Medicine Bow Fuel and Power LLC—subsidiary of DKRW Advanced Fuels LLC—has filed updated construction and development plans with the state of Wyoming for a near $2 billion coal-to-liquid (CTL) facility near Medicine Bow, WY. The plans revealed the project would be delayed yet another year with construction now estimated to begin in 2014 and final completion slated for 2018. This marks a new low for the proposed facility which is now eight years behind schedule, initially projected to be completed in 2010.

After withdrawing its plans in March of this year, DKRW had until June 19 to re-submit plans or face losing its permit and possibly be forced to abandon the project. From March to June 19, the project was considered ‘out of compliance’ with state regulations.

The proposed CTL plant proposes to convert more than 10,000 tons of coal from a nearby Arch Energy coal mine to produce approximately 11,600 barrels of liquid fuel per day. Earlier this year, the company received notice from its construction contractor that it would start “later than anticipated”—adding additional time and money to total project costs.

DKRW has applied and failed to receive federal financing on multiple occasions to finance this high-risk project, including a $1.7 billion loan guarantee and $200 million in cost-share funding through the Department of Energy. Yet, this has not stopped DKRW from seeking additional sources of state and federal financing. The company has requested from Wyoming $245 million in tax-exempt bonds and $100 million in state industrial development bonds to help finance the project.

Taxpayers have gone down this road before. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Congress authorized up to $88 billion to prove the commercial viability of synthetic fuels such as CTL with little to no results. Forcing taxpayers to invest additional dollars in costly, high-risk CTL technology would be fiscally irresponsible.