Posted on 06/28/2009 6:02:52 AM PDT by shove_it
Just two weeks after the federal government revived plans to build the FutureGen power plant in eastern Illinois, two of the experimental coal plant's financial backers said Thursday they are withdrawing.
The exit of American Electric Power Co. and Southern Co. leaves the nine power and coal companies that are still part of what's known as the FutureGen Alliance searching for new partners to help cover building and startup costs they expect to reach roughly $2.4 billion.
The Department of Energy said June 12 that it would provide just over a billion dollars in stimulus money as it agreed to restart the long-stalled project, aimed at proving that the pollutant carbon dioxide can be removed from coal and safely stored.
Both AEP and Southern, two of the country's largest utilities, cited concerns about cost.
AEP says it will leave the project by July 1, mentioning both uncertainty about its details and how much money the Columbus, Ohio-based utility would have to spend.
"There's like a billion dollar shortfall between what the alliance originally agreed to fund and what we think it's going to cost," AEP spokeswoman Melissa McHenry said. "There's not a definitive message from the Department of Energy of what scope and scale the project" will be, she said.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Related story: AEP sees carbon capture from coal ready by 2015
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idAFN2529851820090625?rpc=44
Maybe it has something to do with the recently passed cap and trade bill, by the House.
Well, President Obama can always build some power plants and sell Electricity. Have the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers get those plants up and running, and government can bail out all of the independent energy companies...
Only politicians can believe we will find a method to burn carbon and not produce carbon dioxide.
With the CO2 scrubber in place, all that's left to figure out is what to do with hundreds of millions of tons of the stuff that will pile up every year. Most people in the business want to shove it down a hole, back into the ground where they expect that it will stay firmly locked away for thousands of years.
Just don't ever read about Lake Nyos in Nigeria, though. It might give you some concerns.
The point is that there is no need to pump all the CO2 into the ground. It is a waste of energy. The utility companies will only do it if they are convinced that the govt will continue to provide the subsidies to build them and operate them..or pass it along to rate payers.
It is far better to spend the money on nuclear power.
The lake in Nigeria is what happens when you have a currupt banana republic. One where there is no law.
It is not a typical pipeline situation.
“All you have to do is stick a chemical plant in the flue gas stream to capture the CO2.”
That’s a pretty expensive “all you have to do”.
It’s just like in the computer world writing software where it’s called a “SMOP” — a Simple Matter Of Programming. Nothing to it.
My thought exactly - inversion is a begger.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not. Sure it can be done but it’s expensive.
Simple solution...nationalize the slugs wanting to jump ship.
Can’t blame them.
I recall ZerO saying specifically that he would make coal generation so expensive coal plants would fold and /or no others would be built.
Anyone have that sound clip?
Why not pump it into green houses and grow food?
I guess those mean, selfish democrats want children to starve. ;-)
For that price, you ought to be able to build a two or three reactor powerplant. I’d pull out of a two to 3 billion coal plant as well.
Obama promised to put the coal industry out of business by making it too expensive to invest in coal. He’s on his way to making his goal.
Yes, sarcasm. Sorry it was too close to reality.
CO2 capture and sequestration is an extremely difficult technical problem, unbelievably expensive, and highly risky from a geological perspective.
All you have to do is come up with some process to take CO2, water and some energy source (perhaps solar) and somehow change the CO2 and the water into a useful compound like a sugar or something. I wonder if that’s possible.
That’s the truth.
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