The decision by the Obama Administration to suspend further funding for the Illinois-based FutureGen 2.0 project promises to forestall the development of a technology – carbon capture utilization & storage, or CCUS – that climate scientists, energy experts and others have indicated will be necessary to meet international and domestic carbon management goals in the decades to come.
Under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, nearly all countries, including the United States, are attempting to negotiate a new international climate agreement by December 2015. It is ironic that the Administration would pull the plug on a world-class integrated CCUS project at a time when the world is focused on low-carbon energy systems and investments for commercial scale projects are critically needed.
Because fossil fuels such as coal and oil & gas will continue to be used for decades to come, experts such as the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency are in broad agreement that CCUS will have to be deployed aggressively in the 2030-2050 timeframe. CCUS is understood to be the most effective carbon mitigation technology for fossil fuels.
Even the Obama Administration is on record stating that CCUS must be demonstrated and thereafter deployed in spades in the years ahead. This summer the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to final carbon management standards for new fossil fuel-fired power plants that rely on CCUS technology.
Thus the decision by the Obama Administration to cut off the FutureGen 2.0 project at its knees is troubling on many fronts. It threatens to delay the future development of a technology that everybody agrees is critically needed to meet international carbon mitigation goals. It also undermines the centerpiece of the Administration’s own climate regulatory agenda. If the Administration is serious in its commitment to climate policy, it will reverse DOE’s decision.
