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FutureGen Already Past? (Clean Coal - The Sequel)
Back in December, we posted a report about what was billed to be the world’s first zero-emissions coal-burning power plant - FutureGen - slated for operation by 2012 in Mattoon, Illinois (Click here to read the original post). FutureGen was intended to be the first large-scale energy production facility to utilize a new technology known as Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), a process by which carbon dioxide and the other impurities that result from the burning of coal are pumped and stored underground in porous rock strata and saline aquifers, thereby keeping harmful emissions from accumulating in the atmosphere.
Despite the apparently noble intent of this project, our initial report voiced some reservations. First, that CCS had not been adequately tested, with regard to both its large-scale feasibility and its lack of environmental impact (especially on groundwater and subterranean rock/mineral formations). Second, that massive cost overruns and delays were becoming an increasing burden to the project before ground had even been broken.
It now seems that those reservations may have been more than idle speculation. The Economist reported last month that FutureGen is, according to DOE parlance, being “restructured”. In their typically blunt fashion, the eminent policy journal translates this to mean “starting from scratch” (See “Up In Smoke”; Jan. 31, 2008). The DOE is now requesting more information on CCS from the private sector with an eye towards building several smaller plants based on the technology in place of Mattoon’s grand enterprise. This reconsideration was based partly on a March 2007 report issued by MIT suggesting the need for more extensive investigations into CCS and the adoption of less cumbersome federal legislation. The new plan pushes back the completion of the first wave of CCS power plants to 2015 and promises to “at least double the amount” of impurities sequestered. No one yet knows if Mattoon or a reincarnated FutureGen Alliance will be involved.
