Hey, look, I’m back! Did you miss me? I missed you. Let’s jump right back into it, and get to the good news. So, back in the day, there was this thing called FutureGen, which would create this extreme coal-burning plant in Illinois that would then trap and store the carbon emissions. And then the Bush administration decided to scrap the project, for whatever reason. And, now, the Department of Energy has reversed that decision, and given conditional support to the project.

It may have something to do with a Senator from Illinois being in the White House (I dunno), but DOE head Steven Chu has announced his people will give over a billion dollars to the project. From the New York Times‘ Greenwire:

“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,” Chu said in a prepared statement.

DOE said FutureGen would be the first commercial-scale, “fully integrated” carbon capture and sequestration project in the country. The plant would marry the use of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology with greenhouse gas emission controls.

The plant will be built in Mattoon, Illinois, and ultimately is supposed to be a integrated partnership between government and the energy industry. If it goes through, it could be a way to continue using coal power, which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere for a while, while making it as clean as humanly possible. Better than nothing, I suppose.

photo credit: quinn.anya’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons