Tag: Stephen D. Haner
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Bylined Utility Puffery in Richmond Times-Dominion
by Steve Haner I guess what shows up in the driveway every morning is now called the Richmond Times-Dominion. On yesterday’s front page, and today picked up and spread across the state by the Virginia Public Access Project, was a long, puffy public relations piece about Dominion’s proposed Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. It was…
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Building Systems to Use Methane Not From Wells
by Steve Haner Methane (CH4) is money. It is also known as natural gas, one of the most efficient fossil fuels we use, and allowing it to leak into the atmosphere when it could be used wastes energy and money. Methane is also a greenhouse gas (GHG). But the story gets more interesting here, because…
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Virginia Slides Lower in ALEC Economic Rankings
by Steve Haner First published earlier today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. As measured by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Virginia’s economic outlook has continued its precipitous drop and now barely ranks in the top half among the American states, 24th out of 50. A decade ago it was in the top five,…
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SCC Asked for Hearing on Secret Renewables Costs
by Steve Haner Appalachian Power Company has asked the State Corporation Commission to schedule a separate hearing on Attorney General Jason Miyares’ motion to break the seal on exhibits in its application for new renewable energy sources. Miyares’ April 6 motion was first reported by Bacon’s Rebellion, in a story on Appalachian’s pending application for…
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Youngkin Vetoes Bill Because It Weakened SCC
by Steve Haner Reliance on the controlling phrase “in the public interest” helped get an energy bill vetoed by Governor Glenn Youngkin (R), bringing a rare call from a governor to maintain the independent oversight of the State Corporation Commission. Recent governors of both parties happily signed bills with the phrase into law over and…
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VCEA Could Raise APCo Power Bills by Half
by Steve Haner Compliance with the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act will result in a 49% increase in monthly costs by 2035 for residential customers of the Appalachian Power Company, according to a State Corporation Commission staff analysis. That’s a $57 increase on a typical 2020 residential bill of $117. Rates on the largest industrial…
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SCC Staff: Dominion May Exceed Wind Cost Cap
by Steve Haner A similar article was published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Testimony filed by the State Corporation Commission staff on April 8 opened a slight possibility that the Commission could reject Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed $10 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project off Virginia Beach. It all depends…
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A Bag Of Oranges and Gas Tax Posturing
by Steve Haner The bag of mandarin oranges that was $4.99 last week was $5.99 this morning. Fruit trees aren’t getting raises – that is the impact of fuel prices, the cost to ship them to Virginia. As I’m fuming and pushing my cart to the next inflated item, the phone pings to announce an…
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Updates: Missing Wind, Lazy Assembly, Gas Wars
by Steve Haner The German Energy Mix in March When you dig in, the amount of data available on energy usage is stunning, and the presentations are often quite clear and informative. Case in point is the illustration above of Germany’s energy mix during March, in the news now as Europe seeks to wean itself…
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AG Expert: Wind Project Unneeded, Accounting Off
by Steve Haner There is no justification for Dominion’s $10 billion offshore wind project other than that the General Assembly has ordered it, a witness for Virginia’s Attorney General has testified. The utility doesn’t need its electricity, doesn’t need its renewable energy attributes, and is ignoring lower cost alternatives if it does need generation in…
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Another Try for Natural Gas to Hampton Roads
by Steve Haner Natural gas pipeline companies have applied to federal regulators with another proposal to enhance supply into Virginia’s Hampton Roads region, despite the earlier failures of two similar high profile efforts. Columbia Gas Transmission, part of TC Energy which is best known for the recently-rejected Keystone XL pipeline, is proposing to replace 48…
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If U.S. Copies Europe, “It Will End In Tears”
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. A major European voice for climate and energy rationality told a small Charlottesville audience March 30 that his home, the United Kingdom, and the rest of Europe face an immediate energy crisis that was brewing long before the war in…
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No Other State Plans Utility-Owned Wind Farms
by Steve Haner The table reproduced above may one of the most interesting exhibits submitted to the State Corporation Commission as it considers Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore wind application. Two things jump out, both highlighted in pre-filed expert testimony sponsored by environmental activist group Clean Virginia. First, only in Virginia is such a project being…
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Richmond’s Reaganesque Time for Choosing
by Chris Braunlich Richmond, like Washington, has always been a place where an “insider’s game” is played – not in a pejorative sense, but simply as the way things are done. Relationships are paramount, people speak in the arcane language of lawmaking, agendas are confusing for outsiders, and the activities of a subcommittee for an…
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Moran’s Green Energy Ties Ignored by Media
by Steve Haner If the Commonwealth of Virginia was not paying Matthew Moran to serve as Governor Glenn Youngkin’s deputy chief of staff and point person with the General Assembly, as recently revealed, who was? Based on the websites for his employers, mainly the renewable energy industry. For example, Moran is identified as on the…