AEP, Southern Pull Out Of Futuregen 'Clean-Coal' Project -CEOs
25 Junio 2009 - 1:13PM
Noticias Dow Jones
American Electric Power Co. (AEP) and Southern Co. (SO) are
pulling out of Futuregen, a U.S. government-backed project to
capture and store the greenhouse-gas emissions from a coal-fired
power plant, the companies' top executives said Thursday.
The companies, two of the biggest coal-burning utilities in the
U.S., are exiting the Futuregen Alliance just weeks after it won
renewed support from the federal government. The Obama
administration earlier this month all but guaranteed almost $1.1
billion for the project, to be based in Mattoon, Ill., reviving a
project that had suffered a major setback in early 2008 when the
Bush administration backed out of funding plans after costs almost
doubled. The companies' departure from the alliance was reported
earlier by Bloomberg News.
The project envisions the building of a power plant that will
capture and permanently store underground 60% of the carbon-dioxide
emitted in combustion. This is down from the original aim to
capture 90% of the plant's CO2 emissions. The plant would test the
technology on a commercial level, a critical step in the face of
likely federal climate change legislation that would limit
greenhouse gas emissions.
"We've moved onto other projects," Southern Chief Executive
David Ratcliffe said on the sidelines of the Edison Electric
Institute conference in San Francisco. He said he told Energy
Secretary Steven Chu that "I've had to devote my resources to
other, more tangible projects that are moving faster," adding he
still strongly supports the Futuregen project and Southern would
share information with developers.
Southern will concentrate on two carbon capture and storage
projects in Alabama, and a coal gasification project in
Mississippi.
Likewise, AEP CEO Mike Morris said his company was going to
devote its resources to other sequestration projects, including the
Mountaineer plant in West Virginia. Morris said AEP would be
capturing carbon there by this fall.
"It's going to happen a whole lot sooner than Futuregen," Morris
said on the sidelines of the conference. He added, however, that he
still supports Futuregen, noting the alliance's CEO, Michael Mudd,
comes from AEP and AEP engineers would continue working on the
Illinois project.
"AEP's decision to withdraw from the FutureGen Alliance is a
financial decision and not an indication that the company does not
consider FutureGen a worthwhile project," AEP spokesman Pat Hemlepp
said in an email.
The remaining members of the alliance include U.S. and overseas
coal companies, including Consol Energy Inc. (CNX), Peabody Energy
Corp. (BTU) and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) and utilities E.on AG
(EOAN.XE) and China Huaneng Group.
-By Mark Peters and Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires;
212-416-2457; mark.peters@dowjones.com
(Christine Buurma in New York contributed to this report.)