COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An Ohio State University engineer hopes to use a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help develop low-cost steel for the next generation of clean coal-fired power plants.

The university says that professor Ji-Cheng Zhao (jee-cheng zhow) and his team will use the grant money to explore computer-based methods for creating and testing many different kinds of material compositions very quickly. Their goal is to create a strong, heat-resistant steel.

The Energy Department is dispensing $2.7 million to nine universities as part of a grant program aimed at spurring engineers to focus on structural materials for advanced coal-fired power plants and gas turbines.

Zhao says power plants use such high temperatures that the turbines can no longer be made from steel. The team hopes to change that.