US DOE urged to review FutureGen

23 March 2009


An industry association has urged the US Department of Energy (DOE) to renew its support for the FutureGen project in its original format in order to secure a place for coal in the future US economy.

The US-based Gasification Technologies Council (GTC) says that the construction of a commercial-scale coal gasification plant equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) would provide scale and certainty for developers of the technologies.

“Using commercially proven technologies together for the first time … would demonstrate that we can generate electricity using coal while capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide, resulting in near-zero emissions,” said James Childress, executive director of the GTC. “This will help assure a place for coal as a reliable source of electricity in the United States over the long term.”

The announcement of the GTC’s position comes after the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that the Bush Administration’s decision to drastically change the FutureGen programme was not based on valid analysis. In particular, the GAO said that the DOE had failed to take inflation into account when calculating the increased costs of the project.

The GTC is hoping that President Obama’s support for clean coal will get the Mattoon, Illinois project back on track. “We are calling on Secretary Chu to proceed expeditiously to get FutureGen back on track,” Childress said. “The industry is ready to respond. We know what to do. The technologies are available. The processes are available. We now need the will to move FutureGen forward and get this built.”

The DOE launched FutureGen in 2003 as a $1 billion venture to design, build and operate the world’s first near-zero emission coal fired power plant. By early 2007 it had created an industry alliance to develop the project and selected the site for its construction, but just weeks later announced that it had decided to take a new approach to the project.

That new approach entailed scrapping plans for the 275 MW, near-zero emission power plant and funding the construction of several commercial clean coal plants with CCS instead. The DOE cited escalating costs as a major factor in its decision.

In a February 2009 report, however, GAO says that, “Contrary to best practices, DOE did not base its decision to restructure FutureGen on a comprehensive analysis of factors, such as the associated costs, benefits, and risks.”

The report notes that the DOE based its decision largely on the conclusion that the costs for the original FutureGen had doubled and would escalate substantially. However, two cost estimates for the project were not comparable because the DOE’s $950 million estimate was in 2004 dollars and the $1.8 billion estimate of the DOE’s industry partners was inflated through to 2017.

The report concludes: “As its restructuring decision did not consider a comprehensive analysis of costs, benefits, and risks, DOE has no assurance that the restructured FutureGen is the best option to advance CCS.”

The US has 25 per cent of the world’s coal reserves, and half of its domestic electricity is produced from coal.

“While the initial cost of the FutureGen plant may be high, gasification provides the lowest cost solution to produce power from coal, while capturing carbon dioxide for sequestration,” Childress said. “This way of producing energy provides the path forward for crucial sectors of the economy by using lower cost domestic energy resources.”




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