Richmond Times-Dispatch
By Beth Kemler
Picture this. You tell your mechanic that your car needs a new steering wheel. The car runs OK but this critical piece of equipment is broken. In turn, the mechanic hems and haws — a brand new steering wheel might be challenging to find. So you offer him a bonus — you’ll pay triple his normal rate to find the wheel you want. You sign the contract with the bonus included and shake hands. A week later, you come back and pay your bill only to discover that, instead of installing a new steering wheel, he slapped a new coat of paint on your old one. Turns out the contract you signed said that any part with paint applied in the current year counts as “new.”
Virginians face a similar quandary when it comes to the state’s electric utilities and renewable energy.
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Day 2 of the #76Million week of action a success!
For the second day of the week-long action to Stand Up to Dominion’s $76 Million Rip-Off, we drew attention to the extreme weather Virginians are facing – worsened by our planet’s rising temperatures – while Dominion drags its feet on Virginia-made renewable energy. Undeterred by the threat of thunderstorms, supporters turned out to picket outside Dominion’s office and call for the company to earn the $76 million bonus it is receiving in the name of renewable energy.
It has begun! Our week of action against Dominion's #76Million rip-off
Today in Richmond we kicked off our week-long picket at Dominion Virginia Power’s offices.
Haven’t heard about it? Well, not only is Dominion contributing to climate change via its heavy reliance on coal and natural gas, but it is also receiving bonus money for doing so – $76 million of it. How is this possible you may ask? Virginia’s incredibly weak Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) allows utilities (including our good friend Dominion) to receive a renewable energy bonus even though they aren’t producing our buying any Virginia made solar and wind! Sound ridiculous? We think so too. So today we launched a week of action against Dominion’s $76 million rip-off. We’re off to a great start!
Climate-denying ostrich greets U.S. Senate candidates Tim Kaine and George Allen
This is a guest post from CCAN fall intern Norah Berk. Check out all the pictures from the ostrich action on CCAN’s flickr account.
Starting at around 9 a.m. today, demonstrators began to line Dolly Madison Blvd across the street from the Capitol One Center in McLean in anticipation of the debate between the two candidates that would take place just a few hours later. Amidst others holding signs for their favored candidate, CCAN staff and volunteers proudly stood holding the “STOP climate change” banner that Obama once set eyes on. At 10 a.m. special guest Cleopatra, The Queen of Denial (an 8-feet tall climate-change denying ostrich), appeared. Her presence called attention to both candidates’ denial of the urgent need for renewable energy in Virginia over dirty, yet so-called “clean”, fossil fuel options.
Marylanders: Renewable Home Heating Rebate Program
By Melissa Bollman (Cross-Posted from Alliance for Green Heat)
On September 7, 2012 the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) launched a pilot rebate program for some of the cleanest wood and pellet stoves available, marking the first time that a state has integrated wood and pellet stoves into a renewable energy rebate program.
The pilot program offers a $400 rebate for wood stoves and $600 for pellet stoves. Wood stoves must emit less than half the particulates that are allowed by the EPA to be eligible.
“We are thrilled that Governor O’Malley and Malcolm Wolff, the Director of the Maryland Energy Administration, extended the renewable energy grant program to appliances that low and middle-income families can afford,” said John Ackerly, the President of the Alliance for Green Heat.
Talking climate and the state of the Bay at Hampton Bay Days
At Hampton Bay Days this past weekend, the high-jumping Dock Dogs weren’t the only ones who made a splash! Thanks to all our local volunteers, CCAN had two great days of outreach promoting clean energy and enlisting the help of festival-goers to bring clean energy to Virginia! As the only organization educating the public on the impacts of climate change to the Chesapeake Bay region, it was a perfect opportunity to talk about how to move clean energy away from fossil fuels and toward renewable solar and wind power for the sake of our waterways and our coast.
CCANers to Ryan in Virginia: No KXL
The day after the Republican National Convention of 2012 concluded, Ryan appeared today at a rally in Richmond Virginia in stifling 100-degree August heat on an airport tarmac, and local climate activists greeted him with a clear message to pass on to his running mate Mitt Romney: No Keystone XL Pipeline.
While candidate Romney spent the day reaching out to Americans affected by flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac, recalling the damage done by Hurricane Katrina and the risk of stronger storms hitting the Gulf Coast and mid-Atlantic as the climate changes, Ryan addressed a sizable swing-state crowd. As he began to bring up the issue of energy and speak about Virginia’s coal reserves and the need to use it, local activists took a stand for the climate and unfurled a banner for the candidate to read.
Barack Obama Drives Past CCAN Banner at Charlottesvile Rally
As excited motorists, bicyclists, and people on foot passed by, local citizens and I held up a banner telling the president that his “‘all of the above energy’ policy won’t stop climate change.” Even the air tingled with excitement, as the crowd’s cheers echoed from the pavillion and the ever-present security forces barely hid their anticipation. After getting politely removed to a nearby location on Market, I knew that the moment I was waiting for, when we would show the President our message for more clean energy, was near.
Dominion’s latest greenhouse gas belcher = more extreme weather
Every minute of every day, as Virginians turn on lights and computers and air conditioners, the new power plant in Wise County will send on average 10 tons of greenhouse gases into the already overheated atmosphere. That’s 605 tons an hour, a fearsome 5.3 million tons a year. That’s because last month, Dominion Virginia Power turned on its massive new facility that burns coal but includes zero technology for controlling the carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to heating the planet.
Estimates are that this 585-megawatt facility will increase Virginia’s output of carbon dioxide to more than that of New Jersey, which has 1 million more people than Virginia. The commonwealth will also have the odious distinction of having one of the last coal plants to come online in this country — odious because its emissions far exceed inevitable federal regulations designed to capture power plant pollutants that are baking the planet and wrecking the climate.
Dominion’s timing in firing up this plant couldn’t be more poignant or distressing for Virginians. Less than two weeks before the plant went online, more than a million homes and businesses in the commonwealth lost power for days after a sudden and deadly “derecho” that was fueled along its 600-mile course by energy from an intense heat wave that stretched from Illinois to Washington. No one storm or heat wave can be directly linked to climate change, but scientists say that burning coal and other fossil fuels traps heat in the atmosphere, which in turn can trigger record-breaking temperatures, droughts, forest fires and extreme storms like this summer’s deadly onslaught. In May, for example, the contiguous United States experienced the “warmest spring, warmest year-to-date, and warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.
So, Dominion better hire more linemen and a bigger PR team, because more extreme weather and resulting outages are forecast in the years ahead.
Take a bow big oil
Virginia is an important state in this year’s elections. On the presidential side, both President Obama and Governor Romney desperately want to carry the state. Virginia is also home to one of the nation’s most closely watched senate race as two former governors Kaine and Allen vie for the open seat.
Because Virginia is receiving so much political attention, numerous candidates for office are pandering, err, talking to voters on the campaign trail. In Virginia, energy issues are beginning to dominate the political sphere. Within that sphere, big oil is making its mark.