DOE Scraps FutureGen Project For Retrofit CO₂-Capture Plan

The U.S. Energy Dept. said on Aug. 5 it will abandon its original plan for the FutureGen 275-MW powerplant to test advanced carbon-capture and storage technologies; instead, it will use $1 billion in federal stimulus funding to refit and repower an existing coal-fired plant in western Illinois to capture carbon dioxide. The money will go to members of the FutureGen Alliance, a public-private group of U.S. and overseas utilities, power providers and others, to install new equipment at a 200-MW unit in Meredosia, Ill., in the Illinois River Valley. DOE has dubbed the new plant FutureGen 2.0. DOE had planned to build a greenfield plant in Mattoon, Ill., but the alliance had struggled to raise its $600-million stake. The carbon captured at the Meredosia plant will be shipped by pipeline and stored at Mattoon, DOE says. The agency says the network will transport and store more than one million tons of captured CO₂.Project construction is set to generate 275 construction jobs. The Mattoon site will be used for project research.