Issue date: 8/28/08 Section: News

Closing of more than 400 acres of land in Mattoon for the proposed FutureGen power plant will take place by the end of the year. (Courtesy of FutureGen Alliance)

Closing of more than 400 acres of land in Mattoon for the proposed FutureGen power plant will likely take place at the end of the year.

Angela Griffin, president of Coles Together, said the FutureGen Alliance has exercised its option to purchase the land located at the intersection of Dole Road and Illinois Route 121.

The FutureGen Alliance and Coles Together are splitting the $6.5 million cost, with Coles Together covering $3 million and the FutureGen Alliance covering $3.5 million.

The FutureGen power plant would use coal gasification to convert coal into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

The hydrogen created would power a turbine that would create electricity. A second turbine would create electricity from the steam from the first turbine.

The plant would then capture and store 90 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in the deep geological reservoirs more than one mile underground in the Mt. Simon Sandstone reservoir.

The power plant would power 150,000 homes off the 175 megawatts produced.

Previously endorsed by the U.S. Department of Energy, support was removed in January of this year, and the department said it favor of multiple sites across the country.

The FutureGen Alliance chose Mattoon as the site for the plant over Tuscola and two sites in Texas.

Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for the FutureGen Alliance, said the Alliance continues to gain bipartisan support in Congress and that the Senate has protected appropriations for the project.

Pacheco said while the Alliance is not making any endorsements for the presidential election, both candidates have expressed support for carbon capture and storage technology.

Griffin said she thinks both John McCain and Barack Obama would support the project.

"(McCain) has talked about clean coal technology," she said. "I think he is definitely open to it. He understands it."

She is pleased with the response from the Illinois Congressional delegation as well as local and state leaders.

Illinois has paid Cassidy and Associates, a Washington lobbying firm, $303,000 this year to convince public officials to locate the entire project in Mattoon.

The state will pay the group an additional $165,000 for its services starting now until June 2009, according to state records.

Leaders from the whole state have worked to bring support to the project, Griffin said.

"I think they all get climate change and energy security as well," she said.

Currently, the project is still undergoing site characteristics work, and the alliance is working on a new cost estimate, Pacheco said.







Matt Hopf can be reached at 581-7942 or at mthopf@eiu.edu.

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