New coal plant for Illinois rises from ashes
June 12, 2009 10:26 AM
WASHINGTON - Federal officials announced an agreement this morning that will restart plans to build an experimental coal plant in Mattoon, Ill. Supporters hailed the news as a victory for the Illinois economy and for efforts to curb global warming.
The agreement will at least temporarily resurrect the so-called FutureGen project, which the Bush administration had discontinued in 2008, citing rising cost estimates. The plant is expected to cost more than $1.5 billion
If completed, FutureGen would be the first commercial-scale effort in the country to test carbon capture and sequestration technology--an attempt to collect the greenhouse gas emissions from coal before they enter the atmosphere, then store those gases underground.
The deal announced today is between the Energy Department and the FutureGen Alliance, a public-private consortium of coal users and producers.
In a move that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has hinted at for months, the Energy Department pledged today to spend about $1.1 billion to pursue the project, with nearly all the money coming from the economic stimulus bill that Congress passed earlier this year. The department will also take steps, beginning next month, to re-start preliminary design and budgeting work on the project.
The FutureGen Alliance will raise and spend an estimated $400 to $600 billion on the project. Early next year, after completing cost estimates and fundraising activities, the alliance and the department will decide whether to move ahead with the plant or to discontinue it.
Chu said the steps reflect the Obama administration's commitment "to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution."
He said that "developing this technology is critically important for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and around the world."
President Obama supported FutureGen when he was a senator from Illinois. Even before he won the White House, Illinois lawmakers, led by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, were pushing Obama to revive the project if elected. Durbin's staff worked for five months after Obama's inauguration to help broker a deal, and Durbin met frequently with Chu on the subject.
The FutureGen Alliance estimates that the project would create 600 to 700 construction jobs in Mattoon and 100 permanent jobs at the plant.
Durbin hailed today's announcement as a "historic moment for both our state and our country."
"In my time in Congress," he said in a statement, "I can't recall a project that has greater scientific and practical significance than FutureGen, not to mention the enormous economic benefit it will have in Illinois."
--Jim Tankersley
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