UK President Says Energy Research Is Essential

The president of the University of Kentucky says UK continues to conduct research aimed at making coal a viable part of the state’s economy and the nation’s future.After speaking to the Louisville Downtown Rotary, UK President Lee Todd said the school is working on developing alternative energy, but coal will likely be the main source of power for the next decade.He says the fuel’s future depends on so-called clean-coal technology, which hasn’t yet been proven to work.“If you break coal down into its chemical components, you can extract sulfur and we’ve proven that; we’ve made scrubbers over the years," he says. "We think we can find ways to pull the carbon dioxide out of it as well, and I think that’s what we’ll continue to push.”UK is conducting the research with $60 million in grants. Todd says federal grants for such research have only slightly decreased in the current economy.