Yesterday Gov. Kaine applauded Virginia’s electrical co-ops for donating energy efficient lights to Virginia State Parks, hailing it as “a major step forward” for Virginia.
It’s great that Virginia is taking strides to be more energy efficient. Considering Virginia spent just $84,000 statewide on efficiency measures in 2006, compared with $400,000 in Alabama and Mississippi and $3.8 billion in North Carolina, we certainly need to be stepping up our commitment to efficiency.
It’s also great that this is a “major step.” What exactly does that mean?
The Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives (VMDAEC) and power supplier Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC) donated the 4,200 bulbs valued at $18,000.
“This is the equivalent of removing 94 cars per year from Virginia’s roads or adding 134 acres of forested land,” Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources L. Preston Bryant Jr. said.
Ninety-four cars!?! This is a major step forward?
Right now, Dominion Virginia Power, with Governor Kaine’s blessing, is building a 585-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Wise County. This power plant will spew out as much pollution as nearly a million cars, roughly the same number of cars driven in the metro Richmond area. Calling the removal of 94 cars-worth of emissions a major stride for Virginia is, well, ridiculous.
Adding the equivalent of 134 acres of forested land hardly constitutes a step forward either. Mountaintop removal mining is devastating Appalachian communities – 29 mountains have been wiped out in Wise County alone, the site of Dominion’s new coal plant. If we took the areas being strip mined in Wise County and put them together, there would be enough land to rebuild the city of Roanoke — twice.
That’s just looking at Virginia right now. If we start to look into the future, this gesture becomes even more insignificant.
Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC) – one of the co-ops that donated the light bulbs yesterday – has proposed building a massive $6 billion coal plant in Surry County. This plant could be a 1500-megawatt facility, nearly three times the size of the Wise County coal plant. When comparing ODEC’s light bulb contribution, which will take about 94 cars off the road, to its plans to build a massive coal plant, which will add nearly 3 million cars to the road, it just seems like we’re tripping over our own feet rather than moving forward at all.
It’s not to say that changing incandescent light bulbs to CFLs is a bad thing, it’s surely not. It’s just not the leaps and bounds Gov. Kaine is trumpeting. It’s also intriguing that the same day Governor Kaine sent out a release applauding Virginia’s co-ops for helping achieve his administration’s goals of reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, he also eliminated one-fifth of the state’s air pollution inspectors — who police everything from massive power plants to neighborhood dry cleaners. Instead of being able to review 1400 sites annually, inspectors will now only be able to make it to less than 800 sites.
Governor Kaine has called this the “Year of the Environment.” Let’s hope his promise amounts to more than just a couple of light bulbs.
