CHAMPAIGN – U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said he still believes the long-delayed and frequently revised FutureGen power plant will be built in Illinois.

The veteran Illinois Democrat made his remarks Wednesday on the University of Illinois campus, where he appeared with UI President Michael Hogan and several students to promote his recently passed law aimed at making textbooks more affordable.

"Let me tell you, nothing's easy and nothing is fast, as we've learned the hard way with FutureGen. But I feel good about it," he said. "I've been working on this a long, long time. I've taken some praise and a lot of lumps. At the end of the day I think we're going to get this research into our state and we're going to lead the nation."

Originally FutureGen was to have been a multibillion-dollar project built in Coles County, about 45 miles south of Champaign, that would have included its own coal gasification plant as well as a deep underground site to store carbon dioxide emissions.

But the Department of Energy revised the project dramatically last month – eliminating the power plant and radically reducing the investment in Coles County – and officials there decided to withdraw from it.

"I know the frustration in Coles County and Mattoon, and I know that a lot of people are unhappy. I'm unhappy too," said Durbin. "I wish that the original power plant would have gone through when they won the award.

"I'm glad though that Illinois still has a chance to be in the front end of this research technology."

He said he did not abandon Coles County as the project was being revised by the Department of Energy in late July.

"They can feel that if they wish but it's not true. I didn't sell out. At the end, Illinois ends up with 1.1 billion dollars in clean coal technology," Durbin said. "It means that we're going to be leading the nation in terms of reducing emissions from coal-fired plants, we're going to be using our own geology to be able to protect those emissions from causing environmental harm."

In its most recent design, FutureGen calls for burning coal at an unused, 62-year-old Ameren power plant in Meredosia, Ill., and piping the carbon dioxide emissions underground to an undetermined site within 100 miles of Meredosia.

"Now 25 communities in the state are in competition for (the sequestration site)," Durbin said. "They believe it's viable. They believe the jobs are important. They think the investment is important. And I think we're going to go forward."

Durbin acknowledged that the revised project – which is supposed to begin construction in 2012 – is still evolving, and that not all members of the private-sector FutureGen Alliance are pleased with it.

"There are a lot of elements that still have not been spelled out by the Department of Energy," he said. "But I do believe that the basic concept is sound and that they understand it and will support it. Not all of the companies in the alliance are likely to stay on board, but new ones will join."

Finally, Durbin said he first learned of last month's changes to the original FutureGen design "a week, six days before the (Aug. 5) announcement."

He said DOE officials told him he had to keep the changes a secret "because we have to go to Ameren and other companies to see if there is buy-in, to see if they'll go forward. In that six-day period there was buy-in and we made the announcement.

"A lot of people said, 'Well, you should have told us long before.' I didn't know until six days before what the new concept was. I knew we had problems, economic problems, and unfortunately couldn't come up with the money to build the power plant," the senator said.