GAO: DOE Overestimated FutureGen Cost Before Canceling It :: POWER Magazine - 0 views
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Energy Net on 23 Mar 09The Department of Energy's decision last year to withdraw from FutureGen-the first "clean coal" plant in the U.S.-largely because costs had doubled and would escalate substantially, was rooted in faulty calculations, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released last week. At the end of January 2008-just after the FutureGen Alliance announced it would locate the zero-emissions demonstration plant in Matoon, Ill.-the DOE pulled out of the $950 million project, saying costs had doubled to $1.8 billion. It announced instead that it would pour its 74% share into smaller clean coal demonstration projects. But in its report, "Clean Coal: DOE's Decision to Restructure FutureGen Should Be Based on a Comprehensive Analysis of Costs, Benefits, and Risks" (PDF), the GAO found that the "DOE compared two cost estimates for the original FutureGen that were not comparable because DOE's $950 million estimate was in constant 2004 dollars and the $1.8 billion estimate of DOE's industry partners was inflated through 2017." The project was inflated $500 million, the GAO estimated, and should have cost $1.3 billion.