Just weeks after the G8 Energy Ministers called for “20 large-scale CCS demonstration projects…to be launched globally by 2010,” the US Department of Energy (DOE) formally withdrew from a 5-year partnership with the FutureGen Alliance to develop a model clean-coal energy facility in the United States. While DOE claims it will continue to support a “restructured” FutureGen project (or group of projects), policymakers are rightly concerned with DOE’s decision. With oil and gas prices at record highs, growing calls for the US to reduce its carbon emissions, and abundant domestic coal reserves that could prove impractical in a carbon constrained economy, the US needs to be on the forefront of developing new clean-coal technologies rather than ceding leadership to Europe or China.

The Original FutureGen

In February 2003, President Bush announced a new public-private partnership project to develop a single 275-megawatt coal-fired electric and hydrogen production plant that would utilize and showcase the latest in clean-coal, carbon capture, and coal-to-hydrogen technologies. With an initial price tag of 1 billion dollars, a five-year schedule for construction, and a goal of 90 percent sequestration, the FutureGen program was an ambitious project intended to boost US efforts to find coal-based solutions to US energy needs and climate concerns.

While stakeholder support for the project has remained strong, by early 2007 DOE was raising concerns over inflationary pressures associated with materials and construction which had pushed the cost estimate for the FutureGen facility to $1.7 million. In January 2008, only a month after the final site selection for the facility was announced, DOE formally withdrew support for the FutureGen project as originally planned and announced it would pursue a “restructured” project.

The “Restructured” FutureGen

The “restructured” FutureGen project bears little resemblance to the original lofty design. DOE will fund a number of smaller, more limited carbon capture and storage projects at multiple commercial facilities in lieu of constructing a single state-of-the-art “demonstration plant” from the ground up. DOE will no longer use the FutureGen program to develop hydrogen production from coal and will limit its funding to portions of the project related to carbon capture and storage. The revised project schedule also extends the operational start date for funded projects from 2012 to 2015.

FutureGen - Take Three?

The FutureGen Alliance and other critics argue that the restructured FutureGen program is seriously, if not fatally, flawed. Nevertheless, it is too early to dismiss the program’s potential to drive US innovation in clean-coal technology development. FutureGen (as originally envisioned) had strong support from Congressional members in both parties as well as industry, and DOE still has time to make refinements to the project design before it formally seeks project proposals. If DOE and clean coal supporters can find common ground with respect to correcting flaws in either of the two visions of FutureGen program on the table, the coal industry, the power industry, the environmental community, and the US economy as a whole stand to benefit.

{updated June 18}

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