Durbin Says FutureGen is Not Dead

Press Release

Durbin Says FutureGen is Not Dead

By Diane Wilkins

"FutureGen is not dead and we will continue to fight for the project and the Mattoon location," Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, said at the SIU Coal Research facility in Carterville Wednesday morning.

Less than a month after the FutureGen Alliance announced its choice of Mattoon as the location for the experimental project, the Department of Energy withdrew its support for the project and said it would contract to build several smaller projects.

"I am not going to say definitely that politics entered into this, but it seems more than coincidental that when the award for location was made to Illinois rather than Texas, the project was scraped," Durbin said.
The rational for dropping the project was given as the cost had gotten to high, but as Durbin pointed out the multiple sites would be more expensive. After the DOE announcement, industrial members of the alliance said they would increase their financial support of the building of the plant.

"Maybe with a new president we will be able to get this project back on track," Durbin said.
Durbin called FutureGen a potential "model for the globe" in clean energy technology. FutureGen is a public-private partnership was organized to build a first-of-its-kind coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant. The FutureGen plant was estimated to cost approximately US $1.5 billion to develop. It would use cutting-edge technologies to generate electricity while capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide deep beneath the earth. The plant would also produce hydrogen and by products for possible use by other industries.

"We will show the determination that Illinois, especially those in Southern Illinois, have when it comes to getting things that are needed for the economy," Durbin said. "We plan to be camped on the doorstep of the new secretary of the DOE."

State Representative Dan Reitz, D-Sparta, is a member of the State Clean Coal Board.

"We need to have this country more independent when it comes to energy," Reitz said. "One thing is for sure, you don't need a battleship to protect the coal fields."

Rep. John Bradley, who has spearheaded a petition drive for FutureGen was in attendance and said that the building of FutureGen would be a boon to the economic health of the state.

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