A Shifting Industry
With his notable background and ex-
perience, Wood brings a unique perspec-
tive on the state of the energy industry in
West Virginia and the U.S. as a whole.
He believes that by 2040, the country
will have drastically reduced its carbon
emissions in the energy sector, thanks in
large part to the oil and natural gas boom.
“When I was growing up, people
would say we’re running out of oil, the
last barrel of oil will be sold in 10 years
and the last molecule of gas in 12 years,”
he says. “Today the U.S. is an exporter of
oil and gas, and West Virginia sits on an
ocean of natural gas in the Marcellus and
Utica shale plays. In terms of oil and gas,
the country is moving forward in ways I
wouldn’t have thought possible years ago.”
While he is encouraged by the use of
solar and wind energy in many parts of
the country, Wood understands they are
not a replacement for all fossil fuels.
“Solar energy would be pretty dire
in an area where you have 200 days of
cloudiness,” he says. “It’s a risky invest-
ment, but it’s also inevitable that coal, in
terms of its use in producing electricity
in the U.S., is going to drop off.”
Congratulations,
Steve Hedrick,
on being named a
West Virginia Executive
Sharp Shooter!
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
According to Wood, when coal is com-
busted and cleaned as well as it can be,
it still produces twice as much carbon
as the same amount of energy in natural
gas, which is why he is so excited about
the exploration into what West Virginia
can do with its natural gas—particularly
its natural gas liquids (NGLs).
“We’re just beginning to explore NGLs
here, which are valuable in their own right
and can be refined into useful products
like plastic,” he says. “Today, those NGLs
are being shipped to the Gulf or stored
in tanks or on railroad cars while people
think about how to form a petrochemical
industry here that would take those NGLs
and refine them into usable products.
In other parts of the country, when re-
sources like this exist, most people send
them elsewhere to be distributed. In West
Virginia, there is so much, it would be
a huge advantage to form a distribution
center here.”
Like his predecessor, Wood believes
the creation of the Appalachia Storage
and Trading Hub and the downstream
manufacturing opportunities it would
create would be overwhelmingly benefi-
cial to the Mountain State.
Ashley Caiola, a WVU graduate student, synthesizes
catalytic materials used for converting shale gas to
liquid aromatic chemicals.
Photo by West Virginia University.
“The gas is definitely going to be pro-
duced here. The question is whether the
NGLs will be produced here too,” he
says. “The other choice is to send our
resources south to the Gulf states and let
their refineries convert the liquids into
higher-chain, usable products and send
them back north to be sold, but the stor-
age hub would help reduce the chances of
gas leaking out of the pipelines and other
transportation components while being
moved around. The work can be done
here for quite a bit less than in Texas,
so we have an advantage there, and that
advantage should help sell that natural
gas. It’s going to be produced anyway,
and we should appreciate it based on
its carbon footprint as compared to coal.
This location is a fine place to put refinery
activities. They get along in the neigh-
borhood, they produce economic value,
they provide taxes for schools, and they
offer a lot of employment. What would
be wrong with having that here?”
Wood believes the number one resource
needed to get the storage hub off the
ground is investment capital.
“We will need investors willing and
able to take a risk,” he says. “That is some-
thing I think needs to achieve a higher
level of focus in West Virginia. If you walk
down the street in New York City for five
minutes, you walk by more investment
capital than you would if you walked
from Morgantown to Charleston. The
ability to attract and retain investment
capital is very important here, and that is
a focus we have at the energy institute.”