A lot of folks in central Illinois were not happy when the Department of Energy pulled the plug on funding for a massive, cutting edge, carbon capture and sequestration coal plant that had been planned for Mattoon, Ill.

The plant meant a lot of things to a lot of people, but the costs rose to $1.8 billion and the DOE saw that as out of control. But some folks, including some officials in Congress, have criticized the department and even wondered aloud if some political calculation entered into the DOE’s decision to call off the project. Texas, the president’s home state, was competing with Illinois for the final site.

A good backgrounder on the issue is available from the NYT on the much hoped-for but uncertain future of coal as fuel.

The project had been a public-private partnership to pilot the next generation power plant. Proponents were likening it to the government funding for the space race in the last century. A significant amount of cash was already used for planning.

Today, the DOE put out a new call for proposals seeking to help fund multiple sites across the country, to the tune of $1.3 billion. The new idea is to have several smaller plants around the country. FutureGen proponents say the department is wasting the money already spent and forcing more lag time in developing clean coal by casting out the initial planning.

That news reminded me of Sen. John McCain’s energy speech last week in Springfield Mo. I went back to my raw video and pulled out this sound-byte.

Does this mean a revival for FutureGen? Would he tinker with the DOE’s new process? Or is this just a campaign pledge with specifics meant for another time.

Obama, for the record, supported the FutureGen project. Not a surprise, it was to be a boon for his home state. And here’s his stance on clean coal from his campaign site:

Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology: Obama will significantly increase the resources devoted to the commercialization and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies. Obama will consider whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low carbon coal technology