Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
1/10/14
The soon-to-be Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, recently reaffirmed his support for carbon capture and storage technology and said that CCS technology could provide jobs for coal miners in the southwest region of the state, according to a Jan. 4 report from the Bristol Herald Courier. “[Virginia] should be the leader on all the latest 21st Century coal technology,” the newspaper reported the governor-elect as saying. “Those are the jobs of the future. We need to build on the assets we have.”
McAuliffe previously announced his support for CCS during an Oct. 24 gubernational debate at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg Virginia. When asked what he would do to alleviate economic woes in hard-hit areas of the state, McAuliffe spoke about “the great work being done … at Virginia Tech,” whose Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research is exploring “the potential of unmineable coal seams as storage for carbon dioxide,” according to the university. The center, in conjunction with CONSOL Energy, Inc., is conducting the research with funding from the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.
“Carbon capture storage: so important,” McAuliffe said at the debate. “In fact, I just met with a professor here, [VCCER Director] Michael Karmis, [and] the idea that we can create all of these new jobs with CCS technology is really spectacular. It’s there, it’s in front of us, we need to invest in that research, we need to keep it going, and I commend Virginia Tech for that outstanding work that they have done."
Margaret Radcliffe, Assistant Director for Operations at VCCER, said that when McAuliffe toured laboratories at Virginia Tech and met with Karmis, Karmis “provided background information on why [Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage] is important, the status of technology currently available, the status research in progress generally, and particulars about the research that our center has completed and is currently conducting in this area.” McAuliffe’s inaugural team did not respond to requests for comment on any possible policies in development with regard to advancing or supporting CCS in the state.
