AEP, Southern Withdraw From FutureGen 'Clean-Coal' Project

Published: 25-Jun-2009

By: Staff Writer Staff Writer Staff Writer

American Electric Power and Southern plan to step out of the FuturGen project, which is backed by the US government. The project is to capture and store the gas emitted from coal-fired power plant.

The plants operated by both the companies emit large amounts of carbon dioxide, they intended to focus on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects for their plants.

The FutureGen Alliance was supported by the federal government. The Obama administration had guaranteed approximately $1.1 billion for the project, which is based in Mattoon, Ill.

The Department of Energy (DOE) projected a spending of $1.073 billion, of which $1 billion would be granted from Recovery Act funds for CCS research. The contribution from the alliance was from $400m to $600m, based on its 20 members contributing $20m to $30m each over a four to six year period.

Currently FutureGen, which was formed in 2006, has nine members that include Anglo American, BHP Billiton, China Huaneng Group, Consol Energy, E.ON US unit, Foundation Coal Holdings, Peabody Energy and Rio Tinto.

Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for FutureGen said that the withdrawal of AEP and Southern would not effect the project.

AEP intends to start the CCS project at Mountaineer. A coal-fired power plant with 1,300 MW of power generation capacity, expected to be operational by September 2009.

Southern focuses on its CCS project at its Plant Barry in Alabama, its 582 MW coal-fueled integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant under development in Kemper County, Mississippi, and the DOE's National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, Alabama.

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