The 2004 Annual Report for General Electric mentioned that they were working on coal gasification to feed into a combined cycle power plant (higher efficiency than steam plant; major gains in heat rate for natural gas in going from steam to combined cycle*)

A graph posted here a week ago showed that one could get the same electricty with 21% less coal using this process.  I suspect that coal is getting pricey enough in some markets to justify the extra capital & operating expense (else GE would not be interested).

* Combined cycle burns the natural gas (or coal gas) in the first cousin of a jet engine, generates electricity, then uses the jet exhaust to boil water > steam > steam turbine > more electricity.

Or GE would like to sell a lot of turbines.