More Companies Interested In FutureGen For "Clean Coal" Plant To Be Built . . . Someday . . .

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Exelon, the successor to Commonwealth Edison, officially joined the alliance last week. And more companies might be on the way, according to a FutureGen spokesman. “The alliance has been on a robust new member recruitment effort and we expect an announcement of new members, both domestic and international,” Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for the FutureGen Alliance, said Thursday. “Several companies have expressed interest in joining the alliance and some are in the process of considering their decision.”

Exelon brings the alliance membership to 10. Pacheco said the financial contribution from Exelon has not been determined.

The U.S. Department of Energy last summer required the alliance to increase its membership to 15 to 20 to ensure private support for the energy project with an estimated cost of $2.4 billion. However, the alliance lost some members before DOE announced plans to restart federal support for the program.

Pacheco said the private commitment via the agreement with DOE called for $400 million to $600 million in “private dollars.” The federal government has committed $1.073 billion to the project, mostly through the federal stimulus package from 2009. However, DOE must still decide if the proposal for FutureGen in Mattoon is viable for the country’s plans for furthering carbon sequestration technology and “clean coal” projects. Neither DOE nor FutureGen sources this week could confirm when that announcement will be made.

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http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2010/02/04/news/doc4b6b8f3f02087458587137.txt