For Release: Friday, June 30, 2006
Contact: David Gillies: 202-225-5661

COSTELLO APPLAUDS SOUTH KOREA'S COMMITMENT TO FUTUREGEN

Washington - U.S. Congressman Jerry Costello (D-IL) applauded this week's announcement that South Korea has joined the government steering Committee for the FutureGen project and will contribute $10 million to the project.  South Korea joins India as international supporters of the 275-megawatt prototype power plant designed to have emissions equal to those of natural gas.  FutureGen is a public/private partnership comprised of the federal government, the FutureGen Alliance of U.S. energy companies and other countries. 

"This is another important step forward for FutureGen," said Costello, a senior member of the House Science Committee.  "FutureGen is no longer a proposal.  The process of bringing it to fruition is well underway and international commitments like this give it great momentum.  To further underscore this point, the FutureGen Alliance is expected to announce the list of site finalists in the very near future."

Four sites in Illinois are among the twelve remaining candidates. Coal underlies 65 percent of the state's surface and the Illinois coal industry annually produces approximately 35 million tons of coal and generates more than $1 billion in gross revenues. Currently, recoverable coal reserves in the state of Illinois amount to more than 30 billion tons. Illinois has almost one-eighth of the coal reserves in the United States and one-quarter of the nation's bituminous coal reserves. Illinois' coal reserves contain more BTU's than the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait .

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