Another Billion Taxpayer Dollars Wasted

There is so much in the following article that is nonsense that it is enough to make a rational person gag. Here we have a proposal to spend (another) One Billion dollars of Federal, meaning taxpayer's money, on a project to capture, compress, and pump under ground, carbon dioxide produced from the burning of coal for the generation of electricity.

Think of it, carbon dioxide, a harmless gas that we exhale with every breath, that is vital to the growth of plants, has been so vilified by global warming alarmists that our government is going to spend a BILLION dollars in an experiment to capture it and pump it underground. This is like gas exploration and production in reverse. Maybe it will provide jobs for a couple of geologists. Whoopee!

This is a "make work project". It reminds me of someone digging a hole in the ground and then filling it back up. Yes, a lot of work is done, but nothing is accomplished. There is no way the tiny fraction of CO2 captured and stored underground at this one coal-fired power plant can possibly have an affect on GLOBAL warming, or "climate change" as it is now called.

The article contains another phrase I haven't heard before, "climate change pollution"; what a nonsensical phrase that is. It is totally unproven that carbon dioxide causes "climate change"; yet we're having this rammed down our throats by our government. This wasted one Billion dollars is also just the tip of the iceberg surrounding the great hoax and myth of man-caused global warming.
Peter

U.S.-Private Bid to Trap Carbon Emissions Is Revived

By KATE GALBRAITH (source)

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.

“This important step forward for FutureGen reflects this administration’s commitment to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution,” Mr. Chu said in a statement.

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.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, praised the decision to restart the project. “For nearly a year and a half, the people of Illinois have endured delays, reversals and disagreements over costs and funding of FutureGen,” Mr. Durbin said. “Today, patience and perseverance pay off.”

Henry Henderson, the director of the Midwestern program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that from the perspective of climate, it was critical to pursue carbon sequestration projects like FutureGen at a commercial scale.

“We need to get actual experience at scale, and this is a way to do it,” he said.

The plant would test techniques for converting coal to a gas, capturing pollutants and burning the gas for power. The carbon dioxide would be compressed and pumped into deep soil layers. Monitoring devices would test whether any had escaped into the air.