Two FutureGen partners drop coal project

Just two weeks after the federal government revived plans to build the FutureGen power plant in eastern Illinois, two of the experimental coal plant's financial backers announced Thursday they are withdrawing.

The exit of American Electric Power Co. and Southern Co. leaves the nine power and coal companies that are still part of what's known as the FutureGen Alliance searching for new partners to help cover building and start-up costs they expect to reach roughly $2.4 billion.

The Department of Energy said it would provide just over a billion dollars on June 12 when it agreed to restart the long-stalled project, aimed at proving that the pollutant carbon dioxide can be removed from coal and safely stored.

Both AEP and Southern, two of the country's largest utilities, cited concerns about cost.

AEP says it will leave the project by July 1, mentioning both uncertainty about its details and how much money the Columbus, Ohio-based utility would have to spend.

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"There's like a billion dollar shortfall between what the alliance originally agreed to fund and what we think it's going to cost," AEP spokeswoman Melissa McHenry said. "There's not a definitive message from the Department of Energy of what scope and scale the project" will be, she said.

In reviving the project, the Department of Energy has said FutureGen's carbon removal and storage goals might have to be scaled back.

In a weak economy, AEP is cutting its capital spending and will focus on other carbon capture projects that it is involved in, McHenry said.

Southern Co. spokesman Steve Higginbottom called the decision "definitely financial" and declined to elaborate. The Atlanta-based company will spend only on other carbon capture projects it is working on, he said.

FutureGen had already said it needed to find new partners to help share the costs of the project, spokesman Lawrence Pacheco said, and is negotiating with several companies. He declined to name them.

"The alliance," Pacheco added, "will be working with DOE to figure out the cost share of the project moving forward, and that agreement will reflect the scale of the project, as well as the cost."

The Department of Energy did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press.
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2.4 billion dollars that could be used for SOLAR energy that we already know WORKS. Just what is this administration thinking? There is no such thing as clean coal, and this is a waste of taxpayer dollars. How can anyone claim this climate bill is any good if they are going to allow projects like this? This is just another mechanism to allow coal companies to continue spewing the same amount of CO2 they always spew. It matters not if it is in the air or in the ground, it it still BEING MADE and CO2 under ground has not been definitively proven to not have longterm effects on groundwater resources. And of course, HOW that coal is gotten through mountaintop removal makes it the dirtiest source of energy regardless of what you try to tell us about "cleaning" it. I would think any Energy Secretary who was a Nobel prize winner would know that. But I suppose since this is in Illinois, it is being revived for Obama's buddies. Clean coal is ok to them if it makes their campaign contributors money.