The Bush Administration signaled it would axe support for FutureGen because of soaring costs.
The centerpiece of the Department of Energy’s program on clean coal technology, the project intended to demonstrate next generation coal-fired power production.
The goal of FutureGen has been to demonstrate technologies that capture and sequester greenhouse gas emissions, and produce hydrogen from a coal-fired power generation plant. The project began in early 2003.
Costs have soared from $1 billion to about $1.8 billion, and that’s not the end. The US DOE says it will start over with a new program, but that probably won’t happen during the current Administration.
The DOE is looking to industrial partners to share in the program’s costs. The chief executive of the FutureGen Alliance, a consortium of 13 parties that are building the plant, said the move would postpone the project by at least two years and probably four, at a time when coal operators are proposing over 100 new plants that would operate for decades.
In December, FutureGen announced the plant would be sited in Mattoon, Illinois, where CO2 would also be injected into the ground. About $50 million has already been spent.
The Bush administration isn’t giving up on "clean" coal. There will be a request $648 million for new "clean coal" research sent to Congress next week, up 25% from the previous year.
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