By Jim Tankersley
Big news for a little town in Illinois -- and for a coal industry hoping to develop ways to burn its fuel without warming the planet: The Energy Department announced this morning that it will once again forge ahead with the FutureGen project in Mattoon, Ill.
As I report on the Chicago Tribune's breaking news blog:
In a move that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has hinted at for months, the Energy Department pledged today to spend about $1.1 billion to pursue the project, with nearly all the money coming from the economic stimulus bill that Congress passed earlier this year. The department will also take steps, beginning next month, to re-start preliminary design and budgeting work on the project.
The FutureGen Alliance will raise and spend an estimated $400 to $600 billion on the project. Early next year, after completing cost estimates and fundraising activities, the alliance and the department will decide whether to move ahead with the plant or to discontinue it.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the steps reflect the Obama administration's commitment "to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution."
Read the whole story here.
Comments
Another billion plus in our hard-earned salaries down the drain for this pork barrel project.
What is not mentioned in the article: Michael Mudd, FutureGen's CEO, is a Durbin campaign contributor. It appears Mudd's money was well spent.
Posted by: Obama fan | June 12, 2009 1:26 PM
This project is a real no-brainer !! We should be spending our monies on alternative sources of energy, not to continue to pollute with coal !! "Clean coal" is like an intelligent Republican Party !! It doesn't exist !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | June 12, 2009 5:38 PM