Energy Department Announces Plans for Coal-Powered Plants

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ST. LOUIS – The Energy Department unveiled its blueprint 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 Wednesday, launching two weeks of public comment over the revised plan for the project known as FutureGen, came despite pledges by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin to scuttle the effort. The Democrat stands convinced a town in his home state of Illinois 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 U.S. On Wednesday, 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.

Under the new plan, developers of power plants would have to apply to the Energy Department for a slice of the $1.3 billion.

It is unclear how many projects the money would help fund.

He said each plant will permanently store underground at least 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. The sites also must capture at least 81 percent of the carbon dioxide, with a goal of reaching 90 percent, Albright said.

The plant also must generate at least 300 megawatts of electricity, just 25 megawatts more than the original plan.

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