Ken Silverstein | Dec 16, 2010

Companies interested in kick-starting coal to the forefront of American energy generation have some solid backing: The U.S. Department of Energy, which is plowing in about $1.1 billion or 80 percent of the cost of a potential zero-emissions coal-fired facility capable of capturing and burying carbon emissions.

FutureGen 2.0 is expected to be a 200 megawatt facility that will retrofit an oil-fueled unit in Meredosia, Illinois that is owned by Ameren Corp. The plan is to use oxygen to help burn the coal in such a way that it would nearly eliminate harmful emissions regulated under the Clean Air Act. It would also help concentrate the carbon dioxide so that it could be captured. The whole process is known as oxy-combustion.

A pipeline system will also be built to transport the carbon to be stored underground at a site yet to be named. That place was supposed to be Mattoon, Illinois but it has since said it is no longer interested. The main hurdle is winning over landowners who may be dubious of living atop such a storage site.

Oxy-combustion is said to be is less expensive than building a brand new coal gasification facility, which had been the original idea for FutureGen. But the total costs of that initial project had grown to more than anticipated. And with the economy the way it's been, no one was able to come up with the cash to balance the shortfall. According to the National Technology Lab, oxy-combustion is potentially the least cost effective way to clean coal and bury carbon.

"This investment in the world's first, commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy," says U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. He has said that these technologies are within reach and that the nation must go forward with them.

Ameren, Babcock & Wilcox and Air Liquide Process & Construction, which has developed the oxy-combustion technology, are expected to start the job in 2012 and finish by 2015. The plant's new boiler, air separation unit, carbon dioxide purification and compression unit will deliver 90 percent carbon capture and eliminate most sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and particulate matter, says Chu.

Testing Period

To be clear, several projects are already underway that use coal gasification, or the ability to convert coal into electricity, hydrogen, and other valuable energy products. But those usually involve plants starting from scratch. Oxy-combustion may be the most effective method to retrofit existing plants.

"FutureGen 2.0 will develop oxy-combustion technology that can repower the world's fleet of coal-fueled power plants in a manner that largely eliminates their carbon emissions and spurs job creation," says Ken Humphreys, chief executive of the FutureGen Alliance and an upcoming speaker at the EnergyBiz Leadership Forum. "It will create the world's first permanent carbon storage hub."

Hundreds of carbon capture and sequestration projects are currently in the trial phase all around the world. Most are smaller whereby FutureGen 2.0 would be substantially larger. The hope among many policymakers is that this state-of-the-art coal facility will not only work as advertised but also be replicated around the nation.

While some in the environmental community call advanced coal technology an illusion, others recognize the heavy dependence on the fossil fuels and are therefore reserving judgment on FutureGen. Any progress would be mitigated if carbon capture is not included, they say, noting that they still emphasize a concentration of public wealth on developing green energy.

But the reality is that coal provides roughly half of the nation's electric generation and about 250 years worth of reserves now exists. If the country didn't produce at the levels it currently does -- about 2.8 million tons a day -- then it would have double the present rate of natural gas production. That's possible too. But policymakers would then have some difficult choices to make.

Making coal generation cleaner is one component of what will be a multi-pronged strategy to meet the country's energy needs. In time, the nation will know if these experiments are bearing fruit or whether it should reconsider its energy pathways.

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