FutureGen: Pollution Free Fossil Fuel Power Plant
A small Illinois town called Mattoon is the big winner of the FutureGen power plant. This is a public-private venture between the Dept of Energy (D.O.E.) and a non-profit consortium comprised of energy companies. That’s great - but what is FutureGen, really?
FutureGen is still a coal-burning power plant. It’ll burn all kinds of coal, though - even the sludge. There is an abundance of coal that we normally don’t use for producing electricity. The catch is in the emissions. Instead of passing those tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, they’re being pumped into the earth. There is already CO2 in the earth - so it’s not really a pollution hazard (from what I understand).
The initial plant will be small - enough to power about 150,000 homes. I think the main benefit is the R&D that it has the potential of providing. This plant is supposed to open by 2012 - well - we’ll see. Why do I say that? Less than a day after the plant location choice was announced, the Bush Administration is dragging its feet. They said today that they are concerned about the rising costs of the estimated $1.8 billion plant.
How do I feel about all of this? I’m on the fence. I know a little about the project to be dangerous - but haven’t fully researched it out. So while it’s great that they’re providing jobs for this small town and they are putting a lot of research into zero-emission plants for the future, I’m not convinced. I want to see more research into something sustainable - yeah there’s lots of coal now - but you have to mine and it’s a finite resource. Wind. Solar. Put your money into that. There are lots of ways to create electricity…I’m just not convinced this is the right way to go about it.
UPDATE: I just read more on this over at NYT Dot Earth. Read through the comments. Pretty compelling. Dr Daman Walia wrote, “Futuregen is based on same old Hitler era bankrupt thermal coal gasification, which have neither been economical or nor worked with now almost $30+ billion funding by DOE since first oil embargo of 1973.Pumping large quantities of CO2 underground is not only costly but also will cause serious ecological problems. CO2 forms carbonic acid with water and becomes supercritical fluid at pressure, and both will dissolove toxic chemicals and contaminate aquifers, the largest source of fresh water.”
Source: FutureGen Alliance, Chicago Tribune
[...] One day after President Bush’s State of the Union speech stated, “Together we should take the next steps: Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions” the Illinois-bound FutureGen project looks to be in serious doubt. FutureGen was a huge win for the State of Illinois that was to be heavily funded (~$1.8 billion) by the U.S. Department of Energy. The basis of the project is just like Bush stated on Monday night, it’s a coal-fired power plant that will push the carbon emissions deep into the earth. The plant could not only burn the “good” coal, but also the sludge and dirty coal that a typical power plant does not burn. The carbon then returns to the soil and all is good (very debatable premise). [...]