MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Business, education, community, and elected leaders filled the Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place for the Focus Forward with Big Energy conference sponsored by the West Virginia Public Education Collaborative and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.
The event focuses on strategies to support the transition to green and renewable energy sources but also serves as a call to action for leaders at all levels to act.
A presenter, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, made it clear we have the tools to make a transition that could create jobs and opportunity, not soaring energy prices and reliance on partners abroad. Manchin asserts that coal provides a proven, cost-effective energy source and should continue to be used and developed.
“We were providing the energy needed to defend ourselves in all of the wars we’ve been in,” Manchin said. “Now, as the transition happens to different forms, you’re still going to need the horsepower of fossil fuels.”
West Virginia University (WVU) President Gordon Gee expects the only R1 research institution in the state to play a major role in developing technologies. He said their bright minds and the partnership with the Morgantown-based National Energy Laboratory are capable of developing, testing, and deploying new technologies.
“We should play a leading edge role, which means we should support coal, oil, gas, wind, and solar,” Gee said. ” But we should be creating the new ideas that will make us energy independent.”
Marshall University president and tech entrepreneur Brad Smith wants to push students to the leading edge of technologies while making sure the concepts are economically viable. He said all of the tools and skills are in place at the university, and now the school has to seriously consider each idea for a step into the public or private sector.
“Only 2 percent of patents come from university campuses, and only 1/10th of 1 percent of startups come off university campuses,” Smith said. “We can’t stop with a patent and a publication, we have to prepare our students to be a part of and actively engage in the energy transition.”
According to Manchin, coal has a long history of value and efficiency and has been the backbone of the state economy. That legacy, along with new clean-coal technology, should be enough to merit further use and development.
“People don’t like coal; coal gives you 24/7; we do it cleaner than anywhere in the world, and we can even improve on that,” Manchin said. “So, before you get rid of it and say no more, you better have something that will give you 24/7—the horsepower coal can give you.”
As a proponent of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Manchin said our energy delivery infrastructure is also key to the transition. This is where opportunities exist in the available infrastructure, but both sides of the energy portfolio debate have to be willing to make compromises.
“You can’t be naive enough to think you can stop any coal projects or any pipelines that carry gas and get transmission lines built,” Manchin said. They’re both tied, and we have to make sure we’re moving together.”