Dominion awards $500,000 to Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research for carbon storage research
Dominion, the Richmond, Va.-based energy company, has donated $500,000 to the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research (VCCER) at Virginia Tech to support the development of carbon storage technologies.
“We firmly believe that sequestration technology needs to be demonstrated in central Appalachia in order to determine its feasibility for managing carbon emissions from the numerous power stations in this region,” said Eva Teig Hardy, executive vice president for external affairs and corporate communications at Dominion.
The funding will be used to support a large-scale carbon sequestration project for testing carbon dioxide storage in coal seams, continuing the smaller-scale research currently conducted by the center.
Dominion also has provided support for the first and second phases of the center’s activities as a member of the Southeast Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB). One of seven regional carbon sequestration partnerships established by the U.S. Department of Energy, SECARB is managed and led by the Southern States Energy Board.
“Dominion has been a long-term supporter of our efforts in carbon management research and has shown an on-going commitment to the development of carbon management technologies,” said Michael Karmis, the Stonie Barker Professor of Mining and Minerals Engineering at Virginia Tech and director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research. “We look forward to working with Dominion and our other partners as we move forward in this critical research area.”
Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers of energy, with an energy portfolio of about 26,500 megawatts of generation and 7,800 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline. Dominion also operates the nation's largest underground natural gas storage systems, with about 950 billion cubic feet of storage capacity, and serves retail energy customers in 11 states.
The Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research, a Commonwealth of Virginia research center located at Virginia Tech, is an interdisciplinary study, research, information and resource facility for Virginia. The center has offices on Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus as well as in the National Capital Region office in Alexandria and the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon.
