Southern Illinois sulfur coal may have a chance yet. Emphasis supplied by Senator Durbin’s Office
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Joe Shoemaker, spokesman for Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL), made the following statement after recent news that a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found the Department of Energy (DOE) made a half-billion dollar error in its estimate of the total cost for the FutureGen project.
“We always knew the DOE’s logic was flawed; now it turns out their math was wrong, too.”
During a hearing of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water in May 2008, Durbin questioned the grounds on which the DOE pulled support for the FutureGen project in Central Illinois in order to pursue an alternative plan. He pressed former Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman to explain the escalating costs that the DOE cited in their decision.
After the hearing, Durbin explained his interaction with Bodman: “FutureGen was the flagship project of the President’s clean coal program. The project is our best hope for building and operating a near-zero emission, coal-fired power plant. Yet, after five years of progress, the Department of Energy is objecting to its own project. I am not satisfied with Secretary Bodman’s explanation of cost being the reason for pulling the plug on this important project.”
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