Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
1/17/14
The Department of Energy will provide $1 billion of cost-shared funding to the FutureGen 2.0 carbon capture and storage project, the Department announced in a Record of Decision this week. “The U.S. Department of Energy’s approval of a favorable NEPA Record of Decision for the FutureGen 2.0 project advances the project another step forward,” Ken Humphreys, CEO of the FutureGen Alliance, which is heading the project, said in a statement to GHG Monitor. “Issuance of the ROD is an important milestone and a boost to demonstrating fully integrated carbon capture and storage technology at commercial-scale coal-fueled power plant. With the ROD now in place, pending issuance of the CO2 storage permit and financial close, construction of FutureGen 2.0 will begin in 2014.”
The majority of the funds were appropriated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The decision comes on the heels of the release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the project, which was largely unchanged from the EIS draft that found the project would have potential “minor adverse impacts” on nearby groundwater, geology and air quality but would likely have a “beneficial impact” on the surrounding area’s climate and greenhouse gas emissions.
