Unity Woods Yoga Center hosting CCAN benefit

schumacherAttend a yoga class this Saturday and support our work!

Unity Woods Yoga Center is hosting a special event, Going Green with Yoga: A Fundraiser for Chesapeake Climate Action Network THIS Saturday, March 15. John Schumacher, internationally-known yoga teacher and owner/director of Unity Woods Yoga Center, approached us to join forces for this event to show the connectedness of a mindful yoga practice and honoring and caring for the earth. This event will focus on making a “green” step in our personal practices towards deepening our conscious intention to honor and care for the Earth as part of yoga.

Signed copies of Mike Tidwell’s latest book, Ravaging Tide, will be available for purchase. All proceeds go to Chesapeake Climate Action Network. I hope you can make it!

Location: Unity Woods Yoga, Bethesda Studio,
4853 Cordell Avenue, Suite PH7, 16th Floor, Bethesda Maryland map>>
Classes: 3:30 – 7:00 p.m.
Open House & Refreshments: 7-8 p.m.
No Pre-registration. Drop in only
Minimum Donation per Class: $20
Checks only, please! Payable to CCAN

Learn more on the Unity Woods Site!

SCC analysis – Power Plant will eliminate 1476 jobs

According to recently uncovered testimony by staff at the State Corporation Commission, the Wise County Power Plant could actually eliminate 1474 Virginia jobs and have a significant negative economic impact on the rest of the state.

“This implies that for each dollar of revenue requirement collected through Rider S will have a -$1.36 impact on economic activity elsewhere in the state economic activity elsewhere in the state. The analysis also reveals a negative impact on employment of -1476 jobs.“

Because of the huge profit Dominion will make from this plant (12.12%), money will be removed from the Virginia economy, instead being transferred to Dominion’s shareholders, who received almost 40 cents per share dividend last quarter. Quite a good deal for the shareholders. We pay for our electricity, lose jobs, and they reap the profits.

Last year Governor Kaine dispatched Secretary of Commerce and Trade Patrick Gottschalk to testify before teh SCC, urging them to support the plant and emphasizing that the plant “has the full support of myself and the Governor”. Will this new evidence change his mind?

Despite an agreement with the Attorney General and the SCC staff that the plant will NOT be carbon capture compatible, Dominion struck a deal to maintain the higher 12.12% profit on the $1.8 billion power plant.

UPDATE: No New Coal Resolution in Richmond

The City Council of Richmond is officially the first and only locality to kill a resolution against the Wise County coal plant. Why? Because City Council President Bill Pantele didn’t like it. In fact, Mr. Pantele went out of his way to kill this resolution.

The resolution was originally scheduled for a full council committee hearing at the beginning of February but it was postponed at the very last minute by, you guessed it, Mr. Pantele. The decision was so last minute that not even the sponsors of the resolution knew that it had been removed from the agenda until walking into the meeting. Pantele told me himself that everyone on council had been getting “a lot” of phone calls from constituents on this. Apparently the wishes of his constituents are irrelevant.

While we waited for the resolution to be rescheduled, Dominion representatives had time to meet with each member of City Council. Continue reading

A mini-update on GWSA in MD

I usually get to be pretty positive when blogging about how things are going with the MD Global Warming Solutions Act – after all, Governor O’Malley did recently publicly express his support for the bill, going so far as to ask Marylanders to rally with him to show the widespread support the bill has.

Then, I got to go to a hearing last Friday, and listen to certain members of the Environmental Matters Committee and the Economic Matters Committee (who shall remain unnamed) ask questions about global cooling, sunspots, and the possibility that global warming is really caused by a higher population of people breathing (yes, breathing).

Dominion Swindles Virginia, Buys Governor

Why should Virginians we support a new coal plant in Wise County? For months, people like me have been standing on our soap boxes saying that the people of Virginia shouldn’t support this plant. We have said that coal is bad for global warming. We have said that coal is bad for our mountains. We have said that coal isn’t good for our health. We have said that coal isn’t good for our water.

But Dominion has not withdrawn their plans to build a new coal plant in Wise County, saying that the plant would be clean, economically beneficial, and cheap. Dominion lies. Let me quickly debunk these three myths.

Myth #1: Dominion’s Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center (the official name of the Wise County plant) will bring jobs to Virginia and provide cheap, reliable energy for the State.
FACT: If the plant gets built, there will be a net loss of jobs in Virginia. Recent testimony for the State Corporation Commission reveals that the Wise County Plant would cost Virginia nearly 1,500 jobs and greatly diminish families disposable income through higher electricity rates. Is that really worth it for 75 permanent jobs in Wise County? [For comparison sake, for $1.8 billion we could pay 75 Wise residents $100,000 a year and give the county $6 million a year for the next 133 years — sounds like a better deal to me…]

Myth #2: Coal is the cheapest source of energy in Virginia.
FACT: Coal is a cheap source of energy, but it is also one of the most heavily subsidized energy sources in the state. Even with massive subsidies that are taken directly from taxpayers pocket and put into Dominion’s stockholders portfolios, the new Wise county plower plant would increase energy rates by up to $1,000 per household in Virginia. That is not cheap!

Myth #3: Dominion’s Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center would be clean and have minimal impacts on the environment
FACT: Dominion is not utilizing the best available technology for this plant. The Wise County plat would utilize Circulating Fluidized Bed Coal Technology (CFB), not Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology — IGCC is considered the most advanced coal technology and the one best suited to remove pollutants and CO2 from emissions. By utilizing this inferior technology, Dominion can burn cheap waste coal with low BTU value and high pollutant emissions.

So why do we even need to fight this plant? It is bad for rate payer, it is bad for the economy, and it is bad for the environment — who would support that? Governor Kaine and the Virginia General Assembly, that is who. Surely they must know something that we don’t, like we are just about to make great strides in carbon capture and sequestration or the price of this plant is going to drop or something… or maybe they just took millions of dollars from Dominion…

It just makes you wonder what Dominion is buying…

  • The fast track green light from the Governor and the General Assembly for a $1.8 billion power plant (of which, Dominion has asked for a guaranteed profit on the plant of about 14% which they would probably get…)

  • A general strangle hold on democracy in Virginia

We want our democracy back. We want a governor that leads, not one that flies to the Final Four on Dominion’s dollar. Contact the Governor today.