Even the folks who might have benefited economically from the FutureGen plant -- residents of Mattoon -- want out of a new deal proposed for the site by the U.S. Department of Energy. After the government decided only to use the site as an underground storage unit for carbon, thereby scrapping plans to build the nation's first commercial-scale coal plant equipped with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, town leaders have decided to drop out of the project altogether.

This could serve as a death-blow to FutureGen 2.0, a plan Will Reynolds equated with "someone in the 1920's researching the most advance horse and buggy technology to compete with the new-fangled automobile." Unfortunately, the state legislature can't take back the cash it spent lobbying for the experimental project and eventually supporting (PDF) its early development. It can, however, spend our money on wise energy investments moving forward.