14 DAY TRIAL // In this rhythm, even third world countries will soon have capabilities for generating electric energy without disposing of greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere. Last week, the building of the clean coal energy generating facility FutureGen was withdrawn, presumably due to a required sudden growth in the budget to about 1.8 billion dollars. On the other hand, Illinois lawmakers have a totally different opinion about what really happened, claiming that the cancellation came as a result of the fact that the state of Illinois was chosen instead of Texas, as location for the build.
The project was announced in 2003 by President George W. Bush and was supposed to result in building a zero emission coal-fueled power plant, that would have had the capability of generating hydrogen gas and electric energy, while storing the carbon emissions into underground deposits. When completed, the FutureGen facility should have been able to produce 275 megawatts of power.
The building design uses an integrated gasification combined cycle, with two turbines, one running on gas and the other one on Steam power, in order to produce electric energy more efficiently than by using pulverized coal fuel. Greenhouse gases resulted from the burning process are pumped into the Earth, to thousands of meters underground, to be incorporated into rock formations that contain saline water.
However, things turned seriously wrong when the U.S. Department of Energy started discussing with the FutureGen Alliance about funding. The DOE initially estimated that it would contribute with about 620 million dollars, but the sum quickly risen to 1.33 billion. In the first days of the year, the FutureGen Alliance sent a letter to the DOE saying that they are considering a contribution of only 800 million, and a few days later the DOE withdraw the whole funding for the program.
Criticism soon follow, targeting the president of the U.S. George W. Bush, saying that this cancellation represents a clear evidence that the Bush administration is incapable or unwilling to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide gas in the U.S., and that coal fueled power plants can only be made clean by investing in carbon dioxide gas extractors and deep underground gas deposits.
On the other hand, the DOE says that, during the next year, it will demonstrate a series of carbon capturing and storing strategies for currently operational coal burning power plants. The U.S. is being routinely evaluated as the world biggest pollutant when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.