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DOE Takes Another Step Toward $2.4B FutureGen Project
15 July 2009
The US Department of Energy (DOE) issued a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Record of Decision to move forward toward the first commercial scale, fully integrated, carbon capture and sequestration project in the country. (Earlier post.)
The Record of Decision and a cooperative agreement signed by DOE and the FutureGen Alliance allow the Alliance to proceed with site-specific activities for the project. Over the next eight to ten months, the Alliance will complete a preliminary design, refine its cost estimate, develop a funding plan, expand the sponsorship group, and, if needed, conduct additional subsurface characterization.
Following these activities, which will be completed in early 2010, the Department and the Alliance will decide whether to continue the project through construction and operation. Both DOE and the FutureGen Alliance agree that a decision to move forward is the preferred outcome and anticipate reaching a new cooperative agreement for the full project. Funding will be phased and conditioned based on completion of necessary NEPA reviews.
The Department of Energy’s total anticipated financial contribution for the project is $1.073 billion, $1 billion of which would come from Recovery Act funds for carbon capture and sequestration research. The FutureGen Alliance’s total anticipated financial contribution is $400 million to $600 million.
The total cost estimate of the project is $2.4 billion, consequently, the Alliance, with support from DOE, will pursue options to raise additional non-federal funds needed to build and operate the facility, including options for capturing the value of the facility that will remain after conclusion of the research project, potentially through an auction of the residual interests in the late fall.
When fully operational, the facility will use integrated gasification combined cycle technology with carbon capture and sequestration into a deep saline geologic formation. It will be designed to capture 90% of the carbon emissions by the third year of operations but may be operated at 60% capture in the early years to validate plant integration and sequestration capability. This technology should sequester one million tons of CO2 annually when it reaches full commercial operations.
July 15, 2009 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: SJC | July 15, 2009 at 08:53 AM
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Mother Earth has been cooling for the past ten, plus, years as CO2 output has been increasing. If the Globalwarmist religion is correct (more Co2 = more warming), the Earth will DRASTICALLY cool because CO2 will be decreased. Get ready for the ICE AGE, death, and destruction due to this.
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Posted by: The Goracle | July 15, 2009 at 09:59 AM
@Goracle:
I normally don't respond to nonsense posts, but as a resident of Alaska who is acutely aware of the accelerating effects of pronounced warming in the arctic (e.g. arctic ocean losing its ice pack at an alarming rate, permafrost thawing, coastal villages washing away, spruce forests destroyed by insects now able to winter over, etc. etc.) your promise of a coming ice age is laughable.
Posted by: Nick Lyons | July 15, 2009 at 11:47 AM
FutureGen was not formally ended in 2008. But it was unable to proceed w/o more money.
It is hard to say why the Bush DOE backed off at the end. I doubt Bush started it in 2003 because he wanted failure.
We do know this, FutureGen was considerably over budget (wow that is news), had political quarrels about sites, and was partly funded by both foreign and domestic partners.
What could go wrong?
And by 2008 the DOE didn't have the money. But they could have found it, so something else influenced their decision.
Now DOE is getting $1B from the Recovery Act. So FutureGen awakes with a larger budget. We can only hope Act II is better than the first.
Posted by: Ken | July 15, 2009 at 01:33 PM
Ken I can explain. The entire point was to make a clearer coal/gas fired powerplant. As they moved along they discovered the tech to retrofit existing plants with some of the tech and get that result MUCH more cheaply. Thus they were done. TADA!
Posted by: wintermane2000 | July 15, 2009 at 02:33 PM
Winter: Provided what you say is correct they got a good spinoff from the earlier work. What merit and motivation do you see for this new phase.
Do they have worthwhile technical objectives for Act II? Or have they just noticed they can now have money to spend?
Posted by: Ken | July 15, 2009 at 03:43 PM
Most likely its a combo of a program never ending and of a want for a coal plant that can use brown and green coal to fire it... one that would also produce hydrogen in large amounts.
But im betting its something to do with dod and pork and congress critters being congress critters more then anything else.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | July 15, 2009 at 03:55 PM
"coastal villages washing away..."
Nick, I heard of this but never found a source. Do you have one?
Posted by: sulleny | July 16, 2009 at 08:44 AM
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The Bush administration paid lip service to FutureGen, they were better at giving names to programs than actually getting something done.
They provided some money every year and then right before leaving office said forget it, it was too expensive. This is what business has to say about government, you can not trust them to stay with a consistent policy.