Working together for FutureGen project

[OCT. 30, 2006]  The newly formed FutureGen task force, a team of state and federal officials appointed to explore ways to enhance Illinois' prospects for landing the FutureGen project, met recently to begin discussing efforts to win the $1 billion clean-coal power plant.

Those in attendance included industry leaders, university presidents, scientists, union leaders, environmentalists and members of the Illinois congressional delegation. The communities of Mattoon and Tuscola are competing against two areas in Texas to land the project.

The FutureGen project is being touted by industry leaders as having the potential to forever change the way electricity is generated.

The facility will be the first of its kind and will produce more than 1,000 construction jobs, 150 permanent plant operation jobs and hundreds more generated through new industries drawn to the area, all by 2012. Along with reviving Illinois' coal industry, it will lead to cleaner air and other environmental improvements in Illinois and worldwide.

Lawmakers seek to level playing field

Locations competing for the FutureGen project were judged on the basis of 43 categories, and the four finalists were separated by less than 5 percentage points.

While the Illinois sites scored higher for geological features, Texas scored bonus points for enacting a statute indemnifying FutureGen for litigation that might arise concerning the process of carbon dioxide sequestration.

To level the playing field, state Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, and state Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, have introduced Senate Bill 3190 and House Bill 5825 to allow Illinois to provide legal defense for the FutureGen Alliance and those working for them, with regard to the specific process of sequestering carbon dioxide underground.

The FutureGen Alliance plans to select a site as early as September 2007.

Who wasn't at the meeting?

Indiana's governor attended the Oct. 17 meeting about the FutureGen project. An Oct. 19 editorial in the Champaign News-Gazette noted that Illinois' governor did not attend, however.

[From Sen. Bill Brady]