Coal-fired electricity generation remains one of the hottest issues in the Old Dominion and the nation. With some form of cap and trade law almost inevitable in Congress and with polls showing that 75 percent of Americans think that carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases need regulation, the issues really does have legs.
In Virginia, for the past several years, the tip of the spear was in St. Paul’s in Wise County where Dominion plans to build a $1.6 billion, 585-megawatt coal-fired plant. That project has been a rallying cry for environmentalists nationally, some of whom such as the Sierra Club have pledged to fight any big, base-loaded, coal-fired plant anywhere. They have had some successes, notably in the Southwest.
Now, the focus is shifting farther east, to the flat peanut lands of Surry County about halfway between Richmond and Norfolk. There, Henrico County-based Old Dominion Electric Cooperative plans on building twin 750 megawatt units costing perhaps $6 billion — in other words, a facility maybe three times as big as Dominion’s in Wise County.
In a story I reported for Richmond’s Style Weekly, I note that the so-called Cypress Creek Power Station would be the second largest of its kind in the state. It would instantly become the state’s sixth biggest air polluter, air pollution officials say. The facility would be fed via a new rail spur from Norfolk Southern’s coal mainline to Norfolk. Water for steam would be pumped 15 miles from the James River and heated water would be pumped back into the estuary. Fly ash from the coal will be buried on the project’s 1,600-acre site, not far from the town’s well water supply, local opponents say.
The plant would be in the town of Dendron, population 300, which is a flyspeck decorated with black “No Coal Plant” signs. These mimic the “No OLF” sings one sees throughout Tidewater Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina regarding local opposition to the Navy’s efforts to locate a new landing field so their F-18 Super Hornet jet fighters can simulate air craft carrier landings. The problem: Super Hornets are some of the loudest aircraft ever built.
Old Dominion Electric Cooperative claims that the plant is needed to help them meet a shortfall by 2016 of some 4,000 megawatts Virginia will face in electricity unless new plants are built. ODEC has 11 mostly-rural; members in this state, Maryland and Virginia. It has begun the process of getting the 50 or more permits it needs to start construction.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to approve a plan for ODEC to tap water in the James River and then return heated water back into the estuary not far from the tourist havens of Jamestown and Williamsburg. According to ODEC data, Cypress Creek would annually emit 3,085 tons of nitrogen oxide a year, 3,685 tons of sulfur dioxide, nearly a half a ton of lead, 283 tons of sulfuric mist and 2,155 tons of particulates. The project needs another permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because construction will alter wetlands.
Of particular concern to the state Department of Environmental Quality is ODEC’s estimate that the plant will emit 118 pounds per year of highly toxic mercury. By contrast, Dominion Resources’s Wise County plant will emit only 5.5 pounds of mercury a year. Given prevailing wind patterns in Surry, the mercury could fall onto the water of the James River and Chesapeake Bay and be dangerous to wildlife. “This is something we’re absolutely going to be looking at,” says state air pollution analyst Sparky H.L. Lisle Jr.
Surry County, which has been home to twin nuclear reactors owned by Dominion for 37 years, could use the tens of millions the project would pay. Some 200 permanent jobs would help the rural, sleepy country.
Yet there are more questions about the project than just its immediate pollution impact. For one thing, ODEC has recently lost its largest member, the Manassas-based Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative with 142,000 customers, terminated its relationship with ODEC Dec. 31 over a contract dispute. “We thought we could do better with a different power supplier,” says Virginia Burginger, a NOVEC spokeswoman. If this is so, why the urgency to build such a big plant?
Another issue is if much-larger Dominion will fill the shortfall with new plants such as Wise, another nuke at North Anna, windmills and so on. A Dominion spokesman told me that the shortfall is actually larger — about 4,600 megawatts by the last part of next decade. Dominion should be able to add 4,200 megawatts of extra generation capacity by then. If so, this raises questions about why the ODEC project is necessary or if their real aim is to wholesale electricity beyond its members.
Lastly, there are carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. ODEC has not provided details about how they plan to capture CO2. A report by Synapse, a Cambridge, Mass. consulting firm funded by environmentalists, claims that depending on what kind of cap and trade law goes into effect, ODEC ratepayers could face extra costs of from $223 million to $1.76 billion to handle carbon dioxide. ODEC publicly dissed the report, calling it “speculative and inaccurate” but did not responded to a Synapse request to provide more information. ODEC claims that the plant will actually save its customers about $14 billion but doesn’t say how.
A personal note: I tried to interview ODEC but they refused, saying that my blog postings on the site showed I was biased against the plant. I beg to differ. ODEC then went to the publications to whom I had tried to sell the story. Style Weekly, bless their hearts, told ODEC that they had reviewed my postings and didn’t see that I had raised anything to the level of advocacy on my part.
True enough. I’m just asking questions like any reporter. I guess my questions weren’t too welcome.
Peter Galuszka
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