Private Bid to Trap Carbon Emissions Is Revived

A public-private project to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions that was abandoned by the Bush administration is being restarted, Steven Chu, the energy secretary, announced Friday. The project, known as FutureGen, was dropped in January 2008 because the Bush administration said that costs had doubled to $1.8 billion, from $950 million. A study later found that a math error had caused the increase to be overstated; costs had actually risen 39 percent, to $1.3 billion. Under the project, a coal plant will be built in Mattoon, Ill., that will store nearly all of its emissions underground, where they cannot contribute to global warming. The project does not have a green light yet. The Department of Energy said it and FutureGen would make a final decision early next year, after additional cost assessments. For now, the department is estimating government contributions at slightly more than $1 billion, with most of that coming from stimulus money designated for advancing clean coal technologies. The FutureGen Alliance of large coal producers and users will provide $400 million to $600 million...NYTimes