Ill. town rejects changes to federal FutureGen coal project, backs out after more than 2 years

Illinois town backs out of FutureGen project

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An eastern Illinois town is backing out of what was once a flagship energy project after more than two years of political and financial ups and downs saw the project killed, revived and then radically altered.

The town of Mattoon told U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in a Wednesday letter that changes in the FutureGen coal project announced last week are a deal breaker.

The changes scrapped plans to build an experimental power plant in Mattoon. Instead, a plant elsewhere would be retrofitted and Mattoon would store carbon dioxide piped from the other plant.

The FutureGen project originally aimed to store carbon dioxide from Mattoon’s new plant underground. The goal was to prove coal could be burned for electricity while the polluting carbon dioxide was captured and safely stored.