Coal Gasification in Illinois; Clean Coal
Mar 30, 2009 – Jeff Johnson reports in Chemical & Engineering News on March 16, 2009 that Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, is reviewing President George W. Bush’s administration to cancel a large-scale, clean-coal gasification project. FutureGen was to have been a carbon capture project that would generate electricity by burning synthetic fuel produced at a coal gasification plant. It would have removed 90% of the carbon dioxide generated and injected it underground near the plant. Although other smaller plants have been built, this was to be the biggest and it would have been built in Illinois, President Barack Obama’s home state. This project was originally budgeted at $950 million and the Bush administration cancelled it because of an estimate of a $900 million overrun, whereas now the General Accounting Office [GAO] expects the overrun to be only [!?] $300 million. I guess a 30% overrun is acceptable, especially to the Congressional group from Illinois. Please leave your comments here.
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