Feds Yank Support for Troubled Futuregen Power Plant

Columbus Dispatch ^ | January 29, 2008

[dinoparty]

An experimental, “clean” coal-fired power plant that was sought by Ohio and six other states might be scrapped because of its rising construction costs.

The power plant, called FutureGen, was supposed to test methods to trap carbon dioxide, which is blamed for global warming. The plant's price nearly doubled in five years from $950 million to $1.8 billion.

Department of Energy officials, who were supposed to pay 74 percent of the plant's cost, reportedly told federal lawmakers yesterday that they were dropping their support for FutureGen.

Mike Mudd, a former American Electric Power executive and president of a group of power and coal companies that would have built the plant, said he doesn't know for sure that the project's been canceled.

[dinoparty]

Here in Illinois, word on the street is that the President himself pulled the plug because he was angry that Texas wasn't chosen as the Futuregen site. This should hurt Dick Durbin (and to a lesser extent Obama) politically ... except they don't give two figs about anything south of Chi-town.

[DGHoodini]

This disgusts me. But I doubt it was Bush that did it in for politics. My bet is on corrupt construction/unions tied to organized crime that are cheating and defeating this plant from being built. Time to send Feds in to see whose doing all the thieving, and sending them all to prison for a decade or two.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

WSJ’s story said $2.9 billion for 250 mw. That’s way out of line.

[org.whodat]

Sometimes fraud gets caught before the stealing part. This whole thing was nothing but fraud.

[Western Phil]

This whole concept involved a number of “new” technologies never before tried. One of the ideas is to take the hydrogen from the coal and generate electricity using fuel cells. This has never been done for voltages required for large generators. In addition, the proposed carbon sequestration technology is entirely new. It is likely that Future Gen is asking for too large a jump in technology and would likely fail as proposed. This does not mean that the idea should not be pursued since there may be large advantages associated with it.