Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
2/13/2015
With proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations largely mandating the use of carbon capture and storage for all new-build coal-fired power plants due to be finalize mid-summer, last week’s decision by the Department of Energy to pull funding from the FutureGen 2.0 oxycombustion retrofit project in Meredosia, Ill. further calls into question the viability of the technology, lawmakers suggested during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power this week. “EPA has effectively put a moratorium on construction by requiring that new plants use carbon capture technology that has not been demonstrated as commercially viable for power generation in America, and we continue to see that the prospects for CCS power plant commercialization are slipping years into the future according to the Department of Energy itself,” Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said during the hearing.
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) expressed disappointment that the project, an earlier version of which was meant to be developed in his district, was once again pulled, stating that the action leaves little confidence in the ability of states to comply with the proposed EPA rule. “Illinois has a tradition of DOE projects, from the original FutureGen to now FutureGen 2.0, to pulling it away. It just adds to what those of us in coal areas of the country are concerned [with]—that as we ramp up these environmental regulations we really shut down coal fired generation and that’s major base load activity which we as a country cannot substation the loss of that power,” Shimkus said.
FutureGen 2.0 is not the only DOE-supported CCS project to have troubles, further calling into question the viability of the technology, Whitfield said. “In December of 2010, the Department of Energy reported that it had seven potential CCS demonstration projects for coal power plants. Three of those plants were estimated to start up in 2014, three in 2015 and one in 2016,” Whitfield said. “Of those projects that DOE talked about in 2010, three of those projects have been canceled, three of the remaining four projects are now estimated to being operation in 2019 or 2020 if at all, and yet EPA sets an emission standard based on projected emissions from some pie-in-the-sky CCS plant that’s built so you can use CCS for enhanced oil recovery,” he said, referencing the Kemper County Energy Facility new-build CCS plant in Mississippi, which has experience cost overruns of more than double its original projected budget and is several years behind schedule.
FutureGen Decision Doesn’t Mean Lack of CCS Support, Energy Sec. Says
The decision to pull funding for the project does not mean DOE does not support CCS technology, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said at the hearing, and was made only due to timeline constraints caused by the upcoming September spending deadline for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds totaling $1 billion for the project. “Let me just say that I think the FutureGen project … is very, very important and unfortunately that funding was from the Recovery Act. The date of expending the funds is upon us so the project could not meet that and we regret we are in the structured close out,” Moniz said.
