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[Bumped up to make the story more visible.]
Watch the FutureGen siting announcement at this link. The announcement speech is scheduled for 9 o’clock.
The FutureGen Industrial Alliance is scheduled to announce at 9 this morning whether a $1.75 billion experimental coal-fueled power plant will be built in Illinois or Texas.
Two cities in central Illinois, Tuscola and Mattoon, are competing with the Texas cities of Odessa and Jewett for the plant, called FutureGen, which will bring 150 permanent full-time jobs and 1,300 contruction jobs and the cachè of being the home of “the world’s cleanest coal-fueled power plant.”
The Energy Department conceived FutureGen in February 2003 as a way to advance so-called clean coal technology, and will contribute more than $1 billion for the project with remaining costs shared among members of the Future Gen Alliance, one of which is St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corp.
States bidding for the project are pitching in, too. The Illinois General Assembly and Gov. Rod Blagojevich agreed to offer $80 million in tax breaks, grants and low-interest loans to win the project — a lot, but just a fraction of the $981 million being dangled by Texas.
*** UPDATE *** Mattoon, IL was selected as the site. That’s huge news for the state.
*** UPDATE 2 *** AP…
A government and industry research project to learn ways to burn coal without emitting global warming gases took a major step forward Tuesday as an industry group said it would build the facility at a site in Illinois, choosing the location over two potential sites in Texas.
The futuristic $1.8 billion power plant, known as FutureGen, will be built on several hundred acres near Mattoon, Ill., where construction is expected to bring hundreds of jobs and boost the local economy.
More background…
Officials in Texas and Illinois were willing to put up millions of dollars in incentives for the project, which will develop and test technology that will turn coal into a cleaner-burning gas and store carbon dioxide emissions deep underground.
Texas promised $260 million in cash and tax credits, while Illinois offered $80 million in grants, low-interest loans and tax breaks. Both states offered developers protection from liability in the event that carbon dioxide leaks from the ground.
*** UPDATE 3 *** But there’s also this ominous development…
Energy Department representatives did not take part in the announcement and last week told the industry group it was “inadvisable” to go ahead with a site selection at this time. The department said it was still examining some of the public comments received in response to environmental reviews of the four sites.
“We advised them not to move forward,” department spokeswoman Julie Ruggiero said Monday. She said the department had yet to issue a formal Record of Decision related to the environmental reviews that were formally issued Nov. 16, triggering a 30-day public comment period.
*** UPDATE 4 *** Sean Crawford at WUIS had a recent story about how FutureGen might never be built. The audio won’t work on my Mac (which annoys me to no end), but you can listen here.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:49 am
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This could be a big boon for IL, hopes we gets it.
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:05 am
We got it. It’s at Mattoon.
Comment by Anon Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:13 am
MATTOON!!
That’s awesome.
Comment by the commuter once known as So Ill Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:14 am
Good work Blagojevich Administration!
Comment by Anon Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:14 am
Huge!
Comment by GoBearsss Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:15 am
Good news for the State. Hopefully some of the mines that have closed down will be ablee to open back up.
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:15 am
Does that mean the Governor is going to give return the ten million he took from the Southern Illinois Coal mining industry and gave to Chicago?
Comment by Leigh Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:16 am
Good work Jack Lavin and DCEO team.
Comment by (618) Democrat Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:18 am
Since this is good news for the state, it should only be mere seconds until the prepared Rod Release is availalable, followed by some face time to take credit (but definitely not questions).
Happy for the jobs coming though. Illinois really needed this lift.
Comment by This Guy Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:19 am
Congrats to Mattoon and the State of Illinois. Miracles do happen, the site in Illinois was picked in spite of Governor Dufus.
Comment by Dan, a voter Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:21 am
Good job Blago team!
Comment by nice Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:22 am
Mattoon!!! Respect!!! Nice!!!
Comment by b-dogg Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:22 am
Interestingly, the guy did not mention Blagojevich when making the announcement of the selection. He didn’t mention Dick Durbin either, who has publicly stated he has some concerns about the financing. I don’t want to be a wet blanket here, but I sure hope the General Assembly is able to force the Governor to fund the state’s commitment for the remaining 3 years of his final term. I’m glad my homestate was selected, but based on the announcement, it would appear as though it was for purely business efficiency reasons related to the specific site, not because Rod is a seasoned professional on making business investment decisions. His track record with funding existing programs is hideous. Let’s hope that a “professional” in the old DCCA office is making sure this is done right.
Comment by DC Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:22 am
This is great news for the Coles County area.
Comment by zatoichi Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:22 am
gosh, you people are so bitter! That is really exciting for Illinois. Great day for Illinois, republican or democrat, fan of the governor, not a fan of the governor.
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:23 am
Can somebody give a brief description of what this means to Illinois? I know its good, but I dont fully understand the details. Thanks.
Comment by Anon Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:24 am
Glad to see that this Illinois won this; considering the anti-business sentiments in this state I had almost written off the prospect of this happening.
There is still one important hurdle to clear if this project is ever to come to fruition though - expect a major fight on the part of environmentalists against the facility. I would guess that we are looking at several years of legal obstructionism on the part of the Sierra Club and others who will certainly object to the use of coal to power any power plant. I also suspect that they will not being willing to accept pumping CO2 deep underground into the strata and will come up with some excuse to prevent it (at least until paid to go away).
At any rate - congratulations to the residents of Mattoon.
Comment by NimROD Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:28 am
I know just a little about it - but I think it means $1.75 billion from the federal government and energy companies around the country will be invested in Mattoon.
That’s a good thing.
Comment by GoBearsss Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:28 am
Great news for Illinois. Bill Hoback and the Illinois Coal Office and DCEO deserve a lot of credit.
Comment by downstate hack Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:28 am
Of course, this is great news for Eastern Illinois University, too…but don’t discount the efforts of the SIU Coal Institute. They’re the nation’s leaders in coal gasification technology, and I’m sure having them two hours down the road played a big part.
First thing that the administration has endorsed that I’ve fully backed in…quite some time.
Comment by the commuter once known as So Ill Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:31 am
Anon Illinois sits on metric tons of “dirty” coal. This power plant, if it works, can burn dirty coal without creating pollution or a need to clean the coal. This could create a huge number of jobs mining, processing and shipping coal.If the plant works out, more will be built and Illinois will be a source to fuel them all.
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:32 am
Anon:
Another benefit of this type of power plant is that the gasification process separates hydrogen from the coal which can be used as the fuel in fuel cell vehicles. Thus, in addition to the electricity created you also turn a byproduct of the process into something useful.
Another possible benefit is that if you take the excess CO2 created and pump it into the oil-bearing strata this will allow you to recover more oil and natural gas than would otherwise be possible. Oil companies have been using water to do this for years but CO2 is thought to cause less damage to the strata than water injection.
Comment by NimROD Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:37 am
This is as exciting as the SSC!
We’ll see!
Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:39 am
Heh, can’t resist: Can we start banking on revenues from this to bail out the CTA?
Comment by the commuter once known as So Ill Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:39 am
Compare to the Ryan/Madigan administration when we lost the superconductor collider. Evil Rod strikes again and Illinois takes another step towards Mississippi…NOT!
Comment by lake county democrat Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:41 am
This is a great accomplishment for the Gov, DCEO, and the IL Congressional delegation. Congratulations!
Comment by Loop Lady Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:50 am
Lake -
I wouldn’t be too quick to congratulate King Rod on this one. His participation looks to be more along the lines of just happening to be in the right place at the right time. Overall it looks like Durbin did more gladhanding (I can’t believe he was actually worth something for a change) to get this done.
The is an old saying about sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut. This pretty well sums up our governors’ involvement.
What will be more interesting is if he actually follows through on his monetary commitments or reallocates the money for his populist project of the week - as he has done so many times before.
Comment by Name/Nickname/Anon Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:52 am
Now that the decision has been made, it will be interesting to see if those involved make public the gov’s removal of Illinois’ share to bail out CTA.
Comment by Mr. Wizard Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:05 am
Congratulations to Mattoon, Illinois a family focused community. Their forward thinking helped them enter the selection process and their community leadership helped them win the project. Listening for the past hour at the presentation and award ceremony, it was made crystal clear that politics played no role in the selection. The only reason the gov is going there today is for tagging on to the PR. He had absolutely nothing to do with the selection…thank goodness! The people of Mattoon and Coles County are the champions here, not the gov or his office. The result is that we in Illinois win, and the science of coal energy conversion will be a win for the world.
Comment by Justice Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:06 am
It isn’t a done deal yet. DOE may say no. The environmental process has been completed.
Comment by Huh? Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:11 am
i recall reading somehwere that China and/or India are also very interested in this technology as well.
They are major polluters with lots of coal power plants. This could make a real difference on green house gases if it works and is implemented in these countries.
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:13 am
Rod is more worried about buying Wrigley Field than what goes on in Mattoon. Mattoon is south of the Tri-State so it’s not really in Illinois!! Tell him to stay in his “headquarters”. Maybe shut down Coles Co airport so the plane can’t land. Lord only knows he won’t drive in.
Comment by ABolt243 Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:16 am
Nice going!! This is in line with the Administration’s progressive enviro work while considering the economy.
Comment by really now Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:16 am
This is great. Now I hope the Monterey Coal Mine won’t close and that the new Peabody sites in southern IL will hire even more miners and engineers. This will have a positive ripple effect on the state.
Comment by Team Sleep Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:16 am
Congrats to Gov. Rod. I had no idea until today that he was responsible for:
1. The positioning of the railroad which provided the all important coal access to the Mattoon site.
2. The water sytems and the location of Lake Shelbyville - also critical to the selection process
3. The Geological formation (millions of years old) which was also an important factor.
Thank you Govenor Rod for your incredible forsight. This was truly your victory alone…
Comment by Downstater Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:18 am
The announcement highlighted a decison based on science and information. Thanks to Rob Finley and the State Geological Survey who provided all the scientific underpinning that made the Illinois the choice.
Comment by Science Guy Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:18 am
Congratulations to Governor Blagojevich and his team for winning this big project for Illinois. We, the real people of Illinois, thank you for being our advoicate.
Comment by Bill Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:21 am
Gee, they must have had every state PR person write the same message here. Now, get back to work people and do the job you’re paid to do.
Comment by Joe Schmoe Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:25 am
Let’s see if Blago comes out of the bunker to take credit for this. I bet he won’t since he can’t face the press right now and answer questions about his good pal Chris Kelly.
Comment by KenoMan Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:29 am
Hey, isn’t Mattoon just down the road from Champaign, boyhood home of Chris Kelly?
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:31 am
Mattoon gets FutureGen.
Tony Rezko gets the Panda Express Concession.
Chris Kelly gets the roof contract.
Patti Blagojevich gets the brokers commission.
Nicholas Hurtgen gets the bond deal.
Its all good people!
Comment by razzle-dazzle Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:40 am
Science Guy mentions the State Geological Survey. Double congrats to them! They were the lead research agency on this bid, and Illinois is lucky to have such a well respected group. On the down side, last August the gov used his veto pen to cut back positions and 90% of the Geological Survey’s equipment budget. So, all of you patting the gov on the back, please suggest that he restore funding to the agency that brought him this nice little victory.
I also noted that the Dept. of Energy seems to be balking. Could this have anything to do with a Texas-based governor and his posse who have always balked at the “reality-based” crowd? Look for the retiring President to try to take this one home.
Comment by Pot calling kettle Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:54 am
oops. rewrite on the last paragraph Bush is the Texa-based President, not gov.
Comment by Pot calling kettle Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 10:55 am
Good job promoting the Governor all of you hacks and sycophants. Now you can go and pick up your coupons for a FREE Panda Express fried rice lunch.
Comment by From the Guv's Office Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 11:02 am
This is great for Illinois. Now I hope Rod and Madigan will get busy on passing the bill in the house for the power plant at Taylorville with the advanced technology for emissions.
Comment by top cat Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 11:08 am
the surveys at UIUC are a diamond in the cubic zirconia jewelry counter of state government
Comment by Loop Lady Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 11:11 am
How much actual revenue (if any) is this actually projected to bring to the state?
Comment by Snidely Whiplash Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 11:54 am
While all of the back-patting is going on, look back at Mr. Wizard’s comment above. As I understand it the funding that Illinois was offering to provide for this project was moved by the Governor to keep CTA afloat. If this is correct, how is this money to be provided now?
Comment by Cogito Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:04 pm
Kudos to Mattoon. The coal industry downstate needs the boost more than any other sector.
Now for the tough part, the financing and of course getting the coal out of the ground without Greenpeace stopping it.
Comment by Truthful James Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:12 pm
Maybe the governor intends to fund it by selling JRTC. The tollway perhaps? Wrigley Field? Tickets to his daughters next birthday party? The possibilities are endless when you have no real intent to do anything but promise.
Comment by Name/Nickname/Anon Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:19 pm
Two-thirds of Illinois residents still live in areas that don’t meet air quality health standards and we’re going to build another coal power plant… “zero-emissions”? Puh-leeze. the Mattoon plant would emit another 2000+ tons of dangerous conventional air pollution every year that harms human health (even if it succeeds in sticking carbon dioxide underground). Don’t believe me? go read the USDOE’s Enviromental Impact Report.
Comment by cleanairguy Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:21 pm
I’m still waiting to hear how we’ll actually make money out this when we’re subsidizing it.
Comment by Snidely Whiplash Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:36 pm
Snidely we get to tax the income of the employees, the builders and sellers of the materials, not to mention sales tax, fuel tax, tax on taxing for taxes…in short…more to tax.
If it opens up increased mining we get to tax those employees, the trucks, coal companies. The question is probably more like what are we expecting in increased tax and sales revenue to the State versus what we are giving up.
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:44 pm
“Two-thirds of Illinois residents still live in areas that don’t meet air quality health standards and we’re going to build another coal power plant”
And how many of those areas are directly adjacent to coal-fired power plants? Answer: Not very many. The two areas that are indicated as unsafe to sensitive residents in the 2005 IEPA study are concentrated around the St. Louis and Chicago metro areas. There are large numbers of coal-fired plants in the rural areas of Illinois which, like the entire rest of the state, show moderate air quality standards. Coal plants do contribute to pollution but they are NOT the only source…clustering of unsafe air quality in metro areas seems to suggest that urban environments are a far greater contributor than the coal plants by themselves.
Another question: What viable alternative do we have that will not draw the ire of and lawsuits from environmental groups? If you don’t like coal fine; please suggest something else that we can use that the environmental movement will support AND that is both scientifically AND economically viable.
Comment by Name/Nickname/Anon Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:45 pm
Keep in mind texas saw enough dollar signs to toss 981 million in incentives.
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:46 pm
Thanks Ghost. I do realize that, but I’m wondering if the projections excede the $80M subsidy over a reasonable period of time.
Comment by Snidely Whiplash Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 12:57 pm
The IL Sierra Club has a statement of support for this project.
Comment by Redbright Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 1:04 pm
One disadvantage of FutureGen’s approach to carbon management is that the power plant must
divert a sizable fraction of the total electricity production to operating the carbon capture and
sequestration facilities. The result is that FutureGen would realize a net electricity production rate that would be comparable to that of many older, less efficient power plants. This means that more coal must be consumed to generate the same amount of electricity as the plant would produce without carbon capture and sequestration. [PDF source: DOE]
Lots of interesting stuff in the DOE Final Environmental Impact Statement for the FutureGen Project report. I wonder if any of this will make it into the news stories we’ll see about the site selection.
Comment by Kiyoshi Martinez Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 1:13 pm
“The IL Sierra Club has a statement of support for this project.”
I checked the Illinois Sierra Club website but find no statement of this type. I did find this from SJ-R:
http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/21534.asp
I wouldn’t exactly call what the Sierra Club’s director stated in the article to be a ringing endorsement. Merely, the chose not to oppose indemnity legislation. Sierra Club is and has been historically vehemently opposed to all coal-fired power plants and it is hard to believe they will not oppose this one.
Here is another article about FutureGen:
http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/snapshot/sf060810.htm
“The national Sierra Club, for example, said of FutureGen, “When you have an addiction, you don’t say, ‘I’ll try to kick the habit in 10 or 20 years.”
The Sierra Club is not supportive of this project.
Comment by Name/Nickname/Anon Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 1:19 pm
Any DOE threats on this are only about the Bush administration not wanting to put any money to it.
Their wrangling on this has to be because the Bush administration wanted Texas to get the project.
Guess what! Those jokers are gone in a year - well before any federal funding would need to be delivered.
Comment by GoBearsss Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 1:38 pm
Are my eyes failing me? Was the Texas subsidy on the order of $890 Million while Ilinois promises $80 Million?
Something is not right about those numbers. Perhaps it has to do with the timing of the payouts which is not explained.
Comment by Truthful James Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 1:42 pm
Technically, it’s not a coal-fired powerplant. It is a gas-fired powerplant with a coal gassification plant and cogeneration, plus the in-ground carbon sequestration technology. A side benefit of the sequestration technology is that the injection well can also be used to recover a modest but worthwhile amount of crude oil out of the rock strata.
That was the part of the technology Texas was most interested in because they have a lot of wells that are no longer in the early gusher stages of production and they need this technology to squeeze out the remaining oil reserves. They could give a hoot about sequestering the CO2. It’s about keeping their oil wells pumping.
I congratulate Mattoon, even if it is premature. Expect Texas to try some back-door shennanigans now with the DOE. We need to keep up the effort and not slack off until ALL the paperwork has been signed.
Finally, while this is a worthwhile project, the fact it relies on such very specific geology means to me that it is never going to be a widespread national solution, not even an all-state of Illinois solution.
I think that since Illinois has about a dozen reactors all reaching retirement and decommissioning age within in the same decade, we need to really be pushing the next step in a replacement reactor technology, one that’s safer and more economic to operate. Like pebble-bed reactors and high temp gas-cooled reactors that are meltdown-proof and don’t use a leaky water-based steam loop for the generation cycle like the old PWR reactor designs. If we delay much more on that issue, we’ll be looking at a very ugly situation in ten to fifteen years, as the reacctors get retires without a ready replacement and where the only expedient solution will be a whole slew of more polluting gas and coal-fired peaker plants scattered all over the state, in our back yards. With huge new utility bill increases. That’s a band-aid approach to the situation.
The time to start revamping Illinois’ nuclear plants is NOW, because of the lead times involved. Let’s not become another California!
Comment by Big bad John Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 1:54 pm
James, look at the story that heads this thread, under UPDATE 2 …. More background. The figure there is $260 million
Comment by ABolt243 Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 1:58 pm
Of course, we could always try to cut consumption. Unfortunately, using less has no sex appeal.
Dreaming…What if we took that $80+ million and spread it around our universities to develop energy efficient technologies, then, with the expertise developed and a share of the patents, we could build new industries in Illinois that produced goods made with that new technology, and, with the world rapidly running out of fossil fuels and energy prices soaring, we could rake in big bucks while saving the environment from the byproducts of energy overuse…dream on.
Comment by Pot calling kettle Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 2:02 pm
Lets face it, as Americans in the late 20th-early 21st century, we have developed the habit of looking for places to bury our problems.
This project fits well, literally as well as figuratively.
Comment by Pot calling kettle Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 2:04 pm
ABolt243 — thanks. Still a big differential. Texas must have made a lot of their benefits payable well down the line
Big bad John –
What you said bears repeating and I hope someone is paying attention
“…I think that since Illinois has about a dozen reactors all reaching retirement and decommissioning age within in the same decade, we need to really be pushing the next step in a replacement reactor technology, one that’s safer and more economic to operate. Like pebble-bed reactors and high temp gas-cooled reactors that are meltdown-proof and don’t use a leaky water-based steam loop for the generation cycle like the old PWR reactor designs. If we delay much more on that issue, we’ll be looking at a very ugly situation in ten to fifteen years, as the reacctors get retires without a ready replacement and where the only expedient solution will be a whole slew of more polluting gas and coal-fired peaker plants scattered all over the state, in our back yards. With huge new utility bill increases. That’s a band-aid approach to the situation…”
China understands the need and is investing hugely in the pebble bed reactors. You can bet your bippy it is not a 15 year time horizon for them.
Too bad we can’t get hydropower from the Mississippi, Illinois, Wabash and Ohio Rivers. It doesn’t take much fall to generate.
Comment by Truthful James Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 2:18 pm
Such cynicism! This is good news folks!! For all concerned!!!
Comment by Anonymous45 Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 2:39 pm
The state has taken on liability if something goes wrong. Politicians won’t be bragging if Illinois taxpayers are stuck footing the bill for a multi-million dollar lawsuit when something goes wrong with the experiment.
Comment by Just wait Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 3:40 pm
Pot calling kettle: with the world rapidly running out of fossil fuels
The world isn’t rapidly running out of fossil fuels. Illinois has more Btus that can be produced from coal than the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. The problem isn’t the supply, it’s the “dirty” output and emissions standards we have that prevents us from burning it here.
Comment by Kiyoshi Martinez Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 3:46 pm
Kiyoshi M.
Then let’s sell it or exchange it with an oil producer
Comment by Truthful James Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 4:02 pm
You know, all you anti-Chicago types make it hard for me take pride that my home town (Mattoon, IL) has won a big prize. I’m happy for them. I got my first 13 years of education there (K-12), before moving to Chicago for college. It is a decent, middle class town and was a great place to grow up.
Comment by cermak_rd Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 4:26 pm
Wow, two Pebble Bed nuclear reactor fans!
Here’s another tout: the reactor is well suited to the thorium fuel cycle.
The thorium fuel cycle yields far less fissionable plutonium waste than does the uranium fuel cycle. And it needs no supporting uranium “enrichment” infrastructure. So in addition to the pebble bed’s being “meltdown-proof” and not having any tritium contaminated water to leak, when people fuel it with thorium there is substantially less bomb proliferation risk than with the new (and current) uranium reactor technologies being hawked.
Thorium. Clean, plentiful thorium.
Thorium.
Comment by Ivory-billed Woodpecker Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 4:30 pm
I-b Woodpecker — can we count on you as a third.
For many of you please go to
http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Th/key.html
for a description of the element Thorium.
But seriously, I-b, you propbably know more than I by a good bit. Thanks for the introduction to Thorium. Probably I haven’t heard much about it is because the oil companies are trying to lock up the supplies.
With respect to the PRC, bippy wise, you can bet that they could care less about bomb residue.
BTW, why aren’t we convincing Iran to use Thorium fueled reactors?
Comment by Truthful James Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 4:42 pm
Here’s the actual statement from the Sierra Club. I wouldn’t call it overly supportive.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 18, 2007
Sierra Club Statement on FutureGen Siting
No New Coal Plants Until Technology Proven
Statement of Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign, in response to today’s announcement that Mattoon in East Central Illinois was picked as the site for the $1.8 billion FutureGen project — an experimental coal plant that would capture and store its carbon.
“If coal is to remain a part of our energy future, it must be mined responsibly, burned cleanly and not contribute to global warming. FutureGen will allow the coal industry to determine whether or not it is technologically and financially feasible to continue to burn coal without accelerating global warming.
“It will still be years before we see if the highly experimental FutureGen project is successful in capturing and safely storing its carbon emissions–until then it is critical that no additional coal plants are permitted and constructed in the United States. We need to continue to invest in the demonstrated clean energy alternatives that are available today and don’t contribute to global warming, like wind power and energy efficiency.
“We can expand our energy choices beyond the limited, unhealthy options of the past. We should be offering incentives for alternatives to coal that can meet our energy needs and save us money while boosting the economy, improving public health and combating global warming. Illinois and many other states are already reaping the benefits of transitioning to cleaner energy. While we continue to look for cleaner ways to use existing energy sources, we should also be investing and supporting alternative, renewable sources of energy and increasing efficiency.”
Comment by Sierra Club Statement Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 4:48 pm
I never thought I would see a discussion of advanced fuel nuclear reactors here on CapFax.
I would love to see this technology deployed here in Illinois. The problem is that the only thing more evil than coal to an environmentalist is the words ‘nuclear power plant’. Despite the science you will never get the environs on board.
Comment by Name/Nickbame/Anon Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 4:53 pm
I certainly hope that all Chicagoland state legislatures are planning on torpedoing this power plant. After all-who cares if they get jobs in Mattoon. They don’t seem to care if we can get to work around here. Maybe we can use this to get some votes on the transportation bill? Or better yet, we can force them to power up all our new casinos for free.
I am just kidding, of course, but I won’t be surprised when someone throws this log onto the Illinois political fire.
Comment by Garp Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 5:11 pm
Name/Nickbame/Anon — Yeh you can compliment Radioactive Rich for this great thread.
SCS -
The whole purpose of the FutureGen Project is to prove that it works. None have been built. Somebody has to be first.
What gall. As I was told early in another career “…you can’t be a member of Actor’s Equity until you have been in an Equity play, and you can’t be in an Equity play until you are a member of Actor’s Equity…”
Is there no end to the mischief. Send the Sierra people back to the mountains. Those dilliantes have already made theirs.
Comment by Truthful James Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 5:26 pm
In plain English, they’re going to try and pump a ****load of CO2 underground and hope it stays there forever. Intelligent people may have differing views, but AA would just as soon have the test bed for that ideer a little farther away from his crib.
Heck of a tourist attraction:
“Mattoon, Illinois, home of the World’s Largest Gasbag.”
Maybe they could lure Rush Limbaugh there and then they would have #1 and #2.
Comment by Arthur Andersen Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 5:51 pm
Kiyoshi M: By any measure, our use of fossil fuels (including coal) is not sustainable. Yes, we have nice reserves of coal in Illinois, but extracting it will get more and more expensive as we continue to rapidly deplete the thicker, more easily accessible seams. And not only is burning coal a dirty process, mining it is not particularly low impact either.
In the long run, our best bet is to use less.
Comment by Pot calling kettle Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 9:30 pm
You might be surprised to know that the environmentalists have been thawing out over the nuclear power question in the past few years as this newer technology becomes more widely known, and compared to various energy alternatives.
It’s about energy density and land area, for one thing. A photovoltaic solar plant or a mirror/heated tower plant takes up hundreds of acres of land for the mirrors, Wind farms, a few acres less, but at least you can farm around the towers if they are on flat land… though mostly they like hillsides and tops. Biofuels take food crop land out of production, plus they strain the soil and still require a lot of plowing and fertilizing and bug spraying and etc. and the conversion plants take a heavy toll on local groundwater. Switch grasses are better than corn for this, but still, the area of planted land and the plant to make the ethanol or biodiesel create serious land use issues.
A New-technology high-temperature helium-gas-cooled nuclear plant only takes up a handful of acreage, you could return the surrounding land to food crops or nature. You could build them without cooling ponds and perhaps even without cooling towers. Radiation leakage problems in the past mostly came from leakage of irradiated water and pressurized steam, the pebble-bed reactor design eliminates this entire steam loop. The concerns for containment and reactor safety are uniquely solved by the pebble design: instead of fuel rods, the fuel is spread out in baseball-sized ceramic spheres, picture gumballs in a gumball machine. The spheres can never allow the fuel to get concentrated into a small enough area to cause a meltdown, and their shape means there is always adequate spacing in the pile for coolant flow, in this case helium, which can’t get radioactive after neutron bombardment like water can. You can remove all the coolant and the reactor cannot run away, it gets to a certain thermal limit and stops. Pull a lever and let some of the fuel balls roll out into a holding area and the reaction is stopped. The fuel remains in these spheres thruout the cycle, never exposed to air and kept too diffuse to use for weapons. Easy and safer to transport, and self-storing when expended.
But here’s the added value that should make a die hard Sierra clubber get interested:
Reactors like this create the kind of heat that makes it economical to crack plain water into hydrogen gas for pollution-free cars and trucks. The kind of heat and electrical power that can pyrolyze or “pressure-cook” waste products like animal waste, old tires, used paint and other toxics, into their constituent chemical components, which can be re-sold as feedstocks for various industrial processes. Instead of polluting groundwater and clogging landfills, you break the garbage and waste down into things that can be used again, saving the costs and pollution of mining and refining them from scratch. What environmentalist would not love a powerplant that emits no CO2 or other pollutants, and at the same time destroys toxic waste and converts it into recyclable raw material? While making pollution-free fuel for cars and trucks and home fuel cells?
Really, all props to Future Gen, but it’s a tinker-toy compared to what we could be doing with advanced nuclear energy in this, one of the most nuclear-powered states in the union.
But we need to get the programs rolling TODAY, so the finished plants are ready to take over when the old 60’s and 70’s era plants have to be retired. It’s going to take us fifteen years or more to get this put into place. Do we want to sit in crisis for fifteen years later? Do we want to have to make do with stop-gap solutions that all burn coal, oil or gas?
For our children’s sake, we need to get going now.
Comment by Tom Swift Tuesday, Dec 18, 07 @ 11:42 pm
Tom Swift –
Long ago I proposed the last book in your series be “Tom Swift and His Atomic Piles” –
But you are right on. Lets get organized. Let’s get out of the serf inducing oil monopoly circle, push oil back into the petrochemical industry.
Fifteen years is too damn long a time, especially with the gov’t now willing to guarantee 80% of the construction costs. It will require breaking a lot of rice bowls to overcome the bureaucratic inertia. Fifteen years is too damn long.
I thought we could do it with fusion based reactors and superconductive transmission to overcome the line loss over distance, but we don’t even need to wait that long. Now if we could breach the storage problem after transmission and before use, we will have completed the cycle. Electric cars become possible with refueling on the run. Every form of transportation except for aviating (space and weight considerations) becomes a user of electricity rather than petroleum.
But we have to get moving, because every bureaucrat has his own pet methodology from DOE down. They will always want the way they know instead of the way to go.
Helluva thread.
Comment by Truthful James Wednesday, Dec 19, 07 @ 11:36 am