April 2, 2009

Chu says FutureGen project has 'merit'

1 April 2009 - Energy Secretary Steven Chu met with representatives of the FutureGen Alliance on March 30 and said the project has "real merit." An Energy Department statement issued after the meeting said the department will work with the Alliance and members of Congress to "strengthen the proposal and try to reach agreement on a path forward."

The Bush administration withdrew support for plans to build a power plant featuring integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology and carbon capture and storage (CCS) in January 2008, calling the plans too expensive. Those concerns have since been exposed as an accounting error that overestimated the cost of the plant by $500 million.

FutureGen proposes to reduce the costs of the CCS process by better integrating carbon capture. Most IGCC plants proposed by utilities to date would gasify coal to generate hydrogen and carbon monoxide and then burn the mixed gases.

The project aims to push IGCC's potential CCS advantage further by removing carbon from an even more concentrated mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and then burning the pure hydrogen left over in more efficient (but as yet unproven) ultrahigh-temperature turbines.