Research Into Energy Part of New Future

When tobacco companies, prodded by the courts and politicians, agreed a decade ago to put up millions of dollars to boost communities affected by the diminished sales of the former No. 1 agricultural cash crop, few saw energy research as tobacco’s replacement.

Yet, that is exactly what is happening — to the benefit not only of Lynchburg and communities in Southside and Southwest Virginia, but also potentially benefitting the entire country.

It’s an ambitious step that is just beginning to take shape.

As Media General News Service reported last week, the $32 million handed out this past summer by the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission will be used by four communities to build energy research centers.

At those centers here and in Danville, South Boston and Abingdon, scientists from Virginia Tech, other institutions and private businesses could work to find solutions to the nation’s energy problems.

Because of the presence of two national and international firms that work in the field of nuclear technology, the Lynchburg center would focus on nuclear research.

The center in Danville would take up bio-energy, while wind turbines and green engineering would be the focus in South Boston. Its location near the coalfields of Southwest Virginia makes Abingdon a natural for clean coal technology and natural gas.

According to leaders of the effort, the goal is to use the centers as magnets to attract technology and energy companies. Those companies, in turn, would transform the rural landscape from abandoned tobacco fields to a series of industrial hubs with a role to play in the nation’s search for energy independence.

If those efforts succeed on a large scale, they could make the United States less dependent on foreign oil and less dependent on the vagaries of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah who said over the weekend that the price of oil is way too low. He believes a fair price is $75 a barrel, not the $50 it is currently getting.

“These research centers are a different type of economic development,” Robert Bailey, executive director of Lynchburg’s Center for Advanced Engineering and Research, told Media General. “Jobs will occur where people are having good ideas. A research center is essentially an incubator for ideas,” he added.

The money handed out by the tobacco commission covers only the cost of building the offices and laboratories for the research centers. Officials in each of the communities are working to raise additional money to pay for operational costs.

The center in Danville will be known as the Sustainable Energy Technology Center, where researchers will try to find ways to make growing crops for fuel a profitable venture. The venture in Abingdon will be known as the Clean Coal and Natural Gas Center.

Energy research is commanding a much higher priority than ever before in this country. Gasoline priced at $4 a gallon and more had something to do with that. But the search for alternative forms of energy has struck a chord with the American public that is beginning to see the urgency for alternative energy forms.

Research into those alternatives is a welcome part of the future for these four Virginia communities. The rest of the country will be keeping an eye on them in the years ahead.