FutureGen supporters retain hope

FutureGen supporters retain hope
Illinois fights coal project’s retooling.

Published Thursday, May 8, 2008

ST. LOUIS (AP) - The Department of Energy unveiled its blueprint yesterday for spending up to $1.3 billion on multiple clean-coal power plants that would capture carbon emissions and permanently store them underground.

The announcement, launching two weeks of public comment over the revised plan for the project known as FutureGen, came despite pledges by Sen. Dick Durbin to scuttle the effort. The Illinois Democrat stands convinced a town in his home state deserved the project - all of it.

FutureGen’s developers - an alliance of a dozen big power and coal companies - tapped Mattoon, Ill., as the site in December. But the energy department quickly pulled the plug, citing costs that had ballooned to $1.8 billion, nearly double the original price tag.

The department considers it smarter to spread the taxpayer money around to several smaller projects throughout the United States. Yesterday, Bud Albright, an undersecretary for the department, said Mattoon is out of the picture unless a developer wants to build a power plant there then apply to partner with the energy department.

"The direction we’re going - let me make absolutely clear if there’s any question - we’re fully committed to. We think it’s a better direction," he told reporters during a conference call.

"It’s a faster way to go" because it instantly commercializes the technology instead of merely experimenting with it at a research site in Mattoon, Albright said.

Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for the FutureGen Alliance that picked Mattoon over three other finalists, countered that the fight for Mattoon was anything but over.

Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, has threatened to block White House appointments to the Energy Department while looking for a way to pass legislation to keep the project afloat until the next president takes office in January.

Durbin said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press last night that the new plan was unworkable and cannot be taken seriously.

"They wouldn’t even receive applications from the new sites until four weeks before the current administration ends," he said. "It isn’t a serious plan - it’s merely a mask for their embarrassment.

"Our goal is to keep the location in Mattoon until this administration packs and leaves town," Durbin said, noting that authorities have invested five years of study, as well as federal and state funds, in the Mattoon site.

Yesterday’s announcement "is simply another step in the department’s ill-advised attempt to move the ball downfield before time expires," U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, an Illinois Republican, said in a statement. "A real commitment to cutting-edge carbon capture demands" a legislative fight on Mattoon’s behalf.

Pacheco said the political pressure on the energy department - and the fact Congress has to sign off on the department’s retooled plan - leaves the alliance "cautiously optimistic" Mattoon will win. "We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from members on the Hill," Pacheco said.