Obama pulls the plug on $1.1 billion ‘clean coal’ project

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

The Obama administration is pulling the plug on a stimulus-backed “clean coal” power plant in central Illinois that was supposed to play a key support role for a proposed regulation to mandate carbon capture technology for coal plants.

 

The Energy Department announced it was pulling funding for the FutureGen 2.0 power plant after awarding project developers $1.1 billion as part of the 2009 stimulus package — most of the awarded funds were never spent.

 

“In order to best protect taxpayer interests, the Department of Energy has initiated a structured closeout of federal support for the project that will help maximize the value of investments to date while minimizing ongoing risks and further costs,” said DOE spokesman Bill Gibbons.

 

The DOE’s dismantling of the project is a huge blow to the Obama administration’s climate agenda, mainly because FutureGen’s failure undermines pending rules mandating coal plants use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. Obama was hoping to use FutureGen to show that CCS was commercially viable, a point that the coal industry has been contesting.

 

“The Obama Administration is engaging in misleading double-talk on clean coal technology. Although the administration leaned heavily on FutureGen technologies to justify its flawed New Source Performance Standards rule,” said Laura Sheehan, spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

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Dirty politics in the name of clean coal.