Americas Flagship Clean Coal Experiment Abandoned After 11 Years (W!) And $7.5 Billion

[underpants]

The coal industry suffered a major blow on Wednesday when the utility giant Southern Company abandoned work on its troubled Mississippi “clean coal” facility amid skyrocketing costs.

The Kemper County Energy Facility, conceived under President George W. Bush, promised to turn coal into cleaner-burning gas and provide a model for the future of coal. But after 11 years and $7.5 billion, the plant failed to produce commercially viable technology.

Last week, Mississippi utility regulators offered Southern Company an ultimatum. The firm could continue experimenting with gasification, and risk losing $3.4 billion as the power board rejects a hike to the rate paid by the 187,000 customers who get power from Kemper. Or it could convert the plant to natural gas. The Atlanta-based utility, which began burning gas in 2014 to generate power amid delays on its coal conversion technology, chose the latter.

“It’s unfortunate,” Betsy Monseu, chief executive of the American Coal Council, told HuffPost on Thursday. “It was the flagship project, there’s no doubt about that.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kemper-clean-coal_us_59554276e4b0da2c73221799?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003

[Cirque du So-What]

1. 'Clean Coal' is an oxymoron and hardly qualifies as a 'flagship'

More like a gussied-up garbage scow.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. How many wind turbines or solar panel farms could they have had for $7.5 billion?