Category: Environment
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Enviros Hail Proposed Regs for Greensville Plant
Environmental groups are cheering tough new restrictions in the draft air permit for Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed natural gas-fired power plant in Greensville County. If approved by the state Air Pollution Control Board, the regulations would tighten protective standards for carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, methane, and particulate matter. Dominion also would have to conduct…
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Coal Ash to Cold Cash?
by James A. Bacon A Duke University study of coal ash has found that the mineral residue from coal combustion contains high concentrations of valuable rare-earth elements neodymium, europium, terbium, dysprosium, yttrium and erbium used in uses as varied as cell phones, rechargeable batteries, fluorescent lighting, air pollution controls, and night-vision goggles. Demand for the exotic…
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A Major Setback for Virginia OffShore Wind
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has withdrawn $40 million in funding from the Virginia Offshore Wind Technology Advancement Project (VOWTAP), dealing a major blow to plans to build two experiment wind turbines off the Virginia coast and jeopardizing the prospect of major offshore wind development in the foreseeable future. Dominion Virginia Power had hoped…
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Swapping Easements
by James A. Bacon Dominion Transmission, managing partner of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, has proposed to donate two parcels totaling nearly 1,200 acres to offset the intrusion of its proposed 600-mile pipeline onto lands protected by conservation easements. In a proposal made to the Virginia Outdoor Foundation (VOF), which holds the conservation easements, Dominion would…
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Solar Co-Ops: Competing through Innovation
by James A. Bacon Solar co-ops are popping up all around Virginia, as they are around the country. The concept is simple: Individuals who want to install solar power on their houses band together to select a single contractor to install their solar systems, saving up to 20% to 30%. The Virginia Solar United Neighborhoods…
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You Want Studies? We’ve Got Studies!
The latest news in the Bacon’s Rebellion in-box… Coal ash. Resource International, an engineering and consulting firm hired by Prince William County, has concluded that lead found in well water near the Possum Creek Power Station has no connection to the coal ash ponds nearby. Concludes the study: The test results for the sample collected…
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Tech’s “Smart Infrastructure” Initiative Progresses
by James A. Bacon Virginia Tech has been re-thinking for a several years now how to invigorate traditional engineering disciplines by integrating civil engineering and computer engineering to create “smart infrastructure.” The $100 million initiative received a $5 million boost yesterday from the Hitt family, owners of Falls Church-based Hitt Contraction, a company that typically recruits eight to ten Virginia…
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Next Front in the Coal Ash War: Groundwater Testing
by James A. Bacon Brian West, whose property backs up the Dominion Virginia Power’s coal ash ponds at the Possum Point Power Station, has had his well water tested three times in the past few months. He got three very different results, leaving him wondering how safe the water is to drink. The first test, conducted…
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Lawsuit Pries Loose Warmist Emails
by James A. Bacon The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has prevailed in a lawsuit to obtain emails detailing how GMU climatologists organized a call for a federal investigation into corporations that “knowingly deceived” the public about climate change. The campaign was organized by Jagadish Shukla, director of the Institute for Global Environment and Society (IGES), who subsequently drew…
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Nuke Foes Take Case to Dominion Shareholders
by James A. Bacon Foes of a third nuclear power plan at Dominion Virginia Power’s North Anna Power Station have taken their case to the shareholders of parent company Dominion Resources, which is holding its annual shareholders meeting in Columbia, S.C., today. Dominion is racking up billions of dollars of potential liabilities on the nuclear unit…
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A World Where Bats and Blades Coexist
by James A. Bacon Critics have long lambasted wind turbines for killing hundreds of thousands of birds and bats. Charlottesville-based Apex Clean Energy, which seeks to build a wind farm in Botetourt County north of Roanoke, has submitted a plan that it says will mitigate the worst effects of its 25 whirling turbine blades. Apex…
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NRDC Blasts Dominion’s $13 Billion Cost Projection
by James A. Bacon The 15-year planning document filed by Dominion Virginia Power last week vastly overstates the cost of complying with the Clean Power Plan and is chock-full of errors, flaws and misjudgments, charged Walton Shepherd, staff attorney for the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and a member of a committee of stakeholders advising…
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Appalachian Power Proposes Green Power Tariff
by James A. Bacon Appalachian Power has proposed an alternative rate for customers who want to purchase 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. A rider attached to the company’s Virginia tariff bundles the energy output of renewable generators to provide around-the-clock, carbon-free generation. The company, whose service territory encompasses the southwestern third of the state,…
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Why Dominion Sees Growing Electricity Demand in the 15-Year Future
by James A. Bacon One of the more controversial forecasts contained in Dominion Virginia Power’s 2016 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is a projection that average electricity demand and peak demand in its service territory will increase at an annual rate of 1.5% annually over the next 15 years. If that forecast pans out, demand will outstrip the…
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Strictest Clean Power Option Would Cost Customers $12.8 Billion, Dominion Says
by James A. Bacon Meeting the strictest compliance option of the Clean Power Plan would cost customers of Dominion Virginia Power an estimated $12.8 billion in higher electric rates over the next 30 years, the power company revealed in its 2016 Integrated Resource Plan, which it submitted to the State Corporation Commission (SCC) today. Three lower-cost…