energy markets these days thinks that coal has a long term future. that is a really important point. i hope that comes sooner rather than later and i hope the communities do see significant investment and compensation. david roberts, i always learn from your writing. thank you. thank you. next, students test positive for covid-19 after going to schools that don t enforce mask requirements and now parents are suing. what this means for the future of masking the classroom adjustment ahead. e future of masking the classroom adjustment ahead i earn 3% cash back at drugstores with chase freedom unlimited. so i got cards for birthdays, holidays, graduations, i m covered for everything. which reminds me, thank you for driving me to the drugstore. earn big time with chase freedom unlimited with no annual fee. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what s yours. [ sneeze ] are you ok? oh, it s just a cold. if you have high blood pressure, a cold is not just a cold. unlike other cold med
they received more than half a billion dollars in federal government grants and tax credits for the kemper facility. we have 250 years of coal reserves in this country. we re called the saudi arabia of coal. we ve got to find a way to use that coal, use it in a clean way and efficient way. in november, energy secretary toured the kemper facility. tremendous plant. plant of the future. we re going need 100 more of these plants across the country in the future. that s a lot of optimism for a facility which is facing significant delays and is now more than a billion and a half dollars over budget. and while the carbon is put in the ground, that is far from the full story. the. we re selling the carbon dioxide to an oil company to help them take more petroleum out the ground. you heard that right. the carbon captured by this clean coal plant is going to facilitate oil drilling.
one is capturing the carbon and burying it. that is an important technology we have to develop. if nothing else, there is industrial facilities that are emitting co 2 that we don t yet know how to do those industrial processes in a zero carbon way. we have no choice but to capture the carbon and bury it. we need to develop that technology. the idea to use it to keep coal plants alive is a farce. if you bolt one of these facilities on to it, and miraculously can make it work, best case scenario, it s billions more dollars. and an energy penalty of something like a third of the energy the plant creates to run the carbon capture facility. right. the whole idea of clean coal was always ridiculous. that s a great point.
this plant is dirty. it s expensive. and it s unnecessary. clean coal is nothing more than a madison reality. the plant a central feature of president obama s plan and supposed to lead the way on clean coal is ballooning over the $2.4 billion budget. the time line for completion kept getting pushed back. the power company trud and fauld to get it running n 2016, the securities and exchange commission opened an investigation to all the costs and delays. in june of 2017, mississippi power finally admitted defeat and suspended all coal operations. nearly two years later, the department of justice opened an investigation into the plant. and now finally at the end of the coal plant. the coal plant
polluting colby pulling the carbon generated by burning it into the smokestacks and storing it underground. we actually visited this very plant way back in 2014 to check out the much hyped project. even then it was wildly optimistic and very overbudget. this is the $5.6 billion kemper county energy facility. one of the most expensive domestic power plants ever built and perhaps clean coal s best hope. all went to eastern mississippi, see it firsthand. there is nobody in the world who is doing more to try to combat carbon emissions. when it opens, the kemper plant is supposed to capture 65% of the carbon dioxide it generates giving it a carbon footprint similar to natural gas. this will be when it comes on line the cleanest coal fire plant in the world. ed holland is the ceo of mississippi power.