JG-TC.com > News > Lawmakers: DOE head knew figures were wrong

TODAY'S HEADLINES

SPECIAL SECTION

ONLINE POLL

ONLINE EXTRAS

Shop Smart, Shop Local

SITE TOOLS

OTHER LINKS

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Thursday, March 12, 2009 4:09 PM CDT
Lawmakers: DOE head knew figures were wrong

By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Illinois Congressman Jerry Costello was outraged when he heard testimony Wednesday that U.S. Department of Energy officials were wrong on their cost estimates for the proposed FutureGen power plant in Mattoon and used those flawed numbers to cancel the effort.

A General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation revealed DOE cost estimates in 2007 were off by $500 million, which undermines the claim the project had more than doubled in costs to $1.8 billion.

“We felt it was a phony excuse last year,” said Costello, D-Belleville. “Then GAO came back with proof this involved politics, not costs. The cost overruns were not supported by facts. There is no question we were right and DOE was wrong.

“We are pleased the GAO report substantiates what we already knew,” said Costello, who has supported FutureGen for years.

When Sen. Dick Durbin learned of the report, he, too, fumed.

“We always knew the DOE’s logic was flawed,” Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said in a statement. “Now it turns out their math was wrong too.”

Mark Gaffigan, director of Natural Resources and Environment with the GAO, criticized the former DOE management under the Bush administration for scrapping FutureGen in favor of another plan that proved ineffective.

“As a result, DOE has no assurance that the restructured FutureGen is the best option to advance carbon capture sequestration,” Gaffigan said Wednesday at a hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science and Technology.

Two members of the committee say former top DOE officials intentionally used inaccurate project cost figures to kill the FutureGen project at Mattoon.

“To knowingly abandon a program that held out the hope of making a real impact in the effort to reduce greenhouse gases from coal in favor of another program that held out no hope at all — not commercially and not to provide technological innovation to capture and sequester carbon — is inexcusable,” said House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn.

In January 2008, former Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman ended DOE support for the Mattoon power plant proposed by the FutureGen Alliance, a worldwide consortium of utility companies and governments.

Bodman said the project costs were prohibitive, and his department pushed for a privately funded initiative with limited governmental support. No progress has been made on the alternative clean coal technology program intended to replace FutureGen, which would store greenhouse gases more than a mile underground.

“DOE officials knew they were manipulating the numbers, and that the ‘restructured’ FutureGen would not accomplish what had been planned, but they went ahead anyway,” said Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller, D-NC. “In the process, they lost the participation of China and India, which are some of the largest users of coal in the world. The damage to U.S. leadership on ‘clean coal’ technology, and climate change generally, cannot be overstated.”

Costello said the record shows the Bush administration was gung ho for FutureGen until it was clear it was not going to Texas, the former president’s home state.

FutureGen has been severely criticized in recent weeks for being part of the $787 billion federal stimulus package as part of funding for clean coal initiatives. The stimulus package is designed to create new jobs, but if FutureGen at Mattoon would have moved ahead on schedule, the Central Illinois job market would have been helped already, Costello said.

“We have lost anywhere from 12 to 18 months on this project. But we need to look forward now and forget about the past,” Costello said.

The lawmaker asked one of the science experts during the committee hearing whether any other carbon capture sequestration project was comparable in status to FutureGen.

“I was told no other project anywhere in the country was as far along as FutureGen,” Costello said.

Contact Herb Meeker at hmeeker@jg-tc.com or 238-6869.

Add your comments

*Member ID:
*Password:
Remember login? (requires cookies)
	Forgot Your Password?

Not already registered?
Then click Here.

Comment policy:

JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.

In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.

We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.

No comment may contain:

* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.

If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.

The Question wrote on Mar 11, 2009 9:19 AM:

" There was no error. The math didn't matter. The whole scheme was a Bush con job that was supposed to go to the chimp's home state of Texas. When it didn't, they killed it. The numbers were an excuse, not a reason. "

291953 wrote on Mar 11, 2009 9:41 AM:

" I guess that means that the former people at the DOE not only failed geography (Illinois was a swamp land) but also basic math (1+1=$500,000). "

Rohn Gordon wrote on Mar 11, 2009 11:24 AM:

" LMAO oh so what, whats a few hundred million dollar mistake? "

zeldalu wrote on Mar 11, 2009 12:36 PM:

" I believe the question finally nailed the answer. "

HerChild wrote on Mar 11, 2009 12:45 PM:

" Yeah, just like another error we don't know about yet. How many thousands of people will die if FutureGen comes through, because of an error in how the poisonous gasses would be kept underground? "

dc wrote on Mar 11, 2009 2:25 PM:

" Quick question- Since Bush is out of the white house how many people are willing to guarantee we get futuregen? From what I see, the majority of folks think it was Bush that didn't want futuregen in Illinois. Go on the record here and say yea or na. I personally hope we get it, we could use the 115 jobs. We can't count on an old print company being our 2nd largest employeer forever. "

Equalizer wrote on Mar 11, 2009 2:50 PM:

" dc wrote on Mar 11, 2009 2:25 PM:
I personally hope we get it, we could use the 115 jobs.

Yes, 115 jobs, a couple hundred thousand people die, I can see your thinking that FutureGen is a good thing. It's like that movie, all the dead people are ground up and become the food for the survivors. "

K.S. wrote on Mar 11, 2009 3:31 PM:

" I agree with TQ. This has Bush and Cheney's grubby little pawprints all over it. "

just watching wrote on Mar 11, 2009 3:51 PM:

" What Zeldalu said. "

HisChild wrote on Mar 11, 2009 4:44 PM:

" Equalizer wrote...-It's like that movie, all the dead people are ground up and become the food for the survivors. -

Soylent Green is a 1973 dystopian science fiction movie depicting a future in which global warming and overpopulation lead to depleted resources on Earth. This in turn leads to widespread unemployment and poverty. Real fruit, vegetables, and meat are rare, commodities are expensive, and much of the population survives on processed food rations, including "soylent green" wafers.

Ahh, FutureGen, SoylentGreen...
NO THANK YOU, when will this area ever grow up, send FutureGen back to Texas where they grow everything BIG LOL! "

Mattoon Resident wrote on Mar 11, 2009 5:35 PM:

" DOE is a very large organization dealing with billions of dollars. It is a .5 mill dollars mistake. What is the big deal. The City of Mattoon made a $250,000 mistake on road paving downtown. No heads rolled. So why dont we not give the Fed Gov. a little bit of understanding since we are so forgiving of mistakes done locally. Correct the mistake and move on. "

toxic wrote on Mar 11, 2009 5:36 PM:

" Poisonious gas huh? Say, do you drink soda? The only thing poisonious are some of the comments on here. "

sapient wrote on Mar 11, 2009 5:57 PM:

" What goes underground is carbon dioxide, you know that stuff plants need to grow, that stuff animals exhale? Real poison. oooooohhhh "

Rotty wrote on Mar 11, 2009 6:06 PM:

" FutureGon is still FutureDead. "

HerChild wrote on Mar 11, 2009 6:14 PM:

" toxic- nope, don't drink soda. Don't eat or drink anything with artificial color, flavor, or anything in it. Do you eat pizza? Do you know what you are eating in everything you eat? Read labels, you'd be surprised! "

Why Not wrote on Mar 11, 2009 6:14 PM:

" Whats the difference between a $500 million dollar mistake and the multi-billion dollar mistake that has recently been enacted? "

T.K. Slaughter wrote on Mar 11, 2009 7:28 PM:

" Do you know what makes soylent green so tasty?? IT'S THE PEOPLE!!!!! "

The Question wrote on Mar 11, 2009 7:31 PM:

" DOE is a very large organization dealing with billions of dollars. It is a .5 mill dollars mistake.
----
No, that would be a half-million dollar mistake. This was a half-BILLION dollar "mistake." "

HeinekenMan wrote on Mar 11, 2009 8:46 PM:

" HerChild, I'm pretty sure you're still going to die some day. The only difference, then, between the two of us is that I'm not letting something like artificial coloring stop me from enjoying life. If you're that concerned, why not board up the house? In life, there is no reward without risk. "

fat kenny2 wrote on Mar 11, 2009 9:43 PM:

" Its Alive, Its Alive, "

Tino Marino wrote on Mar 11, 2009 10:31 PM:

" Thousands will die. That is the most silly comment I have heard in a long time. You have a better chance of being killed in a car wreck. Now, Herchild, I think we should stop driving cars by your take of the matter. Why haven't you voiced concern over that? Or that you put in more harmful gas into the world than this will? Both underground and above? Get your facts strait before saying something you have no clue about. If you think you drink or eat anything with nothing but natural things..Wow... "

Mike P wrote on Mar 11, 2009 10:37 PM:

" The carbon sequestering is the least risky portion of the project. This project is more comparable to a chemical plant, rather than a power plant, in its impact. Think USI or a refinery being placed where they picked to site this. Prevailing winds are usually from the west.

Mercury, sulpher, and other waste will be produced. This process also is supposed to produce hydrogen fuel. Google futuregen, and look at what it is supposed to be. The process is supposed to be around 50 percent more efficient, in producing electricity from coal. 1 unit, equals 1.5 of what they get with conventional methods. If it were more logicly placed, I wouldn't even have qualms with the liability limits, as long as strict rules and regulations kept them operating safely.

The site is illogical, even from a functionality point of view. Rails cross only the northeast corner of this parcel. Its on the wrong rail line, and trucks will be leaving and entering from 121, having to immediately cross train tracks. All poorly planned ideas out of the gate. If this goes where planned, there will be several more trains loaded with coal, headed east through town, per week. Marshal and 21st, will be blocked many more times a week.

They are probably even letting dole plant this year, and if something changes before he harvests, they will compensate him accordingly.

Every kind of energy plant has doubled or up to 10 times the rate for construction, over the last 8 years. 500 million, is a drop in the bucket on these costs. This is not a full scaled typical power plant, it is a scaled back test site, that will have much less production capacity. That still leaves the other half a billion above the restructured plan that there still was no accounting for. The cost has still gone up, because partners have dropped out. Now they have less to work with than they had when it was denied. Unless they are keeping near a billion in additional guarantees and commitments secret, this 500 million plus or minus in projected costs, is not a game changer. Economic decline has lowered the cost of many materials, that could be where the difference now lies. This was being processed, when things were peaked in price, and a lot has changed, in most everything but their ability to sell this to get funding outside of tax dollars. "

Equalizer wrote on Mar 11, 2009 10:38 PM:

" HeinekenMan...I know some people who get blisters on their skin, in their mouths & elsewhere, from artificial coloring, some do cause cancer! If your kid is allergic to the sun, which some are...are you going to let your kid go ahead out in full sun unprotected like all the other kids just because they're gonna die someday?
The point is, let's live, and let's live as healthy as we know how to, and not stick our heads in the sand and pretend all these man-made things are natural and harmless when they are in fact killing us! "

The Question wrote on Mar 12, 2009 9:31 AM:

" Lie and lie and lie, and then lie about the lies, and then lie about the lies you lied about. It's the Republican Way. "

father bob wrote on Mar 12, 2009 9:54 AM:

" from the Odessa American...blog:

"Gee, emotions ran high, people were ready to fight for the FutureGen Project. What happened? The Pie-in-the-sky project fizzled and sputtered like a wet firecracker. Would have cost nearly double initial projected costs. Now they want to break it up into a bunch of mini-FutureGens that nobody wants. Which only goes to show that with all the cities there are in the US, FutureGen only managed to find 4 who were willing to fight over their doomed project. The same project failed in Australia and it was destined to fail here. Hope that the folks in Spittoon, Illinois enjoy the "benefits" they reap from having poison gas stored beneath their feet. At least our city developers got a free meal and a party out of the deal. Why aren't we looking at clean, environmentally friendly projects that will benefit the future generations of west Texans, why must we always seek out the quick buck that will destroy our land? The answer is greed, three piece suits and a country club membership are expensive, but don't worry you can always get the common man to pay the fare, just feed him enough fertilizer." "

291953 wrote on Mar 12, 2009 10:57 AM:

" Anymore I would vote for a Democrat first, I still would consider voting for a Republican also. Your statement about this is the "Republican way" is uncalled for. While it has been proven that some Republicans have proven themselves as liars, it can also be said that Democrats also fall into the "liar" catagory(think blago). "

father bob wrote on Mar 12, 2009 10:57 AM:

" The Question wrote on Mar 12, 2009 9:31 AM:
" Lie and lie and lie, and then lie about the lies, and then lie about the lies you lied about. It's the Republican Way. """"

the turdblossom special....steaming it's way across america! "

NeoCon Academician wrote on Mar 12, 2009 2:08 PM:

" the turdblossom special....steaming it's way across america! "
-----------------------

Wow! Did you think of that all by yourself Goony Goo Goo Bob? "

The Question wrote on Mar 12, 2009 3:51 PM:

" The Republicans in the White House lied that Mattoon was in the running for FutureGen. Then when Mattoon got the nod, they instantly killed the project and lied about the reason. In the process, they lied about the cost of the project. The Republicans in the Energy Department called Mattoon a "swamp," then tried to lie their way out of that.
Meanwhile, the squirming local Republicans lied that Democrats who were not in control of the executive branch had somehow killed the project.
Are you beginning to sense a pattern here? "

father bob wrote on Mar 12, 2009 4:46 PM:

" NeoCon Academician wrote on Mar 12, 2009 2:08 PM:
" the turdblossom special....steaming it's way across america! "
-----------------------

Wow! Did you think of that all by yourself Goony Goo Goo Bob? """""

ROFLMAO!!....did i strike an itsy bitsy nerve?

just honoring karl "turdblossom" rove and his grand design that killed off the GOP.

maybe you need to bake some brownies and forget about it for a while. life will be better for you in a couple of decades!!!!! "

Mike P wrote on Mar 14, 2009 1:05 AM:

" Its likely Mattoon leaders and state lawmakers called Mattoon a swamp. They went to springfield to bat for the convention centre TIF, and made specific public record that it was. At least on the other side of town, that they annexed after agricel bought the "blighted" land. Its likely feds and others that came to town, drove past that land at least on their tour of the area, and if it is, so must be the futuregen site. "