Author: Steve Haner
-
New PJM Capacity Costs Likely to Impact Dominion, Coop Ratepayers
By Steve Haner Just how much the huge increase in energy capacity prices within the PJM Dominion Zone next year will cost Virginians depends on a several variables. Do not accept claims of negligible impact on face value. In its most recent integrated resource plan filed with the State Corporation Commission, Dominion Energy Virginia projected…
-
PJM Capacity Auction Prices Explode Due to Supply Crunch
By Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia is facing about a ten-fold increase in the price it will pay when it must call on generation resources outside its own assets to meet daily demand. The most recent auction for guaranteed capacity within the 13-state PJM Interconnection network set incredibly new high prices, but nowhere as high as…
-
No Dinosaurs Were Harmed in Fueling Your Car. It’s “Carbon Fuel.”
By Steve Haner It is time to retire the term “fossil fuel.” Oil, coal and natural gas (oil is apparently the second most abundant liquid on Earth, after Miller Lite) have nothing to do with the bones of a tyrannosaurus rex or a stone impression of a trilobite. The generic term to describe the class should…
-
Dominion Energy Prices Spike 11% By Sept 1, Mostly Due to VCEA
By Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia electricity bills rose August 1 and will rise again September 1, with many of the increases due to various aspects of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, especially ongoing construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. The net change is just over $14 more on that prototypical residential bill…
-
Recount Proves Again Virginia Election Process is Sound
By Steve Haner Four votes. After weeks of dire warnings, paranoia and conspiracy chatter, a formal recount of the Bob Good-John McGuire congressional primary yesterday moved a total of four votes out of almost 63,000. McGuire was confirmed as the nominee for November by a narrow but solid margin of more than three hundred votes. Soon to…
-
Virginia Risks Running Out of Other People’s Power
By Steve Haner An electricity drought is looming, not only for Virginia but also for much of the United States, if the political hostility toward the most reliable forms of electricity generation is not reversed. Warnings that wind and solar power alone will not be sufficient resonated like a drumbeat from the podium of a…
-
Turbine Blade Failure Closes Vineyard Wind, Nantucket Beaches
Posted on Boston’s CBS affiliate WBZ this morning: NANTUCKET – The federal government has ordered the Vineyard Wind farm to shut down until further notice because of a turbine blade failure this weekend. Several beaches were closed on Tuesday while crews worked to clean up “large floating debris and fiberglass shards” from the broken wind turbine blade off the coast…
-
To End Carbon Energy We Need More Carbon Energy!
By Steve Haner Three recent announcements from Dominion Energy Virginia in rapid succession point a path forward for the utility that complies in part and utterly rejects in part the carbon-free energy pipe dream of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). All three of the announcements will result in major cost increases to the company’s…
-
The “Black Jobs” Narrative is False, Harmful
By Derrick Max While most of the post-debate news coverage is still rightly focused on the mental acuity (or lack thereof) of President Biden, the use of the term “Black jobs” by former President Trump in the context of low-income, unskilled jobs that will be impacted by our open southern border, bothers me almost as…
-
Hurricanes and Climate Hysteria
By Derrick Max The first hurricane of 2024, Hurricane Beryl, is now in the books. Beryl reminded us that hurricanes are a powerful force of nature – a force that clearly causes much fear and anxiety. The stronger and more destructive the hurricane, the deeper it becomes ingrained in our collective consciousness. Katrina, Andrew, Sandy, Harvey –…
-
Will Dominion Now Have Three Offshore Windfarms?
By Steve Haner The Kitty Hawk North windfarm off the coast of North Carolina, stalled because of its need to bring transmission cables ashore under Virginia’s Sandbridge Beach neighborhood, now has a new owner, a new name and a new lease on life. It is hard to imagine Dominion Energy Virginia would buy it without some…
-
Charlottesville Gas Study Not Pointing To Elimination. Yet.
By Steve Haner Charlottesville is one of three Virginia municipal governments that still owns and operates a natural gas distribution utility. With the current political hostility to all forms of hydrocarbon energy, the future of that utility is under debate and its customers will soon have a chance to speak up. The listening sessions follow other…
-
VCEA Fans and Foes Both See Failure Looming
By Steve Haner There is a growing recognition that the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) as written is going to fail. Both those who strongly believe in its goal of ending the use of hydrocarbon fuels, and those who consider that idea nothing but fool’s gold, see major problems on the horizon. There is also…
-
Clean Economy Act: A Refresher on What it Does
By Steve Haner A senior Democratic state senator is leading an effort to review and possibly revise the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), which orders the future elimination of hydrocarbon fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) used in making electricity. His goal is to conduct a stakeholder process and bring legislation to the 2025…
-
Ignore the Hype. Last Year Hardly “Hottest” Here.
By Steve Haner This plows old ground for many Bacon’s Rebellion readers (here and here), but it was a new topic for the Thomas Jefferson Institute distribution list. Some of you may be interested, and some of the NOAA screenshots are new ones. One standard response when the Thomas Jefferson Institute challenges the wisdom of…