Report: Coal Has Negative Impact on VA Budget

A recent report, The Impact of Coal on the Virginia State Budget released by Downstream Strategies, takes an in-depth look the costs and benefits of the coal industry in the Commonwealth. While coal plays a fairly small role in the overall Virginia economy, it does contribute revenues and provide jobs in the southwestern part of the state, primarily in Wise and Buchanan counties. Coal production in the state peaked in 1990 when it represented about 4.5% of the total U.S. output. Since then Virginia's contribution has declined to 2.2% of national output mostly because of a reduction in underground mining. Destructive mountaintop removal coal mining, which is cheaper and requires fewer employees, has increased 23% since 1990 but has declined some in recent years.

So, what is the impact of the coal industry on Virginia's budget? Downstream Strategies' report concludes:

Overall, when taking all revenues and expenditures into account, we estimate that the total net impact of the coal industry on the Virginia state budget in Fiscal Year 2009 amounted to a net cost to the Commonwealth of $21.9 million.

Of course, this net cost to the Commonwealth's budget does not factor in the lasting impact and damage to the environment and our health caused by mountaintop removal coal mining and of the degradation of air and water quality caused by burning coal to generate electricity.

During this session of the General Assembly lawmakers should eliminate tax and other budgetary provisions that make a shrinking coal industry a drain on state finances and concurrently legislators must move Virginia ahead in renewable wind and solar energy. My hopes are not high - typically in Richmond more effort is spent looking backwards rather than forwards - a view promoted by lobbyists of King Coal and Dominion Resources.

Good day sunshine!

On September 19 the State Corporation Commission will hold a public hearing on Dominion Resource's Community Solar Power Program. According to Dominion it includes "company-owned solar PV DG systems; both on leased roof space or ground-mounted installations, as well as the purchase of output from customer-owned solar PV DG systems." When fully completed Dominion would generate 30 MW of solar generated electricity - enough to power about 6,000 homes.

Solar generated electricity has made great strides in other states where laws and company policies encourage building for a cleaner and more secure tomorrow. For example, New Jersey, a state with less solar potential than Virginia, already has built 850 MW of solar and has another 600 MW in the works. Dominion's tiny step towards generating clean energy in the commonwealth would, by 2027, produce just 0.006% of the company's expected output.

Nevertheless, the Community Solar Power Program is a move in the right direction for improving the quality of our air and water and the health of our citizens. Construction of these facilities will create Virginia jobs and encourage more clean energy by Dominion and other electric utilities. Tell the SCC and Dominion that you support the Community Solar Power Program and you expect Dominion Resources to do even more to bring clean energy - solar and wind - to Virginia.

In other Dominion Resources news, the company is seeking permission to convert the 227 MW Bremo Power Station in Fluvanna County from coal to natural gas. It would be the ninth Dominion coal-fired plant to be converted to other fuels or closed in recent years. Although not nearly as clean nor renewable as solar and wind, in the short term these conversions signal progress in eliminating dirty coal from polluting our skies and threatening the well-being of our families and the climate.

Cypress Creek coal-plant on hold... hopefully forever

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC) announced in a press release that it has suspended plans for a coal-fired plant known as Cypress Creek near Dendron in Surry County, Virginia. The announcement is a victory for cleaner air and water, especially in the Tidewater region of the commonwealth. ODEC cited more stringent EPA regulations and market conditions as driving the decision, but a broad coalition of groups, including Wise Energy for Virginia, had built a strong case that harm to air quality and water quality from the 1,5000 megawatt plant would outweigh any possible benefits. Less demand for coal also means less destruction from mountaintop removal coal mining.

ODEC supplies power to 11 electric cooperatives including Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative. This bird attended the SVEC annual meeting where ODEC's CEO, Jack Reasor, said the company would not be moving forward on Cypress Creek and looking at alternative sources. Coarse Cracked Corn had previously commented on the $6 billion threat to the environment here and here and is proud to have been a tiny "cluck, cluck" in the coalition of groups, local governments, and citizens in Hampton Roads that helped to put this toxic stew on the back burner.

Those of us who care about the environment need to keep minding the kitchen because the toxic stew isn't totally off the stove - ODEC spokesman, David Huggins, indicated work may resume in a couple years depending on the outcome of an appeal to the Supreme Court over the EPA's carbon emissions standards.

Glen Besa, director of the Virginia Chapter Sierra Club, called on ODEC to invest in "efficiency, wind and solar power now." For its part, ODEC says it is exploring "alternative sources of power supply" but that could mean more natural gas and hydrofracking. As citizens we need to keep the pressure on the General Assembly and utilities to put in place meaningful laws and policies to encourage efficiency and renewable energy. Virginia could look to forward-looking states where a variety of incentives make solar and wind energy affordable now.

Dominion: Time to Move Virginia Forward

Dominion emits more industrial carbon and mercury pollution than any other utility in Virginia. Dominion has developed clean energy in neighboring states, yet in Virginia it relies on dirty fuels that produce mercury, smog, and soot pollution which contribute to developmental disabilities in children as well as asthma, heart attacks, and cancer.

Tell Dominion to lead the way toward a cleaner and better tomorrow with clean, renewable energy by creating 3,000 megawatts - enough to power 700,000 homes - of new Virginia-made wind and solar energy and energy efficiency by 2020.

Sign the Virginia Chapter Sierra Club petition today. And after you sign, pass the link on to friends and family.

Time to go solar?

According to an article entitled "Cost of Solar Energy Plummets" that I first read in the April/May 2012 edition of Mother Earth News, the cost of a residential solar power system has dropped about 40% in the last couple of years. The same article is posted online at a site called Academic Articles.

The writer, Dan Chiras, points out that conventional energy costs about 17 cents per kwh in New Jersey and in many major cities conventional electricity costs 10 to 12 cents per kwh. In the Midwest, the unsubsidized cost of solar has fallen to 13.7 cents per kwh and federal tax credits bring it to less than 10 cents. To sweeten the financial incentives even more, some U.S. utilities currently buy renewable energy credits from customers that help them meet state goals for renewable energy production.

I get my electricity from Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative and, since I'm just beginning to check this out I, don't know if it makes economic sense in my situation. At our pre-Civil War home I mostly heat with propane (and wood) and cook with propane. In addition to lighting, the water heater and dryer (we hang 75% of laundry on the line) are electric and one room has electrically warmed flooring. In short, we are far from a totally electric home. I do know that (including the basic consumer charge; riders, distribution charges, and adjustments; and local/state taxes) I am paying about 11.75 cents per kwh used.

At this point I don't know the viability and costs of installing a photovoltaic (PV) system at my location. I don't know how quickly I could recoup the upfront costs or how it would impact resale value. I don't know how cooperative my co-op will be, although I am reasonably impressed with their conservation programs and overall service. And, I certainly don't know if federal tax credits will make a PV system cost effective.

But, I recently watched construction nearby of a solar system to provide heating at a poultry house and I do know that with costs of PV systems coming down quickly, the current environment may be a good time start humming the 1969 George Harrison song, "Here Comes the Sun."

Dominion Power’s wind and solar facade

By Ivy Main. Originally published in The Washington Post, December 30, 2011. Reprinted with permission of the author.

Perhaps you remember the Dominion Power print ads that ran last year. Big, glossy spreads showing seagrass bending in the breeze, with a picture of a wind turbine and the words, “Natural. Abundant. Renewable. Wind. That’s why we’re harnessing it to help power Virginia’s energy future.”

Only, it turns out, it isn’t. It never was. Forced to reveal the energy sources the company uses to meet Virginia’s voluntary renewable portfolio standards, Dominion admitted that its customers in Virginia are getting precisely zero wind power.

How about solar energy? Nope. Nada. Zilch.

And yet Dominion will be collecting millions of extra dollars from its ratepayers as a reward for meeting the goals of the state’s renewable portfolio standard, or RPS.

Mind you, Dominion isn’t required to include renewable energy among the generation sources it uses. It can choose to forgo the extra “basis points” (cash) awarded for meeting benchmarks. But if it meets the goals, by statute it is allowed to collect millions of ratepayers’ dollars for doing so.

So if Virginia has a goal for renewable energy and Dominion is pocketing money for meeting it, what is it selling us?

In addition to some hydropower projects that long predate the RPS law, Dominion uses some Virginia biomass (i.e., wood); to make up the rest, it buys “renewable energy certificates” from other companies that give it credit for energy produced elsewhere. The list of these certificates, released this fall in litigation before the Virginia State Corporation Commission, shows they relate to hydropower, biomass or landfill gas-to-energy, with the majority of them pre-World War II projects, and none of them placed in service in the past 10 years. Most states won’t accept these renewable energy certificates for their RPS laws, so they are very cheap.

Yes, the Dominion family owns some wind farms, one just across the state line in West Virginia. But we aren’t getting a single electron of that energy, because Dominion sells it to other states that have much tougher standards for what counts as renewable energy. For us in Virginia, Dominion buys cheap certificates that no one else wants.

That’s a great deal for Dominion. According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, $1.7 million could buy enough of these certificates to satisfy Dominion’s 2010 RPS targets, qualifying the company to collect an extra $76 million over two years from its ratepayers.

If Dominion actually builds the solar projects in Virginia that it says it plans to, it has said that it will sell certificates for the energy they produce into another state with a serious RPS, so it can maximize profit. Under the rules of the game, though, the buyer elsewhere will then be recognized as the owner of the renewable energy. Dominion could not also claim to be supplying its Virginia customers with wind or solar.

That explains why Dominion’s interest in Virginia wind and solar seems limited to its desire for great ad copy. But it doesn’t explain the company’s hostility to anyone else investing in Virginia renewables. The State Corporation Commission recently granted Dominion’s request to impose a “standby” charge of up to $60 per month on customers who install solar projects in the 10- to 20-kilowatt range (about twice the size of an average home’s usage). It’s enough to make these projects uneconomic and destroy the market for them. At a time when Dominion claims we need to build more power to meet demand, it is doing its best to keep small businesses from doing precisely that.

Even worse is its treatment of a Staunton-based solar company called Secure Futures, which has stepped up to the plate to put solar installations on university campuses, using a third-party power purchase agreement to ease financing. This summer, Dominion hit Secure Futures with “cease and desist” letters, claiming it can’t legally sell solar power to Washington and Lee University within Dominion’s exclusive service territory under Virginia law. Dominion, you understand, will not sell solar power to Washington and Lee, but it seems determined to make sure no one else does, either.

So watch for Dominion’s next renewable energy ad campaign, which will probably feature sunshine and promises of solar for Virginia. Just don’t make the mistake of believing it.

The writer is vice chair of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Chicken Little

On July 4 Cliff Garstang from Cobalt6 and an occasional poster here, wrote a letter to the editor of The News Leader in which he advocated moving beyond oil to cleaner and renewable alternate sources. Appropriate that it was published on Independence Day because that is what we are really talking about here - independence from the stranglehold of other nations, from a proven source of pollution and greenhouse gases, and from a drain on family budgets and the national economy alike.

A couple of letter writers responded with the off-repeated right wing mantra of drill more and drill now. The most recent writer by the name of Shawn Allen of Harrisonburg kind of sounded like Chicken Little. He called for drilling in ANWAR and off-shore using the opportunity to endorse Janice Lee Allen (is Shawn family?) for Congress writing that she'd bring "vision and creativity." Since when does more of the same constitute "vision and creativity?" Thinking in the past rather than the future is not the way to solve problems. 

The U.S. is kind of like a junkie with an oil needle deep in a vein. More drilling just keeps up the drip, drip, drip of addiction. Like the old Fram commercial, "you can pay me now, or pay me later." If you've been a reader of CCC you've seen several posts about wind power, especially as it relates to potential wind farms in Highland County and Shenandoah County. While wind turbines present some challenges in some locations, it represents a great opportunity for clean and renewable energy. 

You may have seen recent TV ads by well-known oil man and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens promoting ideas to wean us off petroleum. Mr. Pickens says:

"this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil."

Pickins' believes the estimates of off-shore oil are wildly overestimated. That belief is supported by others and illustrated by the slow pace of the oil industry to explore for oil/gas in 8.3 million acres off the Florida coast that was opened up  in 2006. Guess the Allens missed that one. Cluck!

Pickens' plan calls a dramatic increase in wind and solar to generate electricity. That would free up natural gas that is currently used for electric generation to be converted to compressed natural gas (CNG) to power vehicles. He believes we might replace up to 1/3 of our fleet with CNG powered cars. The technology exists with costs comparable to current gasoline vehicles.

The Pickens' plan has attracted the attention of Carl Pope of the Sierra Club. Now Mr. Pickens and Mr. Pope aren't exactly birds of a feather, but the plan's vision and creativity has them on common ground. Pope notes a government mandate to require distribution of CNG would be necessary to assure nationwide availability (the oil industry would likely resist). Manufacturers would have to make the cars (which having fuel stations available will encourage) and consumers will have to buy the CNG cars or purchase low-cost conversion kits. Perhaps it would be sound policy for some government rebates to help ease the conversion. If we can do it for digital TV we can certainly do it for our nation's energy security.

Perhaps the Pickens' plan has some flaws and I'm sure he's looking to make a profit on his huge wind farm in Texas. There is nothing incompatible about going green and earning profits. But, it represents the kind of original thinking and consensus building necessary to move the United States into a new era of energy independence. As Carl Pope said, 

"To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America."

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP NEEDED: more vision and creativity and less "the sky is falling."

Just added this 11 minute YouTube clip: T. Boone Pickens explains the problem and his plan.