The Tennessee Valley Authority announced Wednesday that it will pay $1 million a year for at least the next three years to fund research on alternative ways to contain and process coal ash, the material that spilled from one of TVA's coal plants last December.

The Oak Ridge Associated Universities will manage the TVA-funded research to explore the effects of coal ash and ways to reuse the combustion material left from the burning of coal.

ORAU is soliciting proposals for both basic and applied research on coal ash and plans to award grants for winning proposals from $50,000 to $300,000 from one to three years.

"The proposals with the highest technical merit will win the opportunity to explore ways to facilitate the scientifically sound development of new beneficial uses for coal combustion products and the creation of new environmental information," said Robb Turner, peer review manager at the Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

"The knowledge will be useful not only to TVA, but also to the utility industry, regulators and the public," he said.

TVA agreed to fund the research as part of up to $1 billion the federal utility expects to spend on environmental studies, land purchases and cleanup costs for more than 1 billion gallons of muck and ash that spread over 300 acres on Dec. 22 when a holding pond ruptured at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tenn.

In 2007, coal power plants generated almost 72 million tons of fly ash and an additional 55 million tons of other coal combustion products, according to the American Coal Ash Association.

Nationwide, about 40 percent of coal ash is used beneficially in concrete and cement products, wallboard, highway construction and other applications.