- FutureGen
Infobox_Power_Station
station_name=FutureGen
location=Mattoon Township, Coles County, Illinois
owner=FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc
status=Planned
fuel_type=Coal
mine_type=
conveyance=Rail
cooling_water=
technology=
combined_cycle=
turbines=
reciprocating_engines=
pumped_storage=
max_capacity=275-megawatt
commissioned=
decommissioned=
extra=FutureGen is a US government project announced by President
George W. Bush in 2003 [http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/] ; its initial plan involved the construction of a near zero-emissionscoal -fueledpower plant to producehydrogen andelectricity while usingcarbon capture and storage . [ [http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/ Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy FutureGen page] .]In December 2007,
Mattoon Township, Coles County, Illinois northwest ofMattoon, Illinois was chosen as the site for the plant from among four finalists in Illinois and Texas. OnJanuary 29 ,2008 , theDepartment of Energy announced a restructuring of the FutureGen project, which was claimed necessary due to rising costs. [http://www.fossil.energy.gov/news/techlines/2008/08003-DOE_Announces_Restructured_FutureG.html] In June of 2008, the government announced a call for proposals to elicit commercial involvement in the restructuring. [http://www.fossil.energy.gov/news/techlines/2008/08023-FutureGen_FOA_Released.html] [http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/Restructured_FutureGen_Final_FOA__6-24-0.pdf]Original Project
The original incarnation of FutureGen was as a public-private partnership to build the world's first near zero-emissions coal-fueled power plant. The 275-megawatt plant would be intended to prove the feasibility of producing electricity and hydrogen from coal while capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide underground. The Alliance intended to build the plant in Mattoon Township, Coles County, Illinois northwest of Mattoon, Illinois, subject to necessary approvals (issuing a “Record of Decision”) by the Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. [ [http://www.futuregenalliance.org/about.stm FutureGen - About FutureGen ] ]
FutureGen was to be designed, developed and operated by the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, a non-profit consortium of coal mining and electric utility companies formed to partner with the DOE on the FutureGen project. The project was still in the development stage when its funding was cancelled in January 2008. The Alliance decision of the location of the host site, subject to DOE’s completing NEPA environmental reviews, was announced in December 2007 after a two-year bidding and review process. Construction was scheduled to begin in 2009, with full-scale plant operations to begin in 2012. [http://www.futuregenalliance.org/publications/fg_factsheet_7_final.pdf]
The estimated gross project cost, including construction and operations, and excluding offsetting revenue, was $1.8 billion. The project was governed by a legally binding cooperative agreement between DOE and the Alliance. [DOE Cooperative Agreement # DE-FC26-06NT42073: FutureGen - A Sequestration and Hydrogen Research Initiative] Under the agreement, DOE was to provide 74% of the project’s cost, with private industry contributing the other 26%. The DOE also planned to solicit the financial support and participation of international governments in the FutureGen project, since by 2020 more than 60% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are expected to come from developing countries. Foreign financial support was to offset a portion of DOE’s cost-share. As of January 2008, the foreign governments of China, India, Australia, South Korea, and Japan had expressed interest in participating and sharing the cost of the project. [ [http://www.futuregenalliance.org/costs.stm FutureGen - FutureGen Project Costs ] ]
FutureGen was to sequester carbon dioxide emissions at a rate of one million metric tons per year for four years, which is the scale a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report cites as appropriate for proving sequestration. The MIT report also states that “the priority objective with respect to coal should be the successful large-scale demonstration of the technical, economic, and environmental performance of the technologies that make up all of the major components of a large-scale integrated CCS system — capture, transportation and storage.” [The Future of Coal, http://web.mit.edu/coal/The_Future_of_Coal.pdf] An injection field test similar to this was done in Norway. [ [http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/sleipner.htm Sleipner—A Carbon Dioxide Capture-and-Storage Project] .] [ [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V2S-4CC7RP3-V&_coverDate=08%2F31%2F2004&_alid=509250811&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5710&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=eae16bc99d60c2aff71a07a8f5a8b9f1 Monitoring of CO2 injected at Sleipner using time-lapse seismic data] .]
Alliance members
The FutureGen Industrial Alliance is a consortium of 13 power producers and electric utilities from around the globe. [ [http://www.futuregenalliance.org/alliance/members.stm FutureGen - Alliance Members] ]
ite selection
Site selection for the FutureGen facility was based on a competitive process which began in May 2006. Seven states responded [cite news |first=Keith |last=Benman |title=FutureGen not in near future for Indiana |url=http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2004/03/10/business/business/f5e87b5fd54a377186256e52007c6430.txt |work=The Times |location=Munster, IN |date=2004-03-10 |accessdate=2007-12-18 (Bids by states to host FutureGen)] to the Site Request for Proposals with a total of 12 proposals. Proposals were reviewed against a set of environmental, technical, regulatory, and financial criteria with input from external technical advisors on power plant design and carbon sequestration. In July 2006, four candidate sites were selected for further review, including an environmental impact analysis as required by NEPA.
DOE issued its Final EIS on
November 8 ,2007 , which concluded that all four sites were acceptable from an environmental impact standpoint and all would move forward in the site evaluation process. EPA published a Notice of Availability (NOA) for the EIS in the Federal Register onNovember 16 ,2007 . [ [http://www.eh.doe.gov/nepa/na/64618.pdf Federal Register, Vol. 72, No. 221] ] The DOE is required by federal law to wait at least 30 days after the NOA release before issuing its final Record of Decision (ROD). The waiting period legally closed onDecember 17 ,2007 . DOE chose not to issue the ROD and advised the FutureGen Alliance to delay the final site selection announcement, which was scheduled to occur at the end of the 30-day waiting period. The Alliance chose to move ahead with the announcement, citing time, money, and a commitment to proposers to select the final site by year-end. "Every month of delay can add $10 million to the project's cost, solely due to inflation," said Michael Mudd, the Alliance's chief executive. [ [http://www.examiner.com/a-1141300~Construction_costs_of_FutureGen_ballooning___with_no_end_in_sight.html Construction costs of FutureGen ballooning - with no end in sight] ]The FutureGen Alliance announced the selection of
Mattoon, Illinois as the host site onDecember 18 ,2007 . [cite news |title=Mattoon lands FutureGen power plant |url=http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2007/12/18/mattoon_to_land_futuregen |work=Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette |date=2007-12-18 |accessdate=2007-12-18 ] [cite news |title=Illinois chosen for experimental coal plant |url=http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=27486&seenIt=1 |work=Crain's Chicago Business |date=2007-12-18 |accessdate=2007-12-18 ] According to the EIS, Mattoon, IL the site is located about 3.5 miles northwest of downtown Mattoon in the eastern part of Mattoon township section 8 on 180 hectares (444 acres) of former farm land. The carbon sequestration area is about 8,000 feet below the ground. [FutureGen Alliance. [http://www.futuregenalliance.org/news/fg_mattoon_eiv_v1_master_rev1.pdf Environmental Information Volumes for Mattoon, Illinois] . (PDF) 12.1 MB.December 1 ,2006 .] In July 2007, Illinois Public Act 095-0018 became law giving the state of Illinois ownership of and liability for the sequestered gases. [ [http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=095-0018 Illinois Public Act 095-0018] ]Future plants based on FutureGen should qualify for several provisions of the
Energy Policy Act of 2005 .Technology Overview
FutureGen was intended to combine and test several new technologies in a single location, including coal gasification, emissions controls, hydrogen production, electricity generation, and carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS). [http://www.futuregenalliance.org/technology.stm FutureGen Technology Overview]
Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) was the core technology behind FutureGen. IGCC power plants use two turbines – a gas and a steam turbine – to produce electric power more efficiently than pulverized coal plants. IGCC plants also make it easier to capture carbon dioxide for carbon sequestration. [http://www.futuregenalliance.org/technology/coal.stm Coal Gassification]
FutureGen was to capture carbon dioxide produced during the gasification process and pump it into deep rock formations thousands of feet under ground. FutureGen specifically targeted rock formations containing saline water, as these are one of the most abundant types of geologic formations that can be used to store carbon dioxide worldwide. [http://www.futuregenalliance.org/technology/carbon.stm Carbon Sequestration] A study by the Global Energy Technology Strategy Program estimates the storage capacity of these saline rock formations in the U.S. to be 2,970 gigatons of carbon dioxide, compared to a capacity of 77 gigatons of carbon dioxide for all other types of reservoirs, such as depleted gas fields. [“Carbon Dioxide Capture and Geologic Storage: A Core Element of A Global Energy Technology Strategy To Address Climate Change, p. 26. http://www.pnl.gov/gtsp/docs/gtsp_reportfinal_2006.pdf] Focusing on rock formations with saline water was intended to help ensure that the lessons learned from the project are broadly transferable throughout the U.S. and around the world.
Challenges
Maintaining the project schedule and keeping costs down were two major challenges with which the DOE and the FutureGen Alliance grappled. The project had remained on schedule with the announcement of the host site before the end of 2007; however, a desire by DOE to restructure the project’s financial arrangement has brought the project to a halt.
In December 2007, the DOE Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy James Slutz stated that projected cost overruns for the project "require a reassessment of FutureGen's design." And that "This will require restructuring FutureGen to maximize the role of private-sector innovation, facilitate the most productive public-private partnership, and prevent further cost escalation."cite news | last = Fowler | first = Tom | title = Illinois wins coal project, and along with it a tussle / Official warned against announcing winning town in $1.8 billion project | work = Houston Chronicle | date =
2007-12-18 | url = http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2007_4480471 | accessdate = 2008-01-31]The FutureGen Alliance wrote a letter to the Department of Energy’s Under Secretary C.H. “Bud” Albright Jr. stating that overall inflation and the rising cost of raw materials and engineering services are driving costs up on energy projects around the world. According to James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the market for steel, concrete and power plant components has “just gone through the roof globally”, and much of the reason is the construction of hundreds of new conventional coal plants. [New York Times, “New Type of Coal Plant Moves Ahead, Haltingly” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/business/18coal.html?ex=1355634000&en=0e9a1555019f1ce2&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink]
On
January 11 ,2008 , the FutureGen Alliance sent a letter to the DOE offering to lower the government's portion of the project's costs. The initial plans had called for DOE to pay based on a percentage of the total cost, and their portion had risen from about $620 million to about $1.33 billion. The letter indicated that DOE's portion would now be $800 million. [cite news | last = Mitchell | first = Tim | title = No future for FutureGen? | work = Champaign News-Gazette | date =2008-01-30 | url = http://www.news-gazette.com/news/business/2008/01/30/no_future_for_futuregen | accessdate = 2008-01-31]Risk management was a significant portion of the cost of the first FutureGen experimental implementation. [http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/futuregen/EIS/FG%20Risk%20Assessment%20110807.pdf] FutureGen involved many complex never-before-solved technology problems. The risks also included significant health risks, if the untested-technology systems failed to work correctly.Cancellation controversy
On
January 29 ,2008 , the DOE announced that it would pull its funding for the project, mostly due to higher than expected costs. The move is likely to delay the project as other members seek the additional funds that the DOE was to provide. Local and state officials in Illinois, including GovernorRod Blagojevich expressed frustration at the move, especially in light of the money and resources that the state had spent to attract the project. Blagojevich issued a statement saying that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman "deceived the people of East Central Illinois who spent time and resources competing for the project." [cite news | last = Suhr | first = Jim | title = Energy Dept. Pulls Support for FutureGen | work = Associated Press | date =2008-01-30 | url = http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iCFTuK5STUkpm1mpKAURDVplMtVQD8UFQJGG0 | accessdate = 2008-01-31]The sudden concern over cost after an Illinois site was chosen over those in Texas raised questions about the motives for the cancellation. Illinois senator
Dick Durbin has called the decision a "cruel deception," and claimed that "when the city of Mattoon, Illinois, was chosen over possible locations in Texas, the secretary of energy set out to kill FutureGen." cite news | last = Secter | first = Bob | title = Energy Department backing out of Illinois-bound FutureGen project, officials say | work = Chicago Tribune | date =2008-01-30 | url = http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-future-gen_30jan30,1,280681.story | accessdate = 2008-02-02] Mattoon mayor David Cline said "one could question the motivation of the Department of Energy which was ready to move forward with the project until a site other than Texas was chosen."Secretary Bodman stated that with restructuring the FutureGen project, DOE plans "to equip multiple new clean-coal power plants with advanced CCS technology, instead of one demonstration plant. That will provide more electricity from multiple clean-coal plants, sequestering at least twice as much CO2 and providing for wider use and more rapid commercialization." [cite news | last = Bodman | first = Samuel W. | title = New technology makes FutureGen a waste of tax money | work = St. Louis Post-Dispatch | date =
2008-02-06 | url = http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/FED1EF50F9C186CA862573E70017463B?OpenDocument | accessdate = 2008-02-11]Despite the cancellation of funding by the DOE, the FutureGen Alliance continues to move forward with the project, opening an office in Mattoon and planning to buy the land for the plant in August 2008, in partnership with a local group. [cite news | last = Stroud | first = Rob | title = FutureGen sounds upbeat note, Supporters lobbying presidential candidates | work = Decatur Herald & Review | date =
2008-04-19 | url = http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=12032CCAE7632140&p_docnum=1 | accessdate = 2008-04-22] [cite news | last = Thilmony | first = Meg | title = Alliance, local group buying land for FutureGen plant | work = Champaign News-Gazette | date =2008-04-19 ]References
See also
*
Clean coal
*Carbon capture and storage
*Combined cycle
*Gasification
*Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate
*North American Carbon Program External links
* [http://www.futuregenalliance.org FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc]
* [http://www.marshall.edu/cber/research/FutureGenFinalApril2005.pdf Marshall University Studies] related to the Clean Coal Initiative
* [http://ohvec.org/links/news/archive/2005/fair_use/10_16.html Clean Coal Push Concerns Environmental Activists] . October 16, 2005.
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