Sign up for our newsletter

Get the latest stories from the Yonder directly in your email inbox.

  • Newsletters
  • Donate
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Topics
    • Agriculture
    • Arts and Culture
    • Broadband and Technology
    • Cool Places
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Energy
    • Environment
    • Food
    • Growth and Development
    • Health
    • Housing
    • National Rural Assembly
      • Rural Women’s Summit
    • Politics and Government
      • Rural Voters
    • Tribal Affairs
    • More
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • RSS
Skip to content

Daily Yonder

Rural News and Information

Donate
  • New and Noteworthy
  • Covid-19 Dashboard
  • Rural Podcasts
  • Election 2020 Hub
Posted inEnergy

FutureGen, a Hope of Rural Illinois, is Cancelled

<div style="text-align: center"><img src="/files/u2/Illinoispowerplant_1.jpg" title="futuregen" alt="futuregen" height="83" hspace="4" vspace="4" width="125" />  </div> FutureGen was supposed to produce electricity from coal without polluting or emitting carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. In December, the US Department of Energy announced <a href="/new-fangled-power-plant-goes-illinois" target="_blank">FutureGen would arise in central Illinois</a> and then, a month later, the US DOE said FutureGen wouldn't be built at all. The $1.8 billion project was cancelled. (Residents in Tuscola, Illinois, gathered, above, to hear if their town was picked for FutureGen.)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center" align="left"> </div>What happened? The DOE said the dang thing had gotten too expensive. (It started at $1 billion and had nearly doubled in cost over the years.) <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-Futuregen_08bus.ART.State.Edition1.391f8d2.html" target="_blank">Illinois legislators are asking for an investigation</a>, convinced a Texan at DOE killed the project because it was to be built in Illinois instead of within a day's drive of the Alamo.<p> The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021503186.html" target="_blank">Washington Post editorial page</a> said, good riddance: "As noble as FutureGen was, putting so much hope in just one project was not the way to go about it." The <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/02/17/bush_retreats_on_cleaner_coal/" target="_blank">Boston Globe editorial page </a> came to the opposite conclusion: "Congress should call on the Government Accountability Office to investigate how the department made its decision to pull out of a project it had once hailed as key to producing clean power with coal."</p>
by dyadmin February 19, 2008February 19, 2008

Share this:

You Might Also Like

  • Analysis: How Iowa Prepped the Field for Winning Back Rural Voters
  • Commentary: Rural America’s Role in the Energy Revolution
  • USDA Climate Change Approach Faces Diminished Role, Worrying Many Ag Leaders
Tagged: BioFuels and Energy, Yonder Flash

Trending Stories

  • Commentary: It’s Time for the Hillbilly Highway to Become a Two-Way Road
  • Anti-Corporate Ag Conversation Moves to a Friendlier Venue: Yale University
  • Art Project Involving All Fifty States Finds Home in Rural Connecticut
  • Former Respiratory Therapist Breathes New Life Into Rural Comedy
  • Record Levels of Infections and Deaths Return to Rural Counties

Connections

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Topics
  • Donate
© 2021 Center for Rural Strategies. Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic Privacy Policy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • RSS