Coal & Biomass Conference - Presentations and Meeting Notes

Details

Published on Friday, 10 August 2012 01:00

The Appalachian Hardwood Center, Bio-based Materials Center and National Research Center for Coal and Energy at West Virginia University and the West Virginia Division of Energy hosted a conference on biomass and coal opportunities on September 19th 2012 at the Erickson Alumni Center in Morgantown, WV.  Topics at the one-day event include biomass and coal development opportunities, bioenergy research and development, torrefied biomass and coal blends, energy policy and environmental impacts, and the technical and financial feasibility of coal and biomass as feedstocks for liquid transportation fuels.  The presentations and facilitated goals are now available.

AGENDA AND PRESENTATIONS

SUGGESTIONS FROM FACILITATED SESSION

1. Initiate email forum that people can opt into to discuss relevant articles and news
2. Need to develop means of working with companies that are interested in this area.  Developing relationships between University researchers and companies would help compete for funding opportunities.
3. Need to start list of potential demo projects as well as list of resources and people needed to pull project together.
4. Use Facebook/linked in to develop mass
5. Start looking at used equipment and potentially listing what equipment/facilities are available for demo projects.
6. Establish Biomass Industry Working Group
7. Define projects close to coal that would facilitate the development of coal/biomass energy.  This would include identifying those areas via local EDA.
8. Demonstration projects needed to move forward on job creation in this sector
9. Should reach out to talent in other Appalachian States so that talent can be combined.
10. Need to initiate policies that incentivize biomass
11. Identify communities with vested interest - that have resources.  This would help with job creation.  Need to identify the forward thinking leaders in these fields.
12. Identify those folks already involved in biomass related industries and bring them to the table.
13. Need to work with regulatory issues - is hampering development
14. Need subsidies to make it happen at this point - or work with company that can agree to lower return than the 20 % used in most feasibility analyses.
    

WHO ATTENDED?

As of 9/19/2012 we had 94 registered from a number of organizations. The meeting was a great intital step to bring those interested in coal and biomass energy together to network with professionals active in these areas.