WASHINGTON — The leading American effort to capture carbon dioxide from coal plants has hit a stumbling block that could imperil the project and set back a promising technology for addressing global warming, people involved in the venture said.
Ameren, the Midwestern power company that was to be the host for the project, has told its partners that because of its financial situation, it cannot take part as promised, although it has not told them exactly what it will do. The company had agreed to supply an old oil-fired power plant in Meredosia, Ill., that would be converted to demonstrate the carbon-capture technology on a commercial scale.
Participants in the venture, known as FutureGen 2.0., are to meet next week to work out how they might get access to the old plant, which Ameren recently said it would shut down by the end of the year, and how it might be maintained until the remaining partners are ready to take it over. The people who talked about the project asked not to be identified because FutureGen’s directors had not yet met.
While the other major partners, Babcock & Wilcox and Air Liquide, could seek to buy the plant and convert it without Ameren, time is short. The federal government promised the project $1 billion, or roughly 80 percent of its costs, on the condition that the money be spent by the end of 2015. That’s a tight time frame for developing a technology that has never been used on a commercial scale, the participants said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/business/energy-environment/coal-project-hits-snag-as-a-partner-backs-off.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25
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