Daniel Englander
FutureGen Dies Quick, Painful Death January 29, 2008 at 10:23 PM
FutureGen, the much vaunted high-tech “clean coal” pilot plant slated for construction in Illinois, has been (un)officially blackballed by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. The plant’s estimated costs jumped precipitously from an initial estimate of $800 million in 2003 to nearly $1.8 billion, causing officials in the DOE to balk at what many have already argued would be an inefficient and ineffective solution to mitigating GHG emissions. Although DOE officials have been loathe to divulge the proceedings of today’s closed door meeting with federal lawmakers, it’s pretty apparent from Sen. Dick Durbin’s hissy fit that things are not okay in Matoon County.
I hate to be That Guy but, I totally called this. Spending federal dollars to support the last waltz of the American coal industry in a misguided effort to make itself relevant is shameful. The question remains whether the government’s rejection of the FutureGen project will have an effect on private investment in clean coal technologies currently being developed by a number of startups. Does this signal the end of clean coal? Probably not. Does it put more pressure on the government to up funds for developing real greentech in the U.S.? Sure.
So where’s the money going to go now that it’s not delivering us from dirty coal? Probably to fund the President’s new three-year, $2 billion international greentech fund for China and India. With a combined population of roughly 2.4 billion people, the President’s greentech fund works out to about $0.27 per person per year, which is a little bit less than it would cost to buy a pen to ratify the Kyoto Protocols.
Well played, George.
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[...] spend a lot of time here talking smack about FutureGen. And there’s no shortage of bad things to say about it. Whether it’s [...]