Jan. 30
Illinois legislators and state government officials are vowing to save
the nearly $1.8 billion FutureGen project after the Department of Energy
told them it was withdrawing its support for experimental emissions-free
coal-burning power plant.
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman met with Illinoisī congressional
delegation Jan. 29, at which time he reportedly told them he would not
support plans for building the FutureGen plant in Mattoon -- a city in East
Central Illinois -- and take the project in a different direction.
Energy officials have not been available for comment, but members of the
Illinois congressional delegation have discussed their meeting with Bodman.
"After our meeting [Jan. 29] it is clear that Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman
has misled the people of Illinois, creating false hope in a FutureGen
project which he has no intention of funding or supporting," U.S. Sen. Dick
Durbin, D-Ill., said. "In 25 years on Capitol Hill, I have never witnessed
such a cruel deception."
Illinois, and other states, had gone through a five year process trying to
land the experimental plant that would capture carbon dioxide emissions and
store them underground. Advocates say the technology is essential to allow
for adequate electric generation while preventing the release of additional
greenhouse gases.
U.S. Rep. Timothy Johnson, R-Ill., said he was dismayed by the
administrationīs decision, would ask for a meeting with White House
officials, and vowed the fight is not over.
"Now the DOE has turned its back on us," Johnson said. "We played by their
rules. This was the DOEīs initiative, undertaken at the presidentīs
directive in 2003, with the goal of clean-coal energy that was underscored
again Monday night in the presidentīs State of the Union address."
Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, a Democrat, said Bodmanīs pulling the plug
on the project represented "politics at its worst"
It was only after the FutureGen Alliance -- a public-private partnership
that includes electric utilities -- selected an Illinois town as the
projectīs home that Bodman decided to withdraw DOE support, he said.
"Only after it became clear that an Illinois site would be chosen over a
Texas site, the department suggested the project be delayed and now, today,
that it be canceled," the governor said.
While Energy Department officials have not been available to discuss their
vision for FutureGen and clean coal technology in the future, they have said
they would announce their plans in the near future.
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