Virginia, Front of Alternative Energy Research

By Rex Bowman

Richmond Times Dispatch

Published: November 30, 2008

Where tobacco once formed the foundation of the economies in Southside and parts of Southwest Virginia, the cash crop of the future could turn out to be energy research.

Using $32 million wrung from tobacco companies a decade ago, the communities of Lynchburg, Danville, South Boston and Abingdon are preparing to build four energy-research centers where scientists from Virginia Tech, other institutions and private businesses could work to find solutions to the nation's, and world's, energy problems.

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