The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected a multi-national team led by the University of Illinois to develop a proposal for retrofitting the University’s Abbott Power Plant in order to capture the CO2 emissions. The team includes the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and the Illinois State Geological Survey at the U of I – both part of the Prairie Research Institute – as well as the Linde Group and BASF (developers of capture technology), Affiliated Engineering, and Burns & McDonnell. The Phase I award is for detailed engineering and planning and is slated to have a total value of approximately $1.3 million. This is the first time the DOE has sponsored a large-scale pilot R&D project for the capture of CO2 emissions.
If the team qualifies for Phase II (implementation) the resulting $75 million project could represent a new day for clean coal hopes on this planet. Not only does Illinois sit on one of the richest coal seams in the U.S., coal will continue to be the major fuel source around the world for decades to come. This multi-national initiative has the potential to significantly cut fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions while science continues the development of low-cost, renewable alternatives.