The Next Generation of Coal-Fired Power Plants

Print PDFFutureGen Industrial Alliance
May 25, 2006

Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced in February 2003 that the United States will lead a $1.0 billion public-private effort (known as FutureGen) to construct the world’s first pollution-free, fossil fuel power plant.  Van Ness Feldman serves as General Counsel to the industry consortium.

The prototype plant will establish the technical and economic feasibility of producing electricity and hydrogen from coal while capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide generated in the process.   The initial FutureGen plant configuration will incorporate cutting edge technologies to address scaling and integration issues for coal-based, zero emissions energy plants.

The plant will be operated as a research facility – it will test and validate additional advanced technologies as they emerge from research programs. Thus, FutureGen will be designed and constructed with the flexibility to conduct both full scale and slipstream tests of such scalable advanced technology over the entire operational phase of the project.

FutureGen will be designed with advanced capabilities to capture the carbon dioxide in a form that can be sequestered. No other plant in the world has been built with this capability.  In order for carbon sequestration to be deployed, it must first be proven technically achievable and economically feasible.  There currently is no scientific validation as to whether or not carbon dioxide that is geologically sequestered will remain in the formation.