The U.S. Department of Energy announced support for a series of carbon capture and sequestration projects (what the industry calls “clean coal”) through the economic recovery act. Though some of the the $2.4 billion in funding areas will still grant funds to applicants, this list seems rather grim for Excelsior Energy’s proposed Mesaba Energy Project on the Iron Range. The federal government is the last, best hope for this project to sustain its zombie life without a major customer. Most notable, the government is going “all in” to the tune of $1 billion on the FutureGen project in Illinois, a CCS project in a more developed stage than Excelsior. This project is more likely to be economically feasible than Mesaba, but let’s be honest — FutureGen, too, is most likely a snipe hunt.
My opposition to the policy and economic aspects of Excelsior’s political activities on the Iron Range are well documented so we’ll just leave it at that.
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