Also over the alliance's decision to list the final site of the project before the Final Environmental Impact Statement had been fully reviewed.

DOE expressed misgivings over increased costs.

Yeah, but that never stopped them with hydrogen, nuclear, or biofuels.

But either way, I am happy to see another nail in coal's coffin.

_

I just hope Barrack doesn't make the foolish attempt to rescue the coal plant from the clutches of death.

Although it certainly would be nice to hear the 24 hour news channels riffling through the contiversy of "Costly Coal".

-David Ahlport

To what degree is this decision an indictment of CCS in general and to what degree does it reflect the peculiarities of the FutureGen project?

a sibilant intake of breath

No lobbying for plugin hybrids, Barack hasn't mentioned them.  But Hillary has heard about them, she said so.

Is there real lobbying for solar, wind, and a renewable smart grid?  Highly doubtfull.  If it is it isn't the kind that provides large campaign "contributions".

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

The DOE was going to cover 75% of the cost of a plant which costs over 3.25x more than pre-clean-air-act coal plants.

They would have been paying 20% less than the conventional oldskool coal price.
A bargain!!

Now they are stuck with the 3.25x price, or to cancel the project ;D

-David Ahlport

Killing projects and replacing them with new and improved versions has been a tactic used in "developing" the "car of the future".  It may be one way that big interests like the car industry or the coal/utility consortium have in making sure that such "essential" developments never get here.  The coal and utilities plus the state of Illinois could do this on their own dime (OK, Illinois government is very short on dimes, although there are some big, expensive, dirty coal plants in the works here).  Why let Washington dictate FutureGen?  

There is obviously something much heavier than greenbacks behind the headline here.

There was something of a rush in the announcement of the Illinois site for FutureGen.  The Dept. of Energy was against making the announcement when it was done.  And it was very strange that one day after the chosen site was announced the FutureGen management began seismic testing in the area around the proposed site.  Hmmm... shouldn't that have all been done before the site was chosen?  

This all seems to reinforce the idea that perhaps as a civilization we have reached the zenith permitted by our level of incompetence.  Everywhere you look, man is just screwing up!  Maybe it is peak complexity.  Or just plain, PEAK!

How do we get ourselves down from this perch without landing in our own big pile of droppings?
Maybe we are already eating a big pile and are being prepped by the PR bonanza machine to like it, to adapt to it.  

Misanthropic humanist.    

On the bright side, Duke CEO stated this will likely be the last coal-fired plant they'll ever build. Maybe something's percolating through.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

So this is great news.  But I want palace intrigue.  Lots of dumb boondoggles get funded.  What happened behind the scenes to stop this one?  Two popular Ds getting comeuppance from an R administration?  A sudden burst of sanity?  Religious-right-led Santa-bashing?

Someone out there knows details.  Share!

I don't think the end of FutureGen is necessarily a "green" victory, though the DOE completely mishandled it in my opinion.

1. Coal isn't cheap unless it's amortized and non-clean air act compliant.  The proof is in the pudding: there has been no meaningful construction of coal plants since 1990 in this country, in spite of growing load.  Meanwhile, 100% of our year on year capacity additions since 1995 have come from natural gas, in spite of high gas prices.  Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the investment thesis for gas is better than the investment thesis for coal.  Yes, it's cheap on the margin, but that's sort of like saying that if you give me $100 million, I'll give you free food for the rest of your life.  It's a great deal if you're willing to overlook the upfront investment.  And investors tend not to want to do that.  The entire coal is cheap argument is false.  At current power plant capital costs, fuel prices, T&D costs and regulated-utility required returns on equity (e.g., much lower than the private sector), you need retail rates of 11 c/kwh or higher to justify the investment in a coal plant.  The US average right now is 8.5.  That, in a nutshell is why no one is building coal.  If you add in CCS, that number goes to 17 cents: and that, in a nutshell is why the game on CCS is not building the plant, but convincing the gov't to subsidize it.

2. Given that, what is the possible reason to make it more expensive with CCS?  There are vastly cheaper ways to lower carbon emissions, many of which start with negative costs.  What is the compelling argument to build something  that is really inefficient and expensive?

We need a pathway to carbon neutral coal power that mobilises public and private sector investment in carbon neutral coal-fired technologies including advanced combustion and CCS. I don't pretend that CCS is perfect (in fact it reduces energy production and is quite expensive, as you point out), but (for now) it's going to be a necessary part of the mix if we are to drastucally reduce emissions in the coming years. Fitting CCS to power plant can reduce the CO2 emissions by 85-90%.

I would be happy to see new technologies replace CCS as the better choice, but for now I don't understand why enviros should not advocate CCS adaptation for new plants. If the utilities are actually embracing this technology, why shun them and take a hard line that is impractical? Again, you mentioned the economics, but the political reality is another story.

Coal gasification plus sequestration just doesn't fit the bill. Its high profile is entirely due to the immense political power of the coal industry. So why should we go along to get along? Why not push back? Why not push for faster, cheaper CO2 reductions?

grist.org

1. As was noted earlier, since when does the US Gov't worry about costs? Heck, we're spending a zillion$$/second in Iraq, and are about to start sending tax rebate checks (a.k.a. hush $$) by borrowing money from the Saudis, the Chinese, and whoever else wants to buy our treasury bonds.

2. I'm wondering which presidential candidate of the Big 4 (Obama, Hillary, McCain, Romney) is going to come out against "clean coal" in an election year, for a project in an important state like Illinois. I'd say none of them. Even if Bush wants to kick this can down the road, I don't see any of the Big 4 not grabbing that can w/both hands.

In the meantime, conservation and a true, dedicated effort to renewables might be a good idea. It's the lowest lying fruit out there.

I like this.  I have a similar idea for a nuclear power compromise.  Let the industry build a few of their much touted newer, safer, less expensive, waste recycling experimental reactors.  

To prove they won't compete with renewables.  10 year developmenty and testing will delay more nuking.  meanwhile we could stop any new efforts at reviving the bad old designs from the dark history of nuclear power.

How is the powder in VT?  It is great here in northern Wisconsin and especially the UP.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Yes, there are plans in development to build new coal plants, but this is largely in the noise.   Consider the following data, which shows the total installed fleet (in GW) of gas and coal plants since 1990:

Year      Coal (GW)    Gas (GW)
1990      307          169
1991      307          174
1992      309          179
1993      310          185
1994      311          193
1995      311          196
1996      313          201
1997      314          203
1998      316          204
1999      315          212
2000      315          220
2001      314          253
2002      315          313
2003      313          355
2004      312          371
2005      313          383
2006      314          390

If I knew how to paste in graphs, this would be much more impressive.  But here's the jist:  In the past 16 years, our total electric consumption has grown from 2.7 to 3.5 billion MWh, or 30%.  In response to that steady growth in demand, the coal fleet has grown by 2.2% and the gas fleet has grown by 131%.  And yet, the CW has it that coal is cheap and inevitable, which begs the question: then why is everyone building gas?  

The reason is because coal is only cheap on the margin.  Yes, we have built a few plants.  Yes, they're building a lot in China (although the lax pollution controls there make it difficult to compare apples:apples - pollution control makes up about 50% of the capital cost of a US coal plant).  But at equivalent capital recovery expectations, a  coal plant and a gas plant are a breakeven proposition.  Money has gone to gas because at a breakeven, it's nice to have less capital at stake.

CCS is simply the most expensive way out there to control CO2.  Efficiency, CHP, and a host of other approches are way more cost effective, and have the benefit of being investments that the private sector will make without regulatory intervention - but only after we remove the existing regulatory barriers that favor utility shareholders' interests over those of their customers and fix some of our antiquated environmental rules (e.g., NSR) that place criteria emissions reduction in opposition to CO2 reduction.  Those are admittedly hard to fix.  But the alternative is to keep the paradigm the same and do something like CCS that is (a) really expensive (b) ruins appalachia and (c) may or may not guarantee that the carbon will stay in the ground.

To my way of thinking, we're an awful lot more well served by modernizing the existing regulations and letting markets work.

If the benchmark is the availability of the "fuel".
One might wonder why SolarThermal isn't placed above Coal.

Especially considering how it would be cheaper and very reliable 24/7.
http://greyfalcon.net/solarthermal

-David Ahlport

There is no way to verify that the CO2 will stay put.  A catastrophic release is also a problem.

This is just plain stupid.  And Barack just helped get it going again.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin