I'm not a big fan of coal, but it seems to me that a "clean coal" initiative that may result in the development of cleaner technologies that could be used worldwide is worth sinking a billion or two into. Compared to what this Administration has already wasted money on, Futuregen seems downright sane.

/undoubtedly, some competing lobbyists got the leg up on the coal industry--this Administration wouldn't kill clean coal for budgetary reasons

The way I see it, clean coal is the front running stopgap between petroleum and solar/wind energy sources. 50 years from now, people will point and laugh at the fact that U.S. Americans believed that fuel cells were the answer. such as.

I think about those moroons every day.

Isn't coal still a fossil fuel and therefore "the evil?"

Re:peat?

Bush Administration kills "clean coal" initiative because state-of-the-art prototype plant would cost $1.8 billion that was slated to go somewhere besides Texas.

FTFY

DOE nixed the project immediately after the Illinois location was chosen, but now this:

FutureGen Texas Regional Coordinator Hoxie Smith of Midland on Friday confirmed the prospect that the DOE either will award "a piece" of the project to the Basin or a private company will build a plant using FutureGen technology on 600 acres north of Penwell, 20 miles west of Odessa. (new window)

Oh and they pulled the plug on the Illinois project Wednesday, and on Thursday Bush said this in the SOTU address:

Our security, our prosperity, and our environment all require reducing our dependence on oil. Last year, I asked you to pass legislation to reduce oil consumption over the next decade, and you responded. Together we should take the next steps: Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions.

Cronyism FTW!

get a brain oxymoran.

Clean coal? That's the problem.
He should just tell the enviros to shove it.

haws83: Isn't coal still a fossil fuel and therefore "the evil?"

Coal is cheap, easy to aquire and we've got enough of it under pennsylvannia, virginia and parts of vermont to keep us going for another century (at current rates of consumption). In addition, it could be used to make disel fuel for around $30 a barrel - cheaper than middle east oil.

With clean coal technology and rapid development of nuclear power across the nation, we could easily lessen our dependancy on foreign oil. Additionally, if we were to really push for the development of effective mass transit networks in major urban centers (which would have to include stomping on a LOT of local toes and cleaning up some serious corruption and waste), we could further reduce infrastructure costs.

Is it worth the effort? I dunno. All I know is that if we want to reduce our dependancy on 'foreign oil' then we're going to have to make some unpopular choices. We're going to have to make quite a lot of changes. The real question is - do we have the will to make those changes and stick to our guns?

You want me to think of the jumbo shrimp?

Is this the same clean coal technology he demanded in the state of the union?

Rovian: Is this the same clean coal technology he demanded in the state of the union?

Indeed it is.

Won't someone please think about the oxymorons?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

ndotseth: Clean coal? That's the problem.
He should just tell the enviros to shove it.

Poor far right wing extremist crybaby.

Craptastic: Rovian: Is this the same clean coal technology he demanded in the state of the union?

Indeed it is.

So, he's basically just checked out early and is just waiting for the hammer to drop so the next president can pretty much upstage him. No longer caring about his legacy since he's going to spend the next stage of his life drinking himself into a coma and seeing if the Secret Service can still hassle people when they start heckling him.

Pathetic.

FTA: Energy Department officials said it was time to confront the cost issue, before ...


before what? Finish your thought! damn you WSJ

That's some great flip-floppin there Dubya!

I wouldn't worry though. I'm sure that technologies that allow us to utilize alternatives to oil aren't important to our economy, national security and foreign policy.

And never fear, I'm sure that there's no conflict of interest at work here. This decision is surely in the best interests of all people in the US and the world.

ndotseth: Clean coal? That's the problem.

yes, because we need more pollution, not less. Anything that reduces the amount of sludge we pump into the air and water is obviously evil.

Weaver95: Coal is cheap, easy to aquire and we've got enough of it under pennsylvannia, virginia and parts of vermont to keep us going for another century (at current rates of consumption). In addition, it could be used to make disel fuel for around $30 a barrel - cheaper than middle east oil.

Agreed that the problem with coal isn't that we're running out of it. We've got more than enough coal to burn for the forseeable future. There's gigatons of the stuff all over the US.

The problem with coal is what happens when we burn it. If we turn all that coal into carbon dioxide, all those trendlines on global climate projections are going to trend decidedly towards the "worst case scenario" line.

The carbon sequestration plans that the coal companies bill as "clean coal" are nothing but a public relations ploy. Even if test plants in a few areas are able to sequester most of their carbon dioxide, it'll be almost impossible to implement on a mass scale because most coal plants don't sit on geologic formations that are conducive to pumping in megatons of gas. Carbon sequestration might be an interesting stop-gap measure, but it'll never come close to reducing our emissions by a meaningful percent.

acefox1: I wouldn't worry though. I'm sure that technologies that allow us to utilize alternatives to oil aren't important to our economy, national security and foreign policy.

Oh don't worry, we'll use tax money to develop the technology and then sell give it to the Chinese as a way to offset our trade deficit.

mistahtom: Oh don't worry, we'll use tax money to develop the technology and then sell give it to the Chinese as a way to offset our trade deficit.

which, given the ways the Chinese are trashing their environment, wouldn't be such a bad thing

I worked on the Appropriations bill for the project, so I'm not getting a kick outta these replies.

FutureGen was some cool stuff that would really help out Mattoon, IL. People may think coal is dirty and that we shouldn't use it at all, but think about it this way: The US has 250 years worth of energy under our feet. The next two largest coal reserves in the world are China and India, two places that could give a flying fark about their environment. If we don't develop this, they (eventually, and very very slowly) will. The economic opportunity to export the technology would be lost.

If the NRDC, Greenpeace et al really cared about the global environment, they'd grudgingly support this technology so we could export it to poorer, less technologically developed nations so that they won't be polluting in our backyards.

Remember people, global solutions for global problems. You can't shame the US and Europe into environmental standard compliance and ignore the Third World.

/Former Energy Lobbyist
//Actually surprised by the level of clear-headed responses in this thread
///seriously

Well if this farking do-nothing Congress did what they promised with Iraq, instead of buying some faggy tofu menu for their lunches, maybe we wouldn't be having this dilemma.

remember the 90's, kids? clinton years? those sleazy sell outs made it against the law to open pit mine the coal in Utah and CO (anthracite, hard coal, clean burning, estimated amount oh 500 years or so) due to their friends, contributors in Indoneiasia. want more of the same?

It could also help push the nation toward greater reliance on nuclear power.

Cos presumably there's nothing cleaner than nuclear waste with a half life of millenia?

Bush's flip flop from his SOTU calling for this clean coal project to cancelling the 1.8 billion after Illinois got the contract over his cronies in Texas perfectly illustrates wot's wrong with DC.

Trouble there is the country is already divided into those who already know this all too well and those who can't be told it because they just don't wanna know.

/When is the WSJ gonna get a Page 3 girl?
//WSJ has lost prestige since Rupert took over may as well gain some boobies.
///Fair trade, no?

In Illinois, the technology was mostly for storing the CO2 underground under pressure after separating natural gas from the coal. A side-benefit of that pressure technology is a way to flush the oil out of underground strata. This is the only part that Texas cares about, because they have a lot of wells that are no longer producing well. Instead of a step forward away from oil, the Texans are basically perverting the project to help keep pumping oil.

Texas is not loved by Illinois, they screwed us over on the Superconducting Supercollider project, stealing it from Fermilab, only to tank the project at the halfway point when they figured out it was too expensive to build in their geological situation. Which they'd been TOLD before. Now Europeans are the ones to have any benefits from advanced particle physics experiments at CERN. And poor Fermilab has had it's budgets slashed and massive layoffs of scientists.

In Illinois, we also figure this move on the Futuregen project was also a back-handed pimp slap by Bush to our idiot governor blowdryovitch who spent four years poking the President in the eye over importing cheap Canadian meds.

Oxymoron?

Clean coal qualifies in spades.

Coal is a stopgap at best.

Although technologies like this may help with the sequestration bit.

themeaningoflifeisnot: I'm not a big fan of coal, but it seems to me that a "clean coal" initiative that may result in the development of cleaner technologies that could be used worldwide is worth sinking a billion or two into. Compared to what this Administration has already wasted money on, Futuregen seems downright sane.

Not to mention that any power generation technology the US can export can help offset our economic and technological losses elsewhere.

Wolf_Blitzer: The carbon sequestration plans that the coal companies bill as "clean coal" are nothing but a public relations ploy. Even if test plants in a few areas are able to sequester most of their carbon dioxide, it'll be almost impossible to implement on a mass scale because most coal plants don't sit on geologic formations that are conducive to pumping in megatons of gas. Carbon sequestration might be an interesting stop-gap measure, but it'll never come close to reducing our emissions by a meaningful percent.

Uh, no. There were no less than 15 towns all over the country that were considered for this plant, which was narrowed down to 4 (2 in Il, 2 in Tx) last spring. Mattoon was selected last fall. Things such as future power needs, distance to coal mines, and underground formations were all considered.

Yes, we are in the testing stages of carbon sequestration, but we can do a lot more than just put it into the ground and leave it. Underground Saline Aquifers, previously thought useless, are where most of CO2 would be stored. Oil explorers find them all the time. Anyway, the CO2 acts differently under all the pressure and actually fuses with the formations and compresses, allowing more CO2 to be pumped in than what the mass would be under normal pressures. And it wouldn't come back up either. When Oil explorers look for oil, one way is to look at hard rock caps, where the oil would stay underground instead of coming back up to the surface. That is also where the saline aquifers are usually in the ground. Right now the EPA requires at least 4 of these caps, virtually garuanteeing that it stays underground.

A recent DOE estimate said that if we take all the CO2 output we have now, and put it underground, there is something like 600 years worth of storage. And that isn't taking into account enhanced oil recovery, where they would pump CO2 back into the ground and displace the oil at the bottom of a well.

On a side note, here in FL they just started a program to make ethanol from citrus waste. Seems the FL citrus industry has around 35-50 million tons of citrus pulp, skins, rinds, etc left over every year. Scientists have found a way to make something like 30 million gallons of ethanol, along with a bunch of cleaning additive and animal feed from the dried husk.

Well, one week of "success in Iraq" is more important then a lifetime of clean fuel and an initiative to get off dependence on foreign oil.

Well, we're definitely in the last year. He isn't even pretending anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, we're in full-blown Dead Zone mode.

Sultan Of Herf: On a side note, here in FL they just started a program to make ethanol from citrus waste. Seems the FL citrus industry has around 35-50 million tons of citrus pulp, skins, rinds, etc left over every year. Scientists have found a way to make something like 30 million gallons of ethanol, along with a bunch of cleaning additive and animal feed from the dried husk.

Wow. I guess FL isn't as stupid as I thought.

Mordac Lord of Unholy Fury: You can't shame the US and Europe into environmental standard compliance and ignore the Third World.

A former energy lobbyist misrepresenting what the Kyoto treaty's obligations for places like India and China would have been? I'm shocked.

/shocked I say.

Solar's great for peak demand, and $1.8 billion could buy you a gigawatt of peak demand photovoltaic.

Does anyone know how big the coal plant was going to be, or how much is would wind up costing after cost over runs?

Mordac Lord of Unholy Fury: Uh, no. There were no less than 15 towns all over the country that were considered for this plant, which was narrowed down to 4 (2 in Il, 2 in Tx) last spring. Mattoon was selected last fall. Things such as future power needs, distance to coal mines, and underground formations were all considered.

Okay, 15 sites were considered out of over 1,000 coal-fired plants in the US. The plants that were looked at were typically in the best possible locations. I've seen the maps of coal plant locations, and I know a thing or two about the subsurface geology (being that I'm a geologist). The capacity is theoretically there, but its nowhere near where most of the plants are.

A recent study found that in order to sequester just 10% of the CO2 produced by coal plants would require more gas to be pumped underground than the US's rate of petroleum consumption. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure in order to sequester even the smallest fraction of greenhouse emissions.

The storage just doesn't exist in the places that the coal is being burned, and shipping it to those locations would require a pipeline infrastructure beyond anything that has ever been attempted before.

I believe the plant was originally supposed to be under $1B, and costs rose to $1.8B. Prices for all major construction projects have risen like that over the last few years. It really is a big screwup, considering they let their partnership announce that a 4 year old program is going into its final stages, then blow it up a week later.

Anyways, that project is gone, but they are going to be raising the budget for other clean coal projects to compensate. It's a major PR screwup, but I don't see it impacting the end results you get from the research.

Nat Clean Coal?

Bushboy the "Clean Coal" flip-flopper and prevaricator (thanks jestme for pointing that out)

That aside - - -NO SUCH THING as CLEAN coal! Never has been, NEVER EVER WILL BE!

Another thing, bushboy got these folks hopes up that they possibly might get some JOBS, .... but, ya' know, who needs jobs? Cruel joke huh? That's bushboy, the jokerDecider-in-chief

Skleenar: Oxymoron?

Clean coal qualifies in spades.

Coal is a stopgap at best.

Although technologies like this may help with the sequestration bit.

Because putting all your eggs in one basket has always shown to be a brillant move...

Your argument falls apart when you basically say, "Yeah, this plant may be cleaner, but getting it out of the ground is still dirty." Newsflash: No energy source is without its drawbacks. Mining and industries that rely on mined materials employ large percentages of otherwise impoverished states. It gives people who would be living off of welfare well-paying jobs. Just ask anybody from Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota, Southern Illinois, etc.

The US has a metric assload of energy below our feet. To refuse to use it is asinine. Even more asinine is to refuse to pursue technologies to make it cleaner and more efficient.

Murkanen: A former energy lobbyist misrepresenting what the Kyoto treaty's obligations for places like India and China would have been? I'm shocked.

/shocked I say.

I'm sorry. I was under the impression that the US didn't sign that treaty. I'm pretty sure it was shot down 98-0 in the Senate when Clinton was still president. I'm also pretty sure that 8 years later, not one of the signatories has kept their promise. If you think China and India are really sticking to their word on reducing CO2 emissions, have I got news for you. Take your ad hominem attacks elsewhere.

wildcardjack: Does anyone know how big the coal plant was going to be, or how much is would wind up costing after cost over runs?

FutureGen was either going to be 275 Megawatts. Smallish Midsized plant. You can buy a ton of coal for about $10. The amount you need depends on the process you use; ultracritical, super-ultracritical, IGCC, etc. I don't know which one the plant would use.

Somebody wake me when he leaves office.

It's like this administration is trying to fit in every last piece of corruption and cronyism it possibly can before the end arrives.h

I expect it to get worse before it's all said and done.

Mordac Lord of Unholy Fury: I'm also pretty sure that 8 years later, not one of the signatories has kept their promise.

This is blatantly false, most of Europe in particular is actually exceeding its Kyoto obligations.

Wolf_Blitzer: Okay, 15 sites were considered out of over 1,000 coal-fired plants in the US. The plants that were looked at were typically in the best possible locations. I've seen the maps of coal plant locations, and I know a thing or two about the subsurface geology (being that I'm a geologist). The capacity is theoretically there, but its nowhere near where most of the plants are.

You're talking about refitting plants for CCS technology. This plant would be already fitted with it from Day 1 of operation.

A recent study found that in order to sequester just 10% of the CO2 produced by coal plants would require more gas to be pumped underground than the US's rate of petroleum consumption. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure in order to sequester even the smallest fraction of greenhouse emissions.

As I understood it, the pressure from the furnaces would be used to push the emissions underground. I'm not an engineer though, so I'm not entirely sure.

The storage just doesn't exist in the places that the coal is being burned, and shipping it to those locations would require a pipeline infrastructure beyond anything that has ever been attempted before.

Uh, no. We already ship CO2 from an IGCC plant in North Dakota to Canada at a profit via pipeline. It has been proven commercially successful. The Norwegians have been using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery for years.

Mordac Lord of Unholy Fury: Because putting all your eggs in one basket has always shown to be a brillant move...

What in God's name made you think this is what I was arguing for?

if that's how much "success in iraq" costs, what are we paying now? we damned well be getting a discounted rate.

RockIsDead: Nat Clean Coal?

WINNA!

Mordac Lord of Unholy Fury: As I understood it, the pressure from the furnaces would be used to push the emissions underground. I'm not an engineer though, so I'm not entirely sure.

That works if the plant is sitting on its gas reservoir. As I've already pointed out, most plants are not located sufficiently near to useable reservoir formations, requiring extensive long-distance gas transport. The alternative is to rip up every coal plant in the US and move it to sit atop a current or former oil or gas field.

Uh, no. We already ship CO2 from an IGCC plant in North Dakota to Canada at a profit via pipeline. It has been proven commercially successful. The Norwegians have been using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery for years.

This is because its being done on a small scale, and the market exists for this amount of gas to be utilized in enhanced recovery. If you start sequestering substantial amounts of CO2, the market will rapidly be swamped, especially in areas that will require sequestration but lack any sizable oil or gas reserves. With any kind of meaningful sequestration, the supply of CO2 needing to be sequestered will greatly exceed the demand for it in EOR, and your profitability will evaporate.

Not to mention that if you're using CO2 from coal plants to enhance recovery of petroleum that is then burned for fuel, in order to be making any progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions you then need to sequester that carbon, too. Its a shell game.

CONSERVATISM! fark YEAH!