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Illinois, Texas Enter Next Stage In Efforts To Land FutureGen
ST. LOUIS (AP) – Illinois’ duel with Texas for the world’s
first new near-zero-emissions coal power plant entered its next phase when delegations
from both states were briefed about what’s expected of them environmentally
in trying to land the billion-dollar project.
The meetings, which opened in Pittsburgh, amounted to a road map for what
the states – each with two sites vying for what’s known as FutureGen – must
do in helping ensure the Energy Department drafts environmental-impact statements
within a year, about one-third of the typical timeframe.
“
It’s a very accelerated process,” Jack Lain, Illinois’ economic-development
chief, said by telephone during a lunchtime interview.
Lain said each state must submit environmental and geological specifics about
their potential FutureGen sites by Nov. 17, two weeks before those technical,
scientific details are forwarded to the Energy Department.
The briefings came a week after two Illinois sites – Effingham and Marshall – and
six others were eliminated from contention, leaving locations near Mattoon
and Tuscola in Illinois and near Odessa and in Jewett in Texas as finalists.
Federal officials expect to select a site by September 2007. The project
has the potential to create more than 1,000 construction jobs and 150 permanent
ones.
The plant, expected to be running by 2012, would turn coal into a hydrogen-rich
gas to produce electricity for about 275,000 single-family homes. The process
would not release carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants usually associated
with coal-burning plants.
Scientists have blamed the burning of fossil fuels as one of the main causes
of global warming.
Illinois officials said they’re ready to back up their candidates with
as much as $80 million in incentives, from grants to low-interest loans.
“We definitely think we have two winning locations,” Lain said. He
was joined in Pittsburgh by Bill Hoback, chief of the state’s Office
of Coal Development, and representatives of Mattoon, Tuscola and the Illinois
State
Geological Survey.
Texas has committed $20 million in incentives but also has assumed liability
arising from FutureGen’s plan to virtually eliminate air pollution by
storing carbon dioxide waste in underground reservoirs.
The FutureGen Alliance, including 10 energy companies from the United States,
China and Australia, already has committed more than $250 million to the
project, and the U.S. government is putting up about $700 million.
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