Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Wise Coal Plant Controversy Goes National

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by

James A. Bacon
in

The controversy over Dominion’s proposed coal-fired power plant in Wise show signs of morphing into a national story. First, as Peter Galuszka noted in an earlier blog post, the left-wing blogosphere has jumped on the issue. Now James Hansen, recently departed director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and world-renowned climatologist, has written a letter to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, urging him to oppose the coal plant.

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network quotes Hansen as follows:

I have become involved in several coal-fired power plant cases, including ones in my home state of Iowa, because it has become clear that emissions from coal-fired power plants will be the single most dominant factor in determining the nature of our future climate and our planetary legacy for our children and grandchildren,” said Dr. Hansen. “This Virginia case is important because it is near-term. We need a moratorium on coal-fired power plants now, until technology is ready to capture all emissions, including carbon dioxide.

“Concern about global warming is rising. Coal is on its way out,” Hansen concluded. “A governor who acts on both of these truths will go down in history as a true visionary.”

Hansen garnered considerable attention in 2005 and 2006 when he asserted that the Bush administration was trying to censor his views on global warming. Those charges inspired some sarcastic commentary by skeptics who noted his long-standing status as one of the nation’s most outspoken prophets of global warming. If he was censored, he certainly found a way to make his opinions known.

Even if you dismiss Hansen as an ideologue with a penchant for controversy, as some undoubtedly will, there is no denying that he has a strong media following. Don’t be surprised if the Wise coal plant becomes the cause celebre that catalyzes a national movement calling for a total moratorium on new coal plants.

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  1. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Ahhh … our commonwealth’s government. How much do I mock you, let me coint the ways:

    1. Abuser fees that turns conventional wisodom on it head by being unenforcable against out of state drivers.

    2. A transportation bill that established illegal regional taxing authorities.

    3. Toll lanes to pay for bus transport that morphed onto funding for Virginia Railroad Express.

    4. Continuing to charge tolls on the Dulles Toll Rd despite having promised that the tolls were designed to pay off the construction – now paid.

    5. Illegally transferring the Dulles Toll Rd to that paragon of excellence in operations – the Washingtom Metropolitan Airport Authority.

    6. Signing a bill to favorably reregulate Dominion with one hand while sweeping vast campaign contributions into your pocket with the other hand.

    7. Putting forth a new home construction proffer system that broadly fails to raise the money obviously needed for incrimental infrastructure for each new home.

    8. Legislating a new power plant into life including its location and its preference for expensive Virginia coal.

    Anybody remember any more recnt state government hijinks? Please do not go back more than two years. There is not enough disk space on the internet to catalog a full history of buffoonery.

  2. Bob Avatar
    Bob

    Hansen is a crackpot and global warming is bunk, but coal plants create real pollution.

    A friend of mine used to live near the old coal plant in Old Town, Alexandria and there would always be black soot on the windowsill. I worry about that, not about CO2 emissions because, if you’re reading this, you’re emitting CO2 also. (If you aren’t, you probably should consult a doctor immediately.)

  3. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    ouch ouch ouch

    with regard to VRE….

    Each VRE rider is subsidized to the tune of about $1000 per year…

    Is it “worth” $1000 to take that care off of I-95 .. AND NoVa roads?

    Here’s a thought.

    How about we charge full fare for VRE and we auction off the subsidized fares?

    So.. a driver “bids” on how much of a subsidy the State will pay him to ride on VRE?

    How about we do that with METRO?

    We charge full fares for METRO and we let everyone “bid” for the subsidized fares?

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Here’s a thought.”

    And a good one. I actually beleive we can sole a lot of cost/value arguments with this kind of auction.

    Need a new county jail? Each magisterial district is required to identify a place for the jail, no matter how good, bad or inapporpriate that location may be.

    Then they bid for the right NOT to get the jail (dumpsite, halfway house, etc).

    The low bidder gets stuck with the jail, but they also get all the money bid by all the other locations.

    The end result will probably be much as it is now: the poorer jurisdictions get stuck. But this way the wealtier ones have to pay for what they get (Absence of bad stuff) and the poor ones get a lot wealthier.

    Economy, Environment, Equality

    RH

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Same way with Building permits. Decide how many building permits you want to issue this year.

    Every landowner who has building rights gets one raffle ticket and the rights to building permits are raffled off.

    Now, the landowner who wins the right to a building permit may have no desire to build anything, so he can auction it off to the developer with the most money to spend. (This is separate from his actual development rights – He isnt selling the development rights, he’s selling a winning raffle ticket for a building permit.)

    If he believes that development is bad, he can simply pocket the winning raffle ticket (right to a building permit), and do nothing with it, or sell it to an environmental group that will do nothing with it. That will increase competition for the ones that remain, and raise the price.

    That way the market can determine how much development is worth, and yet government can control the timing of it.

    Since the lottery is held every year, each landowner with development rights has at least a chance of getting some income, which he can use to keep his land off the market. And the income he gets for preserving his land will basically come from those that build on theirs.

    RH

  6. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Here’s an interesting tidbit for you location-specific affectionatos.

    I’ll give a couple of excerpts but go read the whole article because it has implications for State and local competitiveness for businesses…

    Cutline: Electric bills: There can be a powerful difference

    Dan W. Wallace was shocked when he opened utility bills for two of the six Arby’s restaurants he and his father own in the Fredericksburg area.

    Rappahannock Electric Cooperative had charged twice as much per kilowatt hour for the new fast-food franchise in Cosner’s Corner in Massaponax, Wallace said, as Dominion Virginia Power had for a similar-size Arby’s about a mile away on Salem Church Road.

    The rate difference means it will cost about $20,000 more per year to use the same amount of electricity

    “That is wrong,” said F. Dan Wallace. “If REC is designed to cover rural areas, it should not be in a commercial area.”

    Dominion’s rates currently are lower than area cooperatives’. Residential users, for example, pay 8.9 cents per kilowatt hour if they use Dominion, and an average of 12.7 cents if they are REC customers.

    The rate differences are largely due to not only the utilities’ business structures, but also their energy sources, how they are regulated and the population densities of the areas they serve.

    Dominion, which serves about 2.38 million homes and businesses in Virginia and North Carolina, relies on a mix of nuclear, coal, pumped storage, oil and natural gas to provide the bulk of its energy needs.

    It produced all but 14 percent of its energy needs in 2006 and purchased the rest from the increasingly expensive wholesale market, according to the SCC.

    ODEC, [Another rural cooperative] by contrast, owns approximately 2,050 megawatts of generation capacity and had to buy about 55 percent of its electricity on the open market in 2006, according to the SCC.

    Dominion’s existing plants also are fully depreciated, and the General Assembly capped its base rate–the cost of power excluding fuel–and froze its fuel rate four years ago.

    The co-ops are allowed to pass on the constantly fluctuating cost of fuel,…

    http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/042008/04262008/369850/index_html?page=3

    more info in the article.. kudos to the reporter for an excellent job!

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    no comments on the fact that the Electric Cooperatives are charging half again as much for electricity as Dominion or why?

    It appears that the cooperatives are buying electricity on the open market which likely includes Dominion (with it’s closer power plants) .. and Dominion is apparently free to charge Virginia Cooperatives whatever the price is on the open market.

    Surely, the Virginia SCC is aware of this.

    And apparently there is a double standard in their eyes with regard to ratepayers in Virginia… If you are Dominion.. you’re covered.. in you are an electric cooperative customer.. you’re not…

    but here’s something useful that might be of benefit.. and that is comparing Dominion’s customers average rates of usage verses the Electric Cooperatives – to see how much price affects consumption.

    One “might” expect that folks who pay half again as much for electricity might not use as much of it.

    I notice that the Arby’s guy did not mention any potential conservation strategies to reduce his costs.. despite the fact.. that part of the rate charged by the electric cooperatives apparently is keyed to peak hour usage.

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “One “might” expect that folks who pay half again as much for electricity might not use as much of it.”

    And one might also expect that it takes pretty much as much electricity to run an Arby’s as it takes. You can’t exactly turn down the heat on a fryer.

    RH

  9. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    I am so hungry I could eat at Arby’s…

    Homer Simpson

    What have you people done with the Double R Burger? Where has it gone? And no, I don’t want curly fries.

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