$2 billion showcase for 'clean coal' turns into $6 billion+ boondoogle

Rss@dailykos.com (mark Sumner) · Friday, July 08, 2016, 9:17 pm

The whole concept of “clean coal” was predicated around two things: That regulation of carbon emissions would become a huge burden on the coal industry, and that the U.S. electrical grid was so dependent on coal that finding a way to keep burning the stuff was vital. On that basis, the government put aside billions to invest in various experiments in reducing emissions from burning coal. But again and again, projects to support the development of “clean coal” generated much more smoke than heat including the $1.8 billion failed “FuturGen” project in Illinois that died in 2008, or the repackaged version of the project, which also failed a few years later.

But it was far from the largest such disaster.

The fortress of steel and concrete towering above the pine forest here is a first-of-its-kind power plant that was supposed to prove that “clean coal” was not an oxymoron …

The project was hailed as a way to bring thousands of jobs to Mississippi, the nation’s poorest state, and to extend a lifeline to the dying coal industry.

And how are things going on those tasks?

The Kemper coal plant is more than two years behind schedule and more than $4 billion over its initial budget, $2.4 billion, and it is still not operational.

Meanwhile, coal’s contribution to the U.S. electrical grid has fallen from 51 percent to 33 percent, and it’s still dropping. Making any further investment in “clean coal” is purely pointless.

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