Victoria Schlesinger has a piece in Mother Jones on NIMBYism toward the development of a so-called clean coal plant in Northern California. As Schlesinger tells it, Thornton, a tiny town outside Sacramento eventually acquiesced to the plans by WESTCARB, an alliance of government agencies and private energy companies, to build a coal plant that would try to sequester global warming-causing carbon dioxide emissions underground. But local property owners refused to give up land unless the federal government (the federal Energy Dept. was funding this plan) assumed all liability. Unable to get the feds backing, WESTCARB is still in search for a home.

Schlesinger plays up this local resistance to clean coal plants. However, it was a couple of property owners, not a greater community, that opposed the project. Also, NIMBYism is the opposite of what is happening in Illinois — at least among the Illinois Congressional delegation. They’re wild about clean coal!

Lead by Senator Dick Durbin, The Illinois Congressional delegation has relentlessly pushed the Energy Dept. to give $1 billion toward an energy company alliance named future FutureGen for a clean coal plant in rural, southern Illinois. Durbin claimed in a press release that “in my time in Congress I can’t recall a project that has greater promise and practical significance than FutureGen.” Durbin’s efforts bore fruit in June when Energy Sec. Steven Chu said there could very well be a $1 billion stimulus grant for FutureGen, after the Energy Dept. conducts a cost assessment.

It’s not quite clear how rural Illinois residents, particularly property owners, will take to a potential FutureGen clean coal plant. Most important, it’s not clear if trying clean coal is preferable to proven alternative energy sources. But from my experience following the issue in Illinois, the pursuit of clean coal is significantly more popular than Schlesinger makes it to be.

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