HELENA -- Environmentalists in Montana and Wyoming are divided over efforts in both states to attract cleaner coal plants, with one Montana group vowing to fight efforts here while a prominent Wyoming group supports cleaner coal.

The divide among environmentalists is not black-and-white. Some Montana environmental groups also say they can get behind Montana's cleaner coal efforts and one national group has met with Gov. Brian Schweitzer, Montana's leading supporter of the technologies, to endorse the governor's efforts.

Schweitzer called the group opposing his plan -- the Montana Environmental Information Center -- "marginalized.''

"If there was still a phone booth in Helena, they could have their meetings there,'' he said.

But Jeff Barber, a spokesman for the group, said the "cleaner coal'' technology that eliminates coal's global-warming causing pollution is not proven.

"We just don't know yet, if this is a long term solution,'' he said. "I don't now why we're not putting as much energy behind wind development as we are to coal development.''

There are several different cleaner coal technologies under consideration, but the one closest to being used in both Montana and Wyoming is called coal gasification. This process takes regular coal, exposes it to hot steam and either oxygen or air, to break the coal into its gaseous building blocks, like carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

Wyoming's main efforts to attract such a plant are driven by the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, a state board that has spent $200,000 on Washington, D.C. lobbyists to attract federal matching dollars to help the state in its clean coal efforts.

At a recent meeting of authority in Sheridan, Jill Morrison, an organizer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a northeast Wyoming environmental group, stood up and said her group supported the effort and would "help wherever possible.''

Steve Waddington, executive director of Wyoming authority, said he was pleased, but not surprised, the environmental group endorsed Wyoming's efforts.

"We have had meetings with other environmental groups, both at the regional and national level, and we have pretty receptive audiences when we sit down with them,'' he said.

But in Montana, the Montana Environmental Information Center, say they're dubious of one of the main technologies that make coal gasification cleaner than regular coal-burning power plants -- injecting the carbon back under ground.

"We don't know that it stays underground for as long as it needs to stay underground,'' Barber said.

Barber said he's concerned the carbon could seep up, entering the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. He said it makes more sense to dedicate as much time and money pursuing energy technologies that are proven clean, like solar power or wind.

"It doesn't matter what you do with coal, it's still dirty,'' he said. "It's just less dirty. It doesn't make any sense to us why we are going down this path.''

Not all Montana environmentalists agree.

Mark Fix, chairman of the Northern Plains Resource Council, a southeastern Montana environmental group affiliated with the Wyoming environmentalists, said that he, too, would like to see wind and solar power in Montana, but he said he's not totally against coal gasification, either.

"Basically, we want them to (burn coal) the cleanest way they know how,'' he said.

Fix said he'd like to see the nation clean up the coal plants it already has before building new ones and he also questions the necessity of more power, referring to an envisioned "power corridor'' for Las Vegas.

"Is that really a necessity?'' he said.

Still others, like the Natural Resources Defense Council, which recently met with Schweitzer, said coal gasification represents a significant step in a cleaner direction.

"As much as we'd like to think that renewable energy is something that will be able to solve a lot of our energy problems, the reality is that coal will probably be part of the mix,'' said Ebon Burnham-Snyder, an NRDC spokesman in the group's Washington, D.C., office.

Burnham-Snyder said coal gasification -- along with capturing carbon in the process and sequestering it back underground -- can work and should be pursued. He said the nation will need to have rules to make sure the carbon doesn't escape again, but the technology is sound.

"From a technical standpoint, there's not a lot in doubt,'' he said.

Schweitzer said there may be some confusion about what it means to sequester carbon. The gas is injected up to 8,000 feet underground, where the pressure causes the gas to turn into a liquid. Over the course of time, the liquid mineralizes and becomes part of the underground rock.

"Carbon is being sequestered right now across the Rocky Mountain West It's been monitored, there's been no escape,'' he said. "If done properly, there's a 99 percent certainty that the carbon dioxide will stay down there for 1,000 years.''

Schweitzer said he, too, is eager for Montana to adopt standards on carbon re-injection and has bee working with western governors to adopt region-wide standards on dealing with carbon.

Schweitzer said he doesn't think opposition from one environmental group in Montana would dash the state's efforts at building a coal gasification plant here.