That mindset dominated the Dec. 8 Governor's Energy Summit, "West Virginia's Commitment to Energy Security," at Stonewall Resort in Roanoke.

"Coal is the cornerstone now. Coal will be the cornerstone in the future, too," said keynote speaker Frank Clemente, a Pennsylvania State University social sciences professor whose presentation supported carbon capture and storage as an affordable and necessary technology for the U.S. and the world.

"Coal is the solution. It's been the solution," said Bob Percopo, an executive vice president with Chartis Inc., in reviewing the financing challenges all forms of energy face.

Several speakers emphasized U.S. coal's low cost and large reserves -- attributes they said make it the nation's best resource for energy security.

At the same time, regulatory and legislative challenges to coal were characterized by Chris Hamilton of the West Virginia Coal Association as "perhaps more serious, more threatening than they've ever been."

Hamilton speculated that, if recent and ongoing federal actions against mountaintop mining continue, eastern coal users may end up getting their coal from Wyoming and other western states.

And Gov. Joe Manchin said he told Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, "What you're doing is making it so we'll have to import coal like we do oil."

Still, the day's presentations made it clear that both conventional and unconventional uses of coal are under development in the state.

The 695-megawatt Longview power plant north of Morgantown is on track to go online in early 2011, according to General Manager Charles Huguenard.

At nearly $2 billion, it's the largest private investment in the state -- until the $3 billion TransGas Development Systems coal-to-liquid plant gets under way in Mingo County, Huguenard joked.

Al Unione of Parsons Engineering updated attendees on the status of the electricity-based hydrogen fueling station in use in Charleston and the one to be constructed in Morgantown, and Monica Murphy of GM placed those stations in the context of her company's 2010-13 trial of 100 hydrogen-fueled vehicles in New York, Washington, D.C. and southern California.

John Wimer of the National Energy Technology Laboratory explained ongoing research into carbon capture and storage, and Gary Spitznogle of American Electric Power provided a detailed update on the groundbreaking carbon capture and storage project at the utility's coal-fired Mountaineer power plant at New Haven.

Speakers provided updates on a broad range of other forms of energy as well.

Progress in the Marcellus shale gas and coming pipeline developments were detailed by Dave Spigelmeyer of Chesapeake Energy and Jim Crews of Columbia Gas Transmission.

Renewable sources of energy -- wind, biomass and hydropower -- all have seen advancements in the past year, according to several presentations.

West Virginia has about 330 megawatts of wind capacity in operation, four projects in various stages of permitting and others in research, according to Rob Alsop of Jackson Kelly.

ADAGE, a Duke Energy and AREVA green energy partnership, is pursuing plans to propose one or two 50-megawatt biomass power plants for West Virginia in the coming year.

And Brookfield Renewable Power, which owns and operates the Hawk's Nest and Glen Ferris hydropower facilities, has identified 14 sites in West Virginia with a total potential for 260 megawatts of new hydro generation.