FutureGen supporters hopeful with new president

CHAMPAIGN _ In Coles County, economic developers and others who back the FutureGen clean-coal project have waited for Election Day for months, hoping a new president would breathe life back into the out-of-favor project.

But now that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's been elected, they're stressing patience as they wait for signs that the president-elect could get plans to build in Mattoon back on track.

"Obviously, he has many challenges that demand his attention and we understand FutureGen may not be his first priority," Angela Griffin, president of the Coles Together economic development group, said Wednesday in an e-mail. "But we believe he understands the need to move quickly to make up for lost time and to contain the damage already occurring to the environment."

Similarly, the alliance of power and coal companies planning to build FutureGen in Coles County's largest town say that with the election over, now the real, small-strokes, nuts-and-bolts work begins.

The job is to convince the next president that FutureGen and its mission to capture carbon from coal and store it to cut pollution should be a national priority, Mike Mudd, chief executive of the FutureGen Alliance, said in an interview in late October.

Obama talked about clean coal during his campaign, Mudd pointed out, and "I think there's a receptiveness with them to meet with us."

President Bush launched FutureGen in 2003.

Coles County saw the opportunity to become a sort of capital of clean-coal research, and a projected 300 permanent jobs and $20 million in annual wages.

But by the time the alliance announced last December that it wanted to build in Mattoon, the Bush administration had backed away from the original project, complaining about increasing costs. FutureGen was originally envisioned as a $950 million project, but by the end of 2007 the estimated cost reached $1.8 billion.

Project supporters still maintain the administration's about-face was based on politics. Mattoon was chosen over another site in Illinois and two in Texas, President Bush's home state.

The Department of Energy later announced plans to spend $1.3 billion on carbon-capture technology at several still-to-be-selected sites around the country.

John Mead, director of the Coal Research Center at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, said that while Obama mentioned the project little during his successful presidential bid, he considers Tuesday's result "a positive for FutureGen."

But Mead stressed patience: As Obama transitions to the White House, the Senate must sign off on his pick for the Energy Department's next chief, a move that could take time. And Obama's administration must set the department's policy and direction.

Mead called the transition process "complicated," noting that other appointments within the Energy Department might influence FutureGen's path under Obama.

Appropriation measures sent to the Energy Department by Congress might give clues about where FutureGen may be headed, Mead said, "but even that is not a clear line of command."

Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who has championed FutureGen before and after the Energy Department's change of course, said in an interview last week that he hopes to see money for FutureGen in Obama's first budget, something Congress usually sees in February.

If the project can get back on course shortly thereafter, Mudd says he would like to start building in 2010 and have the plant running by 2013.

Illinois' shrinking coal industry sees carbon-capture projects as a lifeline. About 3,300 Illinoisans work in coal, down from just over 4,000 at the start of 2007, according to the Illinois Coal Association.

Obama wants to implement a cap-and-trade system that would charge power plants for the release of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas scientists link to climate change.

Such a system is probably inevitable, but needs to include room for the development of projects such as FutureGen that intended to find ways to burn coal without releasing the carbon dioxide, said Coal Association spokesman Phil Gonet.

"You just can't ignore coal," Gonet said, arguing that the country's growing energy needs aren't likely to be met without it.