Washington

The United States plans to build a coal-fired power plant that will sequester its carbon dioxide emissions deep underground.

The $1-billion, ten-year project, called FutureGen, would produce electricity and hydrogen. Financed with federal, private and international funds, it will serve as a working prototype for clean-coal technologies and power production, say officials at the US energy department.

No proposed location and few technical details were provided by energy secretary Spencer Abraham when he announced the plan in Washington on 27 February. A Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum will be held in Virginia in June to assemble a consortium of industrial and international partners for the project, he said, and details will be planned subsequently. Officials say that the plant will initially sequester 90% of its carbon dioxide emissions, a figure that may rise to 100% at a later date.

The initiative is the latest in a string of recent announcements that seem designed to answer criticism that the Bush administration has failed to provide leadership in addressing climate change (see page 1).

Some scientists and environmental groups have welcomed FutureGen as a forward-looking project that will help to address climate change in the long term. But critics charge that the scheme's benefits are decades away, and that it will divert money and attention away from short- and medium-term efforts to address the problem of greenhouse-gas emissions.

“The fact that it is not coupled with serious short-term efforts is an indication that this administration does not take climate change seriously,” says Cutler Cleveland, director of Boston University's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.

Uncertainties surround the feasibility of large-scale carbon sequestration. In principle, carbon dioxide could be contained in terrestrial or marine sites. Tests to achieve this are currently under way on a small scale at various sites around the world.