Collegian Reporter
The University of Richmond hosted the Virginia Climate Change and Energy Business Summit Monday at the Jepson Alumni Center.
The event started at 8:30 a.m. and lasted until 5 p.m. The session featured six panels with guests who discussed different ways to produce energy, reduce emissions and protect the economy on both a global and local scale.
The panel that examined securing the U.S.'s energy future in a carbon-constrained world included panelists with a wide range of views and ideas that focused on Virginia's energy future. The energy sources focused on were nuclear energy, coal and natural gas.
"You guys are blessed with four nuclear plants," Paul Genoa, director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute said. Virginia gets 34.7 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, which is higher than the national average.
Most of the world's uranium comes from Canada and Australia, but here in Virginia there is a large uranium deposit. Virginia plans to host a nuclear manufacturing plant in Newport News that will cost $360 million and will be the sister plant to the Chalon Plant in France, Genoa said.
"I'm going to say many things that may be controversial," Tommy Hudson, president of the Virginia Coal Association said.
As a skeptic of climate change, Hudson said he believed coal was the way to secure America's energy future. He is currently involved in a project to develop carbon constraint legislation. The SECARB coal group research team is in phase two of studying how CO2 could properly be sequestered and how to store it in a number of ways.
Contact reporter Tess Tallman at tess.tallman@richmond.edu
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