2nd UPDATE: DOE Chief: Futuregen 'Clean-Coal' Project Needs New Partners
2009年6月26日 - 9:59AM
Dow Jones News
Participants in the U.S. government-backed Futuregen project to
capture and store greenhouse-gas emissions from a coal-fired power
plant need to find one or more new partners to replace American
Electric Power Co. (AEP) and Southern Co. (SO), which are leaving
the project, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday.
The Futuregen Alliance won renewed support from the federal
government earlier this month when the Obama administration all but
guaranteed almost $1.1 billion for the project, to be based in
Mattoon, Ill. The project suffered a major setback in 2008 when the
Bush administration pulled the plug on the project's funding after
costs nearly doubled.
Executives at Southern Co. and AEP, two of the biggest
coal-burning utilities in the U.S., said they support Futuregen,
but had decided to focus their investments on their own
carbon-capture and storage projects.
The Futuregen Alliance "will have to get another partner or
two," Chu said, speaking on the sidelines of the Edison Electric
Institute conference here. "I'm hopeful they can do this, but it's
not a guarantee."
Chu said he was convinced the project was worth keeping after he
talked to several scientists and utility industry experts who
expressed near-unanimous enthusiasm about its potential. He said he
hoped the plant would get built and generate electricity for
customers in the next several years.
The remaining members of the alliance include U.S. and overseas
coal companies, including Consol Energy Inc. (CNX), Peabody Energy
Corp. (BTU) and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), and utilities E.on AG
(EOAN.XE) and China Huaneng Group.
Chu suggested that Futuregen and other potential projects could
provide opportunities for the U.S. and China to work together to
improve carbon capture and storage technology.
The Futuregen project aims to build a power plant that will
capture and permanently store underground 60% of the carbon-dioxide
emitted in combustion. This is down from the original aim to
capture 90% of the plant's CO2 emissions. The plant would test the
technology on a commercial level, a critical step in the face of
likely federal climate change legislation that would limit U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions.
For its part, Southern Co. will begin in 2011 capturing a
fraction of the CO2 from its 2,525-megawatt Barry plant near
Mobile, Ala., in a partnership with the Department of Energy and
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011.TO). Southern will also
manage and operate the DOE's new National Carbon Capture Center
near Wilsonville, Ala., where carbon-capture technologies will be
developed. In addition, Southern unit Mississippi Power in January
filed plans to build a 582-megawatt plant that would be fueled with
gas derived from coal, with carbon-capture capability.
"We've moved onto other projects," Southern Chief Executive
David Ratcliffe said on the sidelines of the EEI conference in San
Francisco. He said he told Energy Secretary Chu that "I've had to
devote my resources to other, more tangible projects that are
moving faster," adding he still strongly supports the Futuregen
project and Southern would share information with developers.
Chief Executive Mike Morris said AEP will devote its resources
to other sequestration projects, including a plant in West
Virginia. The company will start in September to test CO2
capture-and-storage technology at the coal-fired Mountaineer plant
in New Haven, W.Va., injecting up to 165,000 metric tons of CO2 a
year into the ground.
"It's going to happen a whole lot sooner than Futuregen," Morris
said on the sidelines of the conference. He added, however, that he
still supports Futuregen, noting the alliance's CEO, Michael Mudd,
comes from AEP and AEP engineers would continue working on the
Illinois project.
-By Cassandra Sweet and Mark Peters, Dow Jones Newswires;
415-439-6468; cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com
(Christine Buurma in New York contributed to this report.)