Some energy-policy analysts say that technology development and changing priorities have simply made FutureGen obsolete. In fact, they say that the DOE's plans to instead finance carbon-capture equipment at commercial power plants could actually accelerate the implementation of the clean-coal vision that FutureGen once represented. "The fact that the [FutureGen] project was cancelled reflects budgetary issues more than a lack of confidence in the technology," says Alex Klein, a senior analyst tracking developments in power generation for the consultancy Emerging Energy Research, based in Cambridge, MA. "If the government does, in fact, concentrate its efforts on capture and sequestration, it will be just as significant a development for the industry as if FutureGen went forward."
I still can't quite get myself to believe that carbon sequestration will ever really work. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.
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