it becomes liquid and then injected deep underground and safely sealed away, Vattenfall says.

In the case of the pilot plant near Spremberg close to the Polish border, the liquid carbon dioxide is taken 350 kilometres in lorries and injected 'for permanent storage' in a gas field in northern Germany. It is the first clean-coal power plant built to a commercial scale.