The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) suspended the majority of its planned funding for the FutureGen 2.0 project saying there is there is not enough time to complete the project before a required deadline under the 2009 federal stimulus package. DOE had pledged $1 billion to complete the $1.65 billion initiative.

ClimateWire reported that the decision effectively ends construction plans for one of the most expensive and high-profile carbon capture proposals in the world.

“The DOE has concluded that there is insufficient time to complete the project before federal funding expires in September 2015. Despite the alliance’s commitment to advancing carbon capture and storage technology and cleaner energy from coal, as well as our belief that there are solutions to address the impending deadline, the alliance must comply with DOE’s directive,” FutureGen Alliance CEO Ken Humphreys.

ABC News reported that Energy Department spokesman Bill Gibbons would say only that the agency suspended funding “in order to best protect taxpayer interests.” He added that the project had provided useful research on carbon sequestration.

FutureGen had been in the works for more than a decade after its unveiling by the George W. Bush administration as a proposed zero-emissions coal plant. It was canceled and then revived as a smaller 168-megawatt retrofit of a generator near Meredosia, IL that would capture 90 percent of its CO₂ emissions.

The coal plant was a focus of DOE’s carbon-capture program and received the first-ever Class VI permits from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in September 2014 for underground injection of CO₂, as well as more than $9 million from the state of Illinois. The project also began preliminary construction work last year, ClimateWire reported.

However, FutureGen faced several lawsuits and challenges that dampened prospects for obtaining more than $600 million in needed nonfederal funds, in addition to DOE’s pledged $1 billion. For instance, Illinois landowners were challenging the Class VI permits, and the Sierra Club filed a court appeal last year claiming that the state air permit for the plant was invalid.

Of the original $1.1 billion awarded to the project, approximately $116.5 million since 2010 was invested for work on the power plant, DOE said.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity slammed the closeout notice, considering that FutureGen was cited in EPA’s new performance standards rule.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)—a longtime FutureGen supporter—said in a statement that the announcement was a huge disappointment for both central Illinois and supporters of CCS technology but added that he was encouraged that the FutureGen site in Morgan County, IL might still provide an underground CO₂ sequestration opportunity for other projects. “I am hopeful that Illinois will continue to play an integral role in developing this technology,” Durbin said.

With the termination of FutureGen, there are a handful of remaining planned projects that would capture CO₂ at scale from a coal plant when they come online, including Southern Co.'s Kemper plant in Mississippi. Last year, SaskPower's Boundary Dam Power Station in Canada became the first large coal plant globally to capture the majority of its emissions.