Number 9 on Discover's Top 100 science stories of 2009:
"Coal is a dirty business, one of the leading sources of carbon emissions in the US. But coal is also a big business, generating 51 percent of the nation's electricity. With that in mind, in June the Obama administration revived FutureGen, an advanced-technology coal-fired pwoer plant axed by the previous administration in 2008. By burying 60 percent of it carbon dioxide emissions deep underground, the 275-megawatt FutureGen plant, to be built in Mattoon, Illinois, seeks to show that coal can be, if not exactly clean, then at least cleaner.
Once FutureGen is up and running - now scheduled to happen in 2014 - the carbon dioxide gas it produces will be siphoned off, compressed into a near-liquid state, and piped at least a mile sown into porous sandstone capped by a layer of impermeable shale. Engineers will essentially be trying duplicate the geologic circumstances that trapped natural gas deposits underground fro millions of years.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has called FutureGen "a flagship facility" that will demonstrate how to capture and store carbon on a commercial scale; that technology would allow us to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions while still burning coal. The project could also help spur other proposals for sequestering human-generated carbon.
But FutureGen ha drawn criticism from left and right. Some environmentalists say America should shift from coal-generated electricity entirely; others believe the goal of capturing 60 percent of emissions is too modest. Meanwhile, some fiscal conservatives disapprove of spending so much money (the Department of Energy has committed $1 billion) on an unproven technology for an established industry. Their nickname for the behind-schedule and over-budget project: NeverGen."
"Coal is a dirty business, one of the leading sources of carbon emissions in the US. But coal is also a big business, generating 51 percent of the nation's electricity. With that in mind, in June the Obama administration revived FutureGen, an advanced-technology coal-fired pwoer plant axed by the previous administration in 2008. By burying 60 percent of it carbon dioxide emissions deep underground, the 275-megawatt FutureGen plant, to be built in Mattoon, Illinois, seeks to show that coal can be, if not exactly clean, then at least cleaner.
Once FutureGen is up and running - now scheduled to happen in 2014 - the carbon dioxide gas it produces will be siphoned off, compressed into a near-liquid state, and piped at least a mile sown into porous sandstone capped by a layer of impermeable shale. Engineers will essentially be trying duplicate the geologic circumstances that trapped natural gas deposits underground fro millions of years.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has called FutureGen "a flagship facility" that will demonstrate how to capture and store carbon on a commercial scale; that technology would allow us to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions while still burning coal. The project could also help spur other proposals for sequestering human-generated carbon.
But FutureGen ha drawn criticism from left and right. Some environmentalists say America should shift from coal-generated electricity entirely; others believe the goal of capturing 60 percent of emissions is too modest. Meanwhile, some fiscal conservatives disapprove of spending so much money (the Department of Energy has committed $1 billion) on an unproven technology for an established industry. Their nickname for the behind-schedule and over-budget project: NeverGen."
- Eliza Strickland
No comments:
Post a Comment