Evidence that clean coal is really expensive

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Columbus-based American Electric Power has backed out of a plan to help build the world's first "clean" coal-fired power plant.

It joins Atlanta-based Southern Co. in dropping out of an alliance to build the FutureGen plan in Illinois. Both companies citied the bad economy and growing cost of the project.

AEP was a founding member of the FutureGen Alliance, a coalition of coal and power companies that formed in 2006 to build the plant. There are now nine members.

The proposed FutureGen power plant is supposed to test new technologies to filter out and capture carbon dioxide, a gas linked to global warming.

The project, whose price tag has grown from $1 billion to $2.4 billion, has teetered since its inception.