Remarks at the Mayor's State of the City (Columbia, S.C.) Address
January 31, 2007

I was asked by Bob Coble, Mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, to address the general public during his annual State of the City presentation on January 31, 2007.

Mr. Mayor and fellow citizens of Columbia. Thanks for the invitation to share with each member of the City Council several initiatives that, together with those presented by Mayor Coble and abetted by the hard work and creativity of the business community and the Richland County Council, can lead Columbia to become a nationally recognized alternative energy city. But these efforts will come to fruition only if all of us work together. Our University's central role in this endeavor is to contribute the scientific talent and research environment that will enable tomorrow's energy economy businesses to thrive. I sincerely believe that the research campus we know as Innovista will offer the physical and fiscal template for companies wishing to pursue research and development. And other firms throughout the Midlands will benefit when those discoveries lead to manufacturing opportunities.

But our University can and will do more. In February 2006, I commissioned a university-wide team to study how we could promote health on our campus. This initiative, called Healthy Carolina, led us to adopt a campus-wide no smoking policy and encouraged people to modify other behaviors for their own good and that of the greater community. I truly believe that this initiative is among the very best health programs to be found in any American university. But there are other challenges before us.

Tonight, I am announcing the commissioning of a group of faculty, staff and students who will recommend to me and to our Board of Trustees creative ways to promote the use of alternative energy throughout our campus. I am especially interested in the utilization of fuel cell technology, whether in the form of demonstration projects -- such as the one we currently have functioning in our new 500-person residence hall -- or, where feasible, the ability to deliver back-up or real time electricity.

We are building on our campus a station to generate enough steam to provide 80 percent of the energy required for heating and cooling all of our University facilities. And here's the wonderful part: this entire plant is fueled by wood chips coming from South Carolina's renewable pine forests. I am also committed to exploring the deployment of other alternative technologies, including solar and wind technologies, because our city and our University must be known as a place where all energies of the future can be researched, developed, demonstrated and deployed.

If Columbia is to be known as a future energy city, then the University of South Carolina must be known as a future energy university. Achieving this designation will require our students, faculty and staff to be better educated about the benefits and also the barriers presented in using hydrogen and other energy forms. I will encourage the development of venues to encourage such discussion and learning across all of our academic programs.

Yet another example of innovative education that has benefited the University community as well as the greater Midlands region has been our study of the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology. This has led not only to significant federal funding, but also to our launching a Citizens School for Nanotechnology. We will continue creative measures such as citizens' schools and lunchtime gatherings we have branded science cafes, so that all of us may come together to learn more about the hydrogen economy and to promote Columbia's role in it. The first Citizens School on Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technology will be held from February 5 through March 19.

Furthermore, I am committed to the principle that every new building to be constructed at the University of South Carolina will deploy at least one hydrogen fuel cell project or educational demonstration program about hydrogen or other alternative energies. I want our students, faculty and staff to become as familiar with these "technologies of tomorrow" as if they were the technologies of today. This commitment will require considerable planning and buy-in from many people, but nothing that can transform the University comes without a price.

As you know, our Innovista buildings are already out of the ground, and once the four remaining Honeycomb dormitories are fully demolished, our new Honors College residence hall will be built on that site as yet another green, LEED certifiable residence hall. The next project to come out of the ground after that is our Gamecock baseball stadium. To illustrate my dedication to the hydrogen initiative, I have asked Rick Kelly and his staff to explore the feasibility of having hydrogen contribute to the scoreboard's power supply at the new stadium.

As I have often said, the futures of the University of South Carolina and the City of Columbia are inextricably intertwined. We continue to benefit from each other's support, and we must stimulate each other to be better than we currently are. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, members of the City Council, for giving me the opportunity to be with you here tonight. I am deeply grateful to all of you for your continued support of our unstinting efforts to link our town and our gown.