Fairfax to Comment on Wise County Monday…

Monday morning, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will discuss a board matter to submit testimony for the Department of Environmental Quality in regards to the impacts that a new coal fired power plant in Wise County would have on Fairfax. If built, a new coal fired power plant in Wise County, Virginia could negatively impact Fairfax’s air quality, the health of Northern Virginians and serve as a counter productive step in Fairfax’s campaign to help minimize global warming pollution.

Since the power generated by a new coal plant would principally the high growth areas of Virginia, like Fairfax, and because Dominion’s rate payers in Northern Virginia are likely to foot a majority of the bill of new energy infrastructure, many Fairfax residents are demanding that their county representatives help them voice concerns over new coal development.

In regards to a new coal fired power plant, Eleanor Whitaker of Fairfax say, “I freely admit that I enjoy the amenities that electricity provides, and if we had no other choices for the production of energy, we would have a difficult decision on our hands. But that is not where we are. Virginia is currently ranked at, or near the bottom, of all the states in the union in terms of energy efficiency.”

Even the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board Gerry Connolly has voiced his opposition to Dominion’s coal fired power plant.

Coal Ruins Kaine? Say it ain't so…

Governor KaineWith less than two years left in Governor Kaine’s tenure as the leader of the great Commonwealth of Virginia, questions are starting to get raised as to whether his partnership with big industrial interests will threaten his ability to get another job.

An article on Grist seems to paint a picture of a Governor whose stock is rapidly falling due to his steadfast support of Virginia’s major polluters. The author cites figures from the Virginia Public Access Project (vpap.org) that states that Tim Kaine has received over $135,000 from Dominion… no wonder he hasn’t spoken out against Dominions Wise County coal fired power plant…

So who is the Governor going to be loyal to? Dominion Power and their money, or the hundreds of thousands of Virginians that were the ones that voted him into office by the narrowest of margins? Right now, it looks like he is standing by Dominion.

But is that the right choice? Maybe if he could run for re-election for the position of governor of Virginia — but he can’t, there is a one term limit. So why is he choosing to burn his bridges in Virginia with the people that got him elected? I don’t know if the governor has been reading polling data or listening to the pundits, but Virginia is rapidly turning into a blueish swing state. If Tim Kaine has any intention of ever holding a national office or moving up the political ladder, it will be hard to defend his decision to stick by Dominion Power and the Wise County Coal plant that he personally endorsed.

The future is in clean energy, not in coal. Obama knows it. Clinton knows it. Even McCain sort of knows it.

Governor Kaine can’t buy another term as Virginia’s governor with Dominion’s money, but he can buy himself some national attention and save his reputation by stopping the Wise County coal plant.

America wants a leader Mr. Kaine, not another industry stooge.

This power plant will be your legacy whether you like it or not. It is up to you how the legacy will read.

Click here to tell the Governor to stop the Wise County plant today!

Wise Co. Coal DEQ Hearing…

Live from Dominion Boulevard at the beautiful Marriott in Glenn Allen, Virginia, here is your live blog on the last Department of Environmental Quality hearing for Dominion’s proposed Wise County coal fired power plant…

(6:15pm)First and foremost, seriously, this hearing is on Dominion Blvd. I think that is because we are in close proximity to a Dominion office, or it is because Dominion owns this road… one or the other… Either way, the irony that an environmental hearing is taking place on Dominion Blvd is not lost on this attendee.

There are about 300 people here, many of whom oppose the plant. For the first time in the series of hearings on the Wise Co. plant, opponents were one of the first ones to sign up to testify. At other hearings, Dominion’s supporters (which include employees…) testified for up to two hours before any opponents got a chance to speak. This is due in large part to the fact that the actual sign up time posted by the DEQ is often very different than the posted sign up time. Today, sign up was scheduled to begin at 4:45pm. The first sign up sheet was posted at 3:00pm. But thankfully, we learned our lesson and got we were staked out at the hearing location starting at 9:30am this morning in preparation for this predictable twist.

Josh Tulkin was the first opponent to testify today. His testimony was highlighted when he asked all the opponents of the plant at the hearing to stand up. Half the room stood up, and DEQ Chairman immediately said, “Mr. Tulkin, you are out of order!” To which Mr. Tulkin coyly replied, “I respectfully withdraw my request.”

Other testimony include a statement from Gerald E. Connolly, the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board, in which he respectfully asked Dominion to explore alternatives to the coal plant that would harm the air quality in Fairfax and totally offset all the progress that counties like Fairfax have made through local initiatives to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Oh, and a side note, I would like to thank Dominion for feeding me.

(7:36pm) About half the people here have left. The break was festive and the students seemed have an an expectational time. I get the feeling that the plant opponents of the plant now far outnumber the proponents… now the party can really begin.

The best quote of the night so far came from one JMU student (I already forgot his name) who stepped up to the microphone and said, “My name is Joe Smith, and I am not a former employee of Dominion…” We all laughed…

(7:48pm) A man just walked up to me as I was sitting and told me how there is, “no Mountain Top removal in the state of Virginia.” Seriously. He said that, and I don’t think he was joking. I respectfully informed him that he was mistaken and that I could show him pictures taken from a tour of the Mountains of Wise County that I took last week. The Bristol-Herald Courier also took the same tour… I guess what we saw doesn’t exist…

FYI, 25% of Wise County’s total land area has already been leveled due to mountain top removal.

(7:55pm) Richmond City Councilman Marty Jewell just testified. He is very concerned about global warming and how the proposed power plant would effect Richmond’s air quality.

“I like cream in my coffee, not sludge!” — Councilman Jewell, in reference to mountain top removal mining.

New Coal Plants and Kaine's Climate Goal Just Don't Mix

Please check out my post at progressive blog Raising Kaine. The more you click, the more people see it. http://raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=13028—-I’m blogging from the final hearing of the Department of Environmental Quality on the proposed Wise County Power Plant. After 2 hours of testimony, almost 40 people have testified, most against the plant – except those employed by Dominion or with a vested interest. Speakers addressed a variety of concerns – mercury, sulfur, nitrogen, mountaintop removal coal-mining. I spoke only to one major issue, addressed to Governor Kaine

Break Virginia's Addiction to Coal? Yes We Can!

An excellent and inspiring post on Raising Kaine from The Green Miles, one of our great allies in the fight to cool the commonwealth. Let’s get rolling!
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Believe it or not, The Green Miles and the president of coal company Alpha Natural Resources agree on something. Virginia could slash its energy and coal usage without much effort. We just choose not to:

Steady growth demand for electricity to feed homes and businesses has the [coal] industry’s future looking bright, [Michael] Quillen said. Conservation could curb that growth, but Americans, he noted, don’t do that well with conservation.

Virginia is last in the nation in spending on energy efficiency and conservation. As a result, the typical Virginia household uses 150-200% of the energy it actually needs. That’s not due to glitzy home theater systems or something — it’s poor insulation, drafty windows, and inefficient appliances. Energy that slips out your attic or under a drafty door that you’ll never even notice you used — until your power bill arrives.So when Gov. Tim Kaine said on last week’s RK conference call that we were building a huge new coal-fired power plant because the General Assembly had determined that the plant was “in the public interest,” I wasn’t exactly shocked. To steal a phrase from Quillen, the General Assembly doesn’t do all that well with managing our energy interests.

While Virginia will likely never get off coal entirely in our lifetimes, we do have the power to dramatically ease our dependence. We’ll need three people to do it: Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, and you.
Energy/Environment :: TheGreenMiles :: Break Virginia’s Addiction to Coal? Yes We Can.
Let’s break it down:Tim Kaine – The governor has already raised a red flag on the Wise County plant, asking the Department of Environmental Quality to hold more hearings on the proposal. But if Gov. Kaine is serious about the success of his Virginia Energy Plan and Commission on Climate Change, he needs to reconsider his public neutrality on this plant. How can we cut Virginia’s greenhouse gas emissions if this plant is adding 5.3 million tons in new carbon dioxide emissions each year, the equivalent of adding more than 300,000 cars to Virginia roadways?Mark Warner – Here’s what our next junior US Senator had to say at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner:

In January of 2009, we have to change our energy policy. Our energy policy right now consists of borrowing money from China to buy oil from countries around the world that don’t like us.

And with some of the dollars we send to the Middle East, it’s fair to say we may be the first country in history that’s funding both sides of a war.

We must invest in renewable energy, and we must eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.

By making these investments, we can create millions of new jobs here in America. We can make our nation more secure.

And if we take on the threat of climate change, we can reassert America’s moral standing in the world. If we do it right, we might even save the planet along the way.

There is no doubt our new Sen. Warner will be a leader on energy and environmental issues on Capitol Hill. But can renewable energy advocacy be compatible with neutrality on the Wise County plant? According to the American Wind Energy Association, Virginia has the potential to produce an average of 1,380 megawatts of wind energy each year. Will Virginia be able to share in the spoils of a clean energy future if we’ve already invested $1.6 billion in coal?You – Gov. Kaine told us, “When legislature passed legislation calling for this plant, no one asked me to change it that I can recall.” Virginia environmentalists have been slow to react to the threat of global warming and slow to push our elected officials to change. That means now we have to fight twice as hard to stop this plant before it locks us into 50 years of mountaintop removal, polluted air, and lost opportunity for clean energy jobs.

If you can, attend tonight’s DEQ hearing in Richmond to tell regulators there’s no such thing as “clean coal.” This plant will spew carbon dioxide, mercury, sulfur and nitrogen into Virginia’s air for generations to come.

Even if you can’t make it in person, email the DEQ right now!

New Coal in Wise Will Affect Richmond

Richmond City Councilmen Hilbert and Jewell have introduced the Wise County Resolution, 2008-R13. This resolution is a strong statement of opposition to the proposed coal-fired power plant in Wise County, Virginia. So why is the City of Richmond weighing in on an issue for Wise County? On the surface it may seem that they’re just butting in but this plant is very much the business of Richmond and its citizens.

This plant is a bad investment and every Richmonder with an electric bill will have to pay for it. Dominion will pass all the costs of the plant onto the ratepayers of Virginia. Those costs include $1.8 billion to build the plant, 14% profit for Dominion, and also the cost of controlling carbon emissions which may reach $100 million each year. That means quite a lot of money out of our pockets. I don’t want any of my money funding new coal but Dominion isn’t giving me the ability to choose clean energy. If ratepayers must pay for new energy generation why can we not have a say in how it is generated? Across the country more and more people are realizing that coal simply costs too much. According to the US Department of Energy, $1.8 billion is too much to pay for a coal-fired power plant. The DOE recently pulled support for a proposed plant in Illinois based on cost. Just a few days ago three of the largest financial supporters of new coal reassessed the risks and found them to be too high. Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley have realized that carbon control legislation is inevitable, which will make coal far more costly. As a result they will encourage utilities to invest in energy-efficiency and renewable energy as alternatives to new coal. Asking Dominion to invest in efficiency, conservation, and renewables is exactly what this resolution does.

Where our energy comes from and the effects of its production is most certainly our business. The City of Richmond is powered by coal. That coal is supplied by the coalfields of southwest Virginia. The coal that powers my home comes from a strip mine site in Tazewell Virginia. When I turn on the lights in my house I am inadvertently contributing to mountaintop removal mining. The proposed power plant in Wise County will not be used to supply power to southwest Virginia. That power will enter the grid and be used to power the growing urban areas of NOVA, Richmond, and Tidewater. It is being built specifically to supply power to places like Richmond. At the recent State Corporation Commission hearing on the Wise County plant held in Richmond life-long Wise County resident Frank Taylor spoke of the sacrifices by the people of the coalfields for our energy needs. “Haven’t we sacrificed enough to provide power to our country? The thousands of men who have lost their lives in the mines, the tens of thousands who have black lung and the great amount of the land itself stripped away. Isn’t that enough? And now they want us to give up the clean air that we and our children breathe? Shame.” We certainly have the right to make a statement regarding where our power comes from and the damage it does.

This resolution has already been passed in Arlington, Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Blacksburg. It is now being discussed in Fairfax County. The people of Richmond also have a right to ask Dominion to invest in energy efficiency and conservation that will save us all money and keep us from unwillingly encouraging the destruction of Wise County. No new coal in my name. No new coal funded by my wallet.

Rep Moran and Hundreds Say No To Coal!

Hundreds of Northern Virginians gathered at a town hall meeting last night to discuss the antiquated use of coal in Virginia and the opportunities provided by a clean energy future. The public forum, which drew an estimated 200 people, focused on the connection between two coal-fired power plants in Virginia — the Mirant Plant in Alexandria and the proposed Dominion power plant in Wise County — and mountaintop removal coal mining.

Rep Moran“Burning fossil fuels is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and burning coal is about the worst thing we can do,” said Congressman Jim Moran. “With 50 percent of our electricity generated by coal-fired power plants, it will take a realistic but focused and determined effort to reduce greenhouse emissions from coal-fired plants and increase the use of cleaner, alternative sources of energy.”

At a time when states from Kansas to Texas are rejecting permits to build new coal plants, speakers tonight argued that building a new coal-fired power plant, as Dominion Virginia Power is proposing to do in SW Virginia, would put Virginia behind the curve when it comes to investing in renewable energy.

“We are all Virginians, even those in southwest Virginia, said Kathy Selvage, a Wise County resident who spoke at the forum. “The proposed Wise County plant will spew 25 million pounds of pollutants into our air each year. While Gov. Kaine and Dominion tell us that this plant will be good for the economy, they have not taken into account the increased need for health care, or those components that are truly priceless like the preservation of the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the fish we eat.”
Continue reading

Alexandria Town Forum with Rep. Moran (2/5) — Coal and Clean Energy — Please Attend

Join Congressman Jim Moran and Alexandria Vice Mayor Del Pepper on Tuesday, February 5th for a town hall meeting to discuss the antiquated use of coal in Virginia and our clean energy future. The event will focus on the connection between two coal-fired power plants in Virginia — the Mirant Plant in Alexandria and the proposed Dominion power plant in Wise County — and our connection to mountaintop removal coal mining.

There is a better way to provide Virginians with energy that doesn’t pollute our air and water, that doesn’t destroy our mountains, and that doesn’t contribute to global warming. Come to the town hall meeting to hear about the consequences of Virginia’s reliance on coal, our clean energy future, and how you can be part of the solution.

Hear experts, politicians and activists talk about Virginia coal and clean energy. The talk is to be directly followed by a question and answer session to let you speak your mind about coal, global warming, and renewable energy.

DATE: Tues., Feb. 5th, 7pm-9pm (tabling & schmoozing from 6:30pm-7pm)

LOCATION: Lyles Crouch Elementary School, 530 South Saint Asaph Street, Alexandria, VA MAP
At the Corner of South Saint Asaph and Gibbon St. — one block east (towards the water) of Washington St.

COST: Free! Continue reading

Wise County Air Pollution Control Board Hearing, Alexandria, VA

Where are you NoVa? I am currently sitting here at the at the lovely Holiday Inn on Eisenhower Ave, at a public Air Pollution Control Board hearing — one of the first of these types of hearings — and it is me, Kayti from the Sierra Club, Ernie from NOTICe, a few other activists and a room full of Dominion suits. The front row is literally comprised solely of Dominion “experts” who are working the podium, seemingly in a rotation, in an effort to deflect criticism and offer non-answers to serious questions. We have to be outnumbered… or at least that is the feeling that I am getting…

Dominion is talking the talk about how the proposed Wise County CFB coal fired power plant is going to be the best thing since sliced bread — how they their plant can use waste coal and biomass like wood-chips, how their plant will have lower SOx and NOx emissions than an IGCC coal plant. Yes, there are lots of wonky terms at a hearing like this (PSM, public health, environment, endanger), that not everyone will understand, but the feeling of deceit is palpable and accessible to everyone in attendance.

For example:

The presentation from Dominion to the Board included a large section about CCS, carbon capture and sequestration, and how compatible the Wise County plant may be, if the technology one day becomes available at a cost-effective price, with CCS and how that should mean that Virginians should not worry about this plant’s estimated 5.4 million tons of annual CO2 emissions. When asked when we could expect the plant to start to turn CCS compatibility into CCS reality, the Dominion speaker said, “decades.” Continue reading

Clean Coal is Still Coal – Herald Tribune

Now they’re talking about the problems with clean coal in Florida.   Who knew we were so influential?  But seriously folks, we’re on a roll with this campaign, let’s keep it up.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080102/OPINION/801020440/1030

HERALD TRIBUNE

‘Clean coal’ is still coal

Conversion process could create new environmental problems

Several Democratic and Republican presidential front-runners are touting”clean coal” technology as part of the solution to the nation’senergy woes. Congress and President Bush have devoted funding to research anddevelop the effort. And coal companies, of course, are all for the concept.But some electric utilities appear to be losing enthusiasm for the idea becauseof uncertainty about costs, regulatory requirements and the reliability of akey part of the technology.In the past year, at least eight proposed clean-coal plants have been canceled,rejected or postponed, according to USA Today. That’s one-third of suchprojects in the works.Advocates of clean-coal plants see tremendous potential in the process, whichconverts coal into a gas and cuts down on harmful emissions of mercury as wellas pollutants linked to acid rain and smog.One of clean coal’s biggest selling points has been its ability to reduceemissions of carbon dioxide, widely viewed as the chief contributor to globalwarming.But the technology’s promise may not be as clear as proponents contend.Environmental regulators and even electric utilities are expressing concernabout a key element of the process, which involves capturing the carbon,liquefying it and pumping it into the ground.Critics fear that a massive expansion of underground carbon storage, in use inonly a few parts of the world, could create new environmental problems.In October, Tampa Electric Co. dropped its plans for a $2 billioncoal-gasification plant in southwestern Polk County, about 40 miles northeastof Bradenton.Company officials cited several reasons for their decision, including anexecutive order signed by Gov. Charlie Crist last summer that calls forutilities to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2025.Even with the clean-coal technology, the plant still would have emitted about 4million tons of carbon dioxide each year.Another factor in TECO’s decision was uncertainty about the risks associatedwith underground storage, according to company President Chuck Black.If the carbon “leaks out of the ground some place like HardeeCounty,” he told the St. Petersburg Times, “what have weaccomplished?”A similar question might be asked about the entire movement to expand the useof coal-fired plants, which already generate 40 percent of U.S. carbonemissions.Even if those emissions are reduced and the storage concerns are minimized, the”clean” effort does nothing to address the environmental damagecaused by a now-prevalent type of mining known as mountaintop removal.America’s policy-makers and utilities would be far wiser to invest their energy– and our tax dollars — in the development of renewable energy resources.Investing more in coal, a relic of the past, will accomplish little. _______________________________________________

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