A “mad gasser” first propelled Mattoon, Ill., into national news in 1944 with a spate of apparent attacks where over 30 of the town’s residents smelled an odor and found themselves temporarily incapacitated.
Since then, the town of about 18,000 - located 185 miles south of Chicago - has kept a relatively low profile except for the giant Lender’s BagelFest every July.
But energy independence propelled the little town to national recognition once again in December, 2007, when an alliance of international energy companies and the Department of Energy chose it as the site of FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal-fueled power plant. Only a month later, the federal government pulled the funding. But political powerhouses that include Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) and President-elect Barack Obama may offer hope to recapture the project.
FutureGen has been in the works since 2003, though the final site at Mattoon wasn’t chosen until last year. The massive public-private partnership project, currently estimated to cost around $1.5 billion, is designed to serve as a clean coal research and test facility while also producing energy and selling it to the public.
It’s unknown exactly how efficient the plant would be and building a test facility is a sure way to find out. FutureGen would utilize coal gasification technology, turning sulfurous Illinois coal into a synthetic natural gas from which inpurities such as the sulfur could be removed before the gas is burned to generate electricity. However, the design also allows for carbon dioxide capture and sequestration to prevent greenhouse gas emissions, controls that would reduce the plant’s overall efficiency.
While FutureGen has numerous private partners in the energy industry, the Department of Energy cited ballooning construction costs as responsible for the decision to pull the plug on the project in January.
“The department's decision to revamp FutureGen was made in order to maximize our national investment in clean-coal technology by reducing financial risk to American taxpayers and taking advantage of recent technological advancements,” said DOE Press Secretary Healy Baumgardner in an e-mail.
DOE’s plan now is to equip multiple, smaller commercial scale carbon-capture plants. These plants are estimated to produce at least 300 megawatts of energy each. The FutureGen plant would be larger than that and larger than even the typical commercial scale plant. But the DOE's new plan won’t be as effective as FutureGen, said Marcelyn Love, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. “It’s a simple fact: these projects don’t go to the extent that FutureGen would,” she said.
The DOE Plan B wrongly assumes that new coal gasification technology is commercially viable at power plants before being tested at FutureGen, Love added. The Plan B “also wrongly assumes that the DOE can accomplish the same goals as FutureGen in Mattoon merely by funding the CO2 capture and storage component” of coal gasification.
Though the future of FutureGen is uncertain, the project is still alive. The private supporters haven’t withdrawn their money and other funds have been trickling in. Most recently, in July 2008, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee slated $134 million in federal funds to go to the project and Southern Illinois University’s Clean Coal Review Board awarded $2 million in grants towards FutureGen.
The recent election of former Illinois Senator Barack Obama as president might help FutureGen’s effort as well. On the campaign trail, Obama routinely stressed the importance of energy independence and clean coal. He also expressed interest in retrofitting existing coal facilities with carbon capture and sequestration technology as soon as it is available. Many involved with FutureGen hope that rhetoric will translate into more federal funds for the project.
Sen. Durbin also has a track record of support and met with representatives of the FutureGen Alliance in November to discuss how to move the project forward. Though Durbin has been able to keep the concept alive for the past year, he has expressed hopes that the uphill battle will soon be over.
“So we’re going to work hard to make sure that the new secretary of energy [of] the new administration makes an early commitment to FutureGen so we can move forward,” he said in a statement. “This is not only a critically important project for Illinois coal. This is important for energy all across America and around the world. It’s worth the fight.”
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