Community members can learn more about a proposed industrial energy project at a former high school property in Buchanan County during a public meeting on Tuesday.
Employees of Diversified Energy, a company that produces natural gas and oil, will discuss the potential project at the Whitewood Community Center at 6 p.m., according to a notice from the county. Details of the project remain unclear, including what the prospective energy would power.
Jeremy Ward, who was hired to lead Buchanan County’s industrial development authority in September, said the project has been described as collecting and converting natural gas into energy and is still in “an exploration phase to explore if it would be viable.”
“Anytime you’re dealing with an upgrade to our energy infrastructure, as well as bringing in jobs, it could be a positive,” Ward said. “There are some unanswered questions. Hopefully the company can answer them at the meeting.”
The county recently gained control of the Twin Valley High School property when the school system turned it over to the board of supervisors. Twin Valley, in Pilgrim’s Knob, closed when officials consolidated four high schools to form Southern Gap High School, which opened this year.
Ward said Hurley High School and the Buchanan County Career and Technology Center are still under school system control and will be demolished under an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There would be restrictions to rebuilding on those properties because they lie within the floodplain, he added.
It remains to be seen what will happen with the Grundy High School and Council High School sites, which the county also owns, he said. As development authority director, he said, his role will be to listen to different perspectives and find interesting business opportunities for the sites.
“Based on where the schools are located within the communities and the infrastructure already in place, it can be appealing to certain businesses to have an existing building there,” he said. As the loss of a school can affect the economy of a community, the county wants to help fill that gap, he added.
The former Twin Valley school is a significant piece of property including the sports fields and flat areas that surround it, Ward said, though he did not have the exact number of acres. He said he does not know what an energy project at the site would power, but possible scenarios would be explained at the meeting.
Diversified Energy, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, did not respond to multiple requests for comment by phone and email. The company’s website said it focuses on acquiring “existing long-life, low decline producing wells” rather than engaging in “large-scale, capital-intensive drilling and development programs.”
In March 2025, the company announced a collaboration to “address the urgent needs of data centers by supplying as much as 360 megawatts of electricity to three distinct locations in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky,” power that would be supplied from natural gas and captured coal mine methane, according to a news release. The locations were not disclosed in the release.
County Administrator Robert Craig Horn did not respond to requests for comment, and board of supervisors member Trey Adkins referred questions to Jeff Cooper, a board member who also works for Diversified Energy, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Cooper also did not respond to a request for a phone interview but said by text, “I would not have anything to add at this time other than encouraging people to attend that may have a question or concern.”
At the September board of supervisors meeting, a resident of Whitewood asked about plans for the former school, which he said he lived next to, according to meeting minutes. He also asked about the public hearing that was planned for that evening about a purchase agreement for the former school between the county and Maverick Partners Holdings, LLC, “or its affiliates for future development purposes,” according to a notice in the Virginia Mountaineer.
The county did not have a deed for the property yet, so no action could be taken that evening, said L. Lee Moise, the county attorney, in the minutes.
Ward said the LLC is the conduit for Diversified Energy for this project, and the purchase agreement has not been executed yet. He did not have a timeline for when a decision would be made.
Whitewood Community Center is at 17424 Dismal River Road in Whitewood.
