During the election, President-elect Obama talked a lot about investing in America's energy future. While that will involve investing in all of our available domestic energy resources, the President-elect was clear that developing and deploying clean coal technologies would reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, create American jobs and hold down U.S. electricity costs.
In President-elect Obama has had to say about the future of clean coal:
“I am a big proponent of clean-coal technology and I want us to move rapidly in developing those sequestration technologies that's required.”
“What we need to do though is to put clean coal technology on the fast track and that means money. It means investment in research. That's something that we should have already been doing.”
“An Obama administration will provide incentives to accelerate private sector investment in commercial scale zero-carbon coal plants.”
We're looking forward to working with the new president, his administration and the new Congress as we seek ways to increase energy independence, reduce energy costs and invest in new technologies to meet new environmental challenges such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector.
In a recent interview with E&ETV, our CEO Steve Miller noted that the new administration would wrestle with a trio of issues, including fitting energy into an economic stimulus; moving the country to greater energy independence; and meeting our responsibilities to the environment.
We think a number of energy projects can help us overcome these challenges, including the revival of FutureGen, which is a public-private partnership to build the world's first near zero-emissions coal-fueled power plant. As Miller said: “President-elect Obama has mentioned five one-of-a-kind carbon capture and storage projects that his administration would be willing to fund; we hope that’s [FutureGen] one of them.”
ACCCE—a coalition of more than 40 coal-based electricity providers—stands ready to work with the president-elect, his administration and the 111th Congress to pioneer a new generation of advanced clean coal technologies that will capture and store carbon emissions and position America as a leader in innovation.
Join us in leading the way.