Category Archives: Energy

Utilities Will Gamble on Nukes With Your $$$

Posted on April 11, 2024 by | 21 comments

Artist rendering of VOYGR™ SMR plants powered by NuScale Power Module™

By Steve Haner

Standing firm against raising taxes is a fine thing, but it would help if Virginia’s leaders also stopped using people’s electricity bills to fund rent-seeking energy speculations.

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has tweaked, but not vetoed, pending bills that allow both of Virginia’s investor-owned utilities to charge ratepayers for power plants that may not be built. The dream projects involve small modular nuclear technology, proven in military applications but so far speculative for commercial generation. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Fighting Over the Check at the Green Power Cafe

Posted on April 10, 2024 by | 24 comments

By Steve Haner

New power plants are pretty useless unless they are connected by new power lines. The debate over who pays for those tall towers and miles of cable can be just as divisive as the fight over who pays for a proposed nuclear plant or offshore wind turbines.

Bottom line, of course, the customers ultimately pay. But which customers? Should it be those most reliant on that individual transmission line, everybody within the utility, or should it be all the customers within all the utilities inside a regional transmission organization? Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Will Consumers Come First in VCEA Review?

Posted on April 5, 2024 by | 42 comments

FERC Commissioner Mark Christie of Virginia

By Steve Haner

“If we always keep as our focus what is best for consumers, in getting them reliable power for the least cost, then I think that’s the main guidepost we ought to follow.”

That was Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie’s opening quote on a PBS broadcast on energy issues due to air April 9, but the 26- minute program can already be found on the network’s website and Christie distributed it via X today. Continue reading →

42 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Utilities

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Climate Change Wars Coming to Virginia Schools?

Posted on March 22, 2024 by | 55 comments

You have to click on the illustration and expand it to even see the percentage of carbon dioxide from human activity in our atmosphere. A new lesson plan in waiting?

By Steve Haner

Young Virginians are not getting enough instruction on the deadly existential threat of climate change from the news media, their favorite social media sites, Hollywood productions and President Joe Biden’s campaign stump speeches. Virginia’s General Assembly Democrats are demanding that the public schools double down with a wave of new classroom materials.

The curriculum wars at the State Board of Education and in local school board meetings may now move on to a new topic if Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) signs House Bill 1088. The bill is ripe for a veto, having received support from only one Republican legislator out of 68, but after the first 100 or so vetoes, Youngkin’s veto pen may tire.

Should he sign the bill, do not assume the process will go as the patron (Delegate Betsy Carr, D-Richmond) intends. In fact, if the bill is followed to the letter, the resulting materials probably will not be to her liking. The text is short:

A. The Board shall make available to each local school board instructional materials on climate change and environmental literacy that are based on and include peer-reviewed scientific sources.

B. The Board shall develop, adopt, and make available to each local school board model policies and procedures, based on peer-reviewed scientific sources, pertaining to the selection of instructional materials on climate change and environmental literacy, including a requirement for any such selected material to accurately portray changes in weather and climate patterns over time, the impacts of human activity on changes in weather and climate patterns, and the effects of climate change on people and resources.

Continue reading →

55 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Energy, Environment, General Assembly

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Wind Project Sued Over Claimed Threat to Whales

Posted on March 18, 2024 by | 69 comments

NOAA Right Whale status graphic, updated this month to report 123 recent deaths and injuries.

By Steve Haner

A coalition of public interest groups has now filed its expected lawsuit seeking to halt construction of Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore wind facility off Virginia Beach. Its key complaint is the federal permits were issued without a full and fair evaluation of the potential impact of the turbines on the shrinking North Atlantic Right Whale population.

The Heartland Institute, based in Illinois, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, with offices in Washington, D.C. and the National Legal and Policy Center of Falls Church, along with two individuals, are the listed plaintiffs. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and federal office holders are among the named defendants, along with Dominion.

The 61-page complaint to a District of Columbia federal court seeks relief under the Endangered Species Act. It claims the law requires the federal government to study the combined impact of all the planned East Coast wind projects, from New England waters down to North Carolina’s outer banks. Instead, the federal permitting authorities to date have looked at individual projects without regard to cumulative effects when issuing wildlife impact opinions and permits.

From the article on the CFACT website: Continue reading →

69 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Energy, Environment, Utilities

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Can the Governor Veto RGGI?

Posted on March 17, 2024 by | 41 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

One of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s top priorities has been to extricate the Commonwealth from participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). One of the top priorities of the Democrat-controlled General Assembly has been ensuring that the Commonwealth participates in RGGI.

For those readers unfamiliar with the purposes of RGGI and how it functions, along with the pros and cons of membership, those topics have been covered extensively in this blog. See here, here, and here.  This article will focus on the constitutional struggle between the governor and the legislature.

Brief legislature history

In 2020, the General Assembly authorized the director of the Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to establish a market-based energy allowances trading program and the Governor to include the Commonwealth in RGGI. The Air Pollution Control Board (“the Board”) and the Governor exercised their authority to act, and Virginia became a RGGI participant on Jan.1, 2021.

When he took office in 2022, among the first executive orders issued by Gov. Younkin was one directing the DEQ director and the Board to begin taking steps to end Virginia’s participation in RGGI. The Board adopted the final repeal of the RGGI regulations in July 2023, to be effective at the end of the year. Environmental groups sued and those suits are still pending in court.

The next stage of this saga came as the new Democratic majority in the 2024 General Assembly adopted language in the budget bill prohibiting the use of state funds to “impede” the state from rejoining the RGGI and directing all relevant agencies to take steps to immediately rejoin the RGGI and continue participation. Although some Democrat legislators and environmentalists believe the language is vulnerable to a gubernatorial veto, court precedents and recent actions would augur a more favorable outlook on their account. Continue reading →

41 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Politics

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Whoops!

Posted on March 7, 2024 by | 58 comments

by James A. Bacon

A recurring debate in Virginia’s push toward a net-zero electric grid has been whether demand for electricity in the Old Dominion will grow or shrink. Citing expansion of demand from data centers and electric vehicles, Dominion Energy has contended for years that demand for electricity would continue increasing at a steady rate. Environmentalists scoffed, saying that conservation measures would enable Virginians to meet aggressive goals to phase out fossil fuel plants and rely heavily upon solar and wind.

I highlighted this debate back in 2018 in this article. Dominion forecast a 1.4% annual increase in peak demand over the next 15 years.

“Actual electricity demand growth over the next several years will not come close to Dominion’s inflated 1.3% growth” as forecast in its 2017 IRP, wrote William Shobe, director of the Center for Economic Policy Studies at the University of Virginia. “Something like 0.5% to 0.7% is much more likely. And this is with data center demand.”

“It’s time for Dominion to change its model and assumptions to reflect reality—there is less load growth than predicted, and what load is coming to the Commonwealth comes from companies demanding renewable energy options,” said Will Cleveland with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

So, what’s the story nearly six years later? Here’s the headline from today’s Washington Post: “AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up.” Continue reading →

58 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy

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EPA Told CVOW Wake Has Air Quality Impacts

Posted on March 4, 2024 by | 21 comments

One of two dead whales washed onto Virginia Beach so far this month, just onshore from the CVOW project. WAVY reports on it.

By David Wojick

In formal comments, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to assess the adverse impact of the giant Virginia offshore wind project on air and water quality. The issue is far-reaching because all big offshore wind facilities could have these adverse effects. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Governor May Get Two Different Nuclear Bills

Posted on February 26, 2024 by | 38 comments

Small modular reactor illustrated

By Steve Haner

A Virginia Senate committee voted Monday to approve a House of Delegates bill designed to finance a small modular nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia, contradicting its own earlier vote for a much broader bill that had statewide application.

Two different bills on the same topic might now pass the Virginia Senate.  If the House does the same thing with the Senate bill, now alive in front of its Labor and Commerce Committee, Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) could have two very different bills to choose from. Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Floyd Judge Ponders Order to Return RGGI Tax

Posted on February 19, 2024 by | 26 comments

The states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative tax compact before Virginia withdrew.

By Steve Haner

A circuit court judge in Floyd County may soon order Virginia to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and to reimpose the related carbon tax on Virginia’s electricity consumers.

Judge Kenneth “Mike” Fleenor Jr. ruled earlier this month that a suit seeking reinstatement of RGGI could continue and held a hearing on February 5 on the question of “immediate relief.”  The plaintiff, a group of energy efficiency and insulation contractors using the RGGI tax dollars for their programs, has claimed it will suffer immediate and irreparable harm unless Virginia returns to collecting a carbon tax on coal and natural gas used by utilities. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Energy, General Assembly, Taxes, Utilities

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If Assembly Wants SMR Bill, Then Fix It

Posted on February 13, 2024 by | 79 comments

By Steve Haner

This is progress. Only twenty members of the Virginia Senate voted Tuesday to ignore a key tenet of utility ratemaking and put utility stockholders and profits ahead of consumer protection. Usually when the utilities persuade the General Assembly to do that to Virginia consumers, they get a bigger vote margin than 20-16.*

Senate Bill 454 allows Virginia’s two monopoly electricity providers to spend undetermined millions of dollars on planning and developing small modular nuclear reactor projects and get it all paid by consumers, with a profit margin. But there is no guarantee any such plants will ever be built, and no other power plants built in Virginia have gotten this kind of up-front financial guarantee before the State Corporation Commission ruled them in the public interest. Continue reading →

79 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Consumer protection, Energy, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Will Dominion Fool Us Again with SMR Cost Bill?

Posted on February 9, 2024 by | 63 comments

Artist rendering of a NuScale small modular reactor plant, proposed but now not being built in Idaho.

By Steve Haner

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  A utility-backed bill to stick electricity ratepayers with the high-risk costs of developing small (modular) nuclear reactors, approved by a Senate committee Friday, is a “fool me twice” example.  Shame on the General Assembly if it falls for it. Continue reading →

63 Comments

Posted in Consumer protection, Energy, General Assembly, Utilities

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Rare SCC Deadlock Sinks Dominion’s Energy Plan

Posted on February 4, 2024 by | 52 comments

By Steve Haner

The year long debate over Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed integrated resource plan, which threw climate catastrophe activists into a frenzy because it added a new natural gas plant, is ending with no decision.  Two State Corporation Commission judges split on whether to approve it, basically a win for the anti-fossil fuel forces.

In December, a hearing officer assigned to study the case had ruled that Dominion’s plan should be rejected because it included the expansion of gas generation, when the anti-natural gas forces in the General Assembly had passed laws against that 2020 and 2021.  Those laws did include provisions for maintaining or adding fossil fuel generation on the basis of a threat to reliability, but only under limited circumstances. Continue reading →

52 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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NJ Greenmailed Into Massive Wind Energy Costs

Posted on February 1, 2024 by | 9 comments

By Steve Haner

New Jersey just agreed to two ocean wind projects with astronomical guaranteed power prices. The price demanded and received by independent competitive suppliers shows there is at least some upside to the utility-owned, captive ratepayer-financed model behind Dominion Energy Virginia’s massive offshore wind facility.

In late 2023 the news was full of reports that independent wind developers were pulling out of various projects along the East Coast because the projects were no longer economically viable. Those who thought the future of the industry was in jeopardy were wrong. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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The Aggressive Progressive Democratic Agenda

Posted on January 31, 2024 by | 34 comments

From tiny acorns grow the mighty oaks of government.

By Steve Haner

The Democrats now running Virginia’s General Assembly are not just more progressive, but far more ambitious than their predecessors. To fully understand how ambitious you must compile the entire list of progressive bills advancing in the 2024 session and consider their total impact on the cost of living and cost of doing business in the commonwealth. Individual news stories miss the big picture.  

The push to radically regulate Virginia’s energy future discussed earlier is being mimicked with equally aggressive legislation throughout the rest of our economy. None of the ideas below are new, and most are already in law in places like California, New York or other more liberal states. What has changed is that when proposed in the past, they usually were rejected in Virginia on a bipartisan basis. Democrats now march in lockstep.  

The Assembly is still in its first phase and adjournment is set for early March. Which of the following will pass remains to be seen, and in many cases, amendments are already appearing. Most may also face gubernatorial veto or amendment, but that just underscores that Virginia is only one election of one official away from total transformation.   

In the case of the bills to increase the minimum wage (here and here), Democrats are simply building upon what they did during their last period of control. But if they succeed in setting future wage increases to automatically grow with inflation, the impact just builds and builds. Classes of employees reasonably exempted from the law currently, such as farm workers, may now be covered, as well.   

Likewise, the previous Democratic majority also took the first steps toward collective bargaining for limited groups of local employees, but only after elected local officials gave a green light to negotiate a contract. This year’s bill expands the right to bargain to almost all local and now most state employees, with no vote needed by a school board or city council. It was revealed that the most recent version does conveniently exempt employees of the General Assembly, however. Continue reading →

34 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Economic development, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Public employee unions, Regulation

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