Category: Energy
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Economics 101: Gas Prices Are Crippling the Working Class
by Kerry Dougherty Don’t you just love it when the sneering class responds to a serious problem with a glib solution? When I wrote earlier this week about soaring gas prices one reader pointed out that her husband bought an electric bike and rides that everywhere. The fact that I prefer to commute to work…
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National Security, West Virginia Natural Gas and Hampton Roads – A Proposed Federal Law
by James C. Sherlock This is the fourth in a series of columns recommending bringing West Virginia natural gas to Virginia and from there to our allies. The only way to do get that done with any assurance and speed under the energy emergency in which we find ourselves and the world is for…
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Democrats Against Due Diligence
by Bill O’Keefe In 2020, as we all know, the Democrat-controlled General Assembly passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) to eliminate fossil energy for electric power generation while simultaneously restricting the regulatory oversight of the State Corporation Commission (SCC). The effect of the legislation was, in effect, a license to pick the pockets of…
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Virginia’s Greens Need an Epiphany
by James C. Sherlock Headlines from the war in Ukraine have raised exponentially the interest in natural gas and the extreme price volatility caused by supply constraints. It is perhaps useful to understand the uses of natural gas, the prices Virginians pay relative to West Virginians, the decline of production in Virginia, and the costs…
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Fairfax County Also Prepared to Move Against Gas
by Steve Haner It was a Richmond City Council resolution back in the fall, expressing a desire to shut down its municipal natural gas utility, that triggered pending (and now struggling) Virginia legislation to prevent localities from prohibiting natural gas. Less attention has been given to the “climate action” plan by Virginia’s largest local government…
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Big Gas Users Protect Selves, Abandon Home Users
by Steve Haner Divide and conquer is an ancient tactic. Virginia’s residential natural gas customers were just divided from industrial and commercial users, and those big users then threw homeowners under the bus. Without blinking an eye. House Bill 1257 had passed the House of Delegates on an almost party line vote, with two Democrats…
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Taking One More Brick from the Green Wall
by James C. Sherlock The green wall preventing businesses from operating at some level of certainty when and if their development proposals will be approved is missing a brick today. The days of a Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board and State Water Control Board overruling the findings of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality…
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Virginia’s Natural Gas Pipelines, Virginia’s Economy and the World
by James C. Sherlock God looks after the United States of America. The fracking revolution tripled our recoverable natural gas volumes. America is the world king of natural gas. In 2008, the wellhead price of natural gas reached $8 per thousand cubic feet in the United States. By 2012, it was $2.66. It fueled a…
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Reliable Electricity Not Part of the Plan
by David Wojick I recently published a report on how Virginia’s big electric power utility, Dominion Energy Virginia, deliberately ignores the fact that the state’s zero emission law does not work. Utilities are doing this around the country. They will make a fortune building useless wind and solar generation before they finally admit it does…
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The Latest Obstacle to Solar Power in Virginia: the PJM Project Queue
by James A. Bacon Solar energy is the cheapest source of energy available to the world today. The more solar energy we can generate, the better… up to a certain point. Once solar and other intermittent energy sources comprise 30% or so of the juice supplied to the electric grid, they create problems with reliability…
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Christie Decries “Mother of All Legal Weapons”
by Steve Haner Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission changed the rules on pending and future natural gas pipelines and related projects, citing the threat of catastrophic climate change and injecting environmental justice concerns. Now with a 3-2 Democratic majority under President Joe Biden, the vote followed party lines. One of the nay votes…
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House GOP Repeals VCEA, EV Green Mandates
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Virginia’s House of Delegates Republicans have passed a series of bills retreating from Virginia’s rush toward a fossil-fuel-free future, but they were party-line votes and Democrats in the Virginia Senate, who hold a majority on that side, may promptly kill…
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Climate Suit Against Virginia Would Lose at Trial
by Steve Haner Less than one month after taking office, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) and other state officials are being sued by thirteen school-age defendants who claim the state’s long history of permitting the use of fossil fuels for various purposes is causing a climate crisis and harms them directly. The petition in the…
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Seeing Red About Blue Hydrogen
by Bill Tracy In recent discussions on Bacon’s Rebellion, readers have been talking about hydrogen as an emerging fuel source. Hydrogen, not electricity, may be the ultimate transposition fuel of the future. Let’s call it the 800-lb blue “gorilla” in the room. U.S. liberals and electric vehicle advocates see hydrogen as a threat to their vision…
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Richmond Leader Opposes Right to Gas Bill
by Steve Haner “I hope the General Assembly will reaffirm its confidence in localities to make these critical decisions on behalf of our residents.” So said Richmond City Council member Katherine Jordan in opposition to pending legislation that would establish in law a right for Virginians to use natural gas and require localities that wish…