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Gov. Jim Doyle said Friday that the state should stop using coal to fuel heating and cooling plants in Madison, following the release of a major study with the same recommendation.

A spokeswoman for the Sierra Club described the directive as a "huge step forward," which will help address pollution in Dane County and create economic stimulus.

"We're thrilled," said Jennifer Feyerherm, director of the Sierra Club's Wisconsin clean energy campaign. "We need as a society to move away from coal. We need to stop shipping money out of state to bring coal pollution in."

These upgrades would be expensive, most likely costing hundreds of millions of dollars, according to figures in the comprehensive heating plant study.

The governor said in a news release he would like to include a proposal in the state's budget early next year.

This is the latest indication that the state is attempting to move toward cleaner fuel sources. The Charter Street Power Plant, which powers the UW-Madison campus, was ordered to cut coal use annually by 15 percent, beginning this year, as a result of a lawsuit by the Sierra Club.

A federal judge found that UW-Madison and the Department of Administration violated the federal Clean Air Act by not installing modern pollution controls at the plant, at Charter and Spring streets.

The study was ordered in the recent settlement of that case.

"The state should seriously explore the possibility of eliminating coal at the plants considered in this study and move to technologies and fuels that will provide a cleaner energy future for the Capitol City," the report's authors wrote.

It examined 13 options for three existing state-owned heating plants — the Charter Street plant, the Capitol Heat and Power Plant, at 624 E. Main St., and the Walnut Street Heating Plant — and one potential, future combined heating plant. The Walnut Street plant does not use coal; it uses natural gas or oil. The study was conducted for the DOA by Syska Hennessy, a New York-based architectural and energy consulting firm.

John Harrod, director of UW-Madison's physical plant, said the university and the state will evaluate cost, environmental impact and reliability, in determining how to move forward.

"The report is very complex," he said. "It's going to be quite a task to go through all options to make recommendations. That's what's ahead of us, with governor's directive that coal not be a source."

With coal off the table, the options for fuel sources are fewer, Feyerherm said. They are biomass, natural gas or a combination of the two. Biomass includes things like wood, wood waste, switchgrass and other non-fossil fuels.

The other questions are "how many plants and how big they are," she said.

Feyerherm said the Sierra Club would like to see the Charter Street plant and the Capitol Heat and Power Plant be replaced by one cleaner-fueled cogeneration plant. That plant could possibly include Madison Gas & Electric's Blount Street coal plant, which is scheduled to switch to natural gas by 2012.

The cost of replacing the Charter Street and the Capitol Heat and Power plants with a new, combined plant, would be at least $144 million, according to an analysis in the study.

It would cost at least $165 million and as much as $624 million to substitute coal at the Charter Street plant with a new, cleaner burning fuel source, according to the study.

The public seems to want to see the state move away from coal fuel.

In two town hall meetings in Madison "the public overwhelmingly encouraged the state to stop using coal as a fuel source and gave strong support for investment in and use of renewable energy sources," the report said.

Last year, for the first time, Dane County violated federal standards for particulate pollution, the small particles from coal-burning plants and vehicles. Doyle has asked the EPA to not list Dane County as being in violation and argues that pollution control programs now in place will bring the county back into compliance within 10 years. The EPA is supposed to rule on his request this month.

Input throughout the study was provided by the Comprehensive Feasibility Study Coalition Group, with members from Sierra Club, Department of Natural Resources, city of Madison, Dane County, Clean Air Coalition, MG&E, study consultants, UW-Madison and the DOA.

Wisconsin State Journal reporter Ron Seely contributed to this article.