Category: Energy
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Is Dominion Facing Fines Over Green Energy Goals?
By Steve Haner The enforcement mechanism for the Virginia Clean Economy Act is a cash fine imposed on the electric utility if it fails to utilize the mandated percentage of wind, solar or battery power. The statute calls it a “deficiency payment” and has set the penalty at $45 per megawatt-hour. The first of such penalty…
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Stupidity on Steroids
EV charging stations as a microcosm of the ineptitude of America’s governing class. by James A. Bacon The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has granted Virginia $10.8 million to build out its EV charging infrastructure. The goal is to deploy 392 charging ports at “urban and rural tourism destinations across Virginia,” with more than half to…
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Big Solar’s Proposed Zoning Override Bill Still Opposed
By Steve Haner The 2025 General Assembly is expected to consider another proposal to create a state-level approval process for certain large renewable energy projects, overriding local zoning authority. Based on recent public debates about the proposal, it is facing severe headwinds. Similar bills were proposed and failed in 2024. The legislative Commission on…
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Maybe Another Subsidy Will Finally Boost EVs?
By Steve Haner Yet another effort will be made in 2025 to get Virginia’s two major electric utilities deeper into the business of building and maintaining charging stations for electric vehicles, with their ratepayers – even those who have no interest in such vehicles – having to pay the tab. Given they are supposed to be…
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Use AI to Smite AI-Induced Energy Demand
by Felix Garcia The Virginia General Assembly convenes tomorrow for its 2025 session among the usual laments that bipartisan solutions to the Commonwealth’s biggest challenges are not possible nowadays. But there should be one big issue upon which members of both parties in both houses can agree: Virginia uses more electricity than it creates. With more…
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Poll Shows Partisan Divide on Natural Gas, Solar Site Approvals
By Steve Haner Virginia registered voters are strongly in favor of allowing utilities to build new natural gas generation plants, a key issue facing Virginia because current state law mandates the complete elimination of that fuel source for electricity generation in 15 years. On another key energy issue likely to face the 2025 General…
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Save Data Centers from the Luddites
by James A. Bacon Luddites, unite! You have nothing to lose but your fossil fuels! Concern among environmentalists is growing in Virginia as it dawns upon them that Artificial Intelligence creates demand for data centers, which in turn boosts demand for electricity… which in turn emits carbon dioxide… which in turn drives global warming. A…
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Details, Please, About the New Nuke
by James A. Bacon Has fusion power finally arrived? Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a Massachusetts-based developer of high-temperature, superconducting magnets used to jam hydrogen molecules together and release massive amounts of energy, has announced that it will invest “several billion dollars” to build the world’s first grid-scale, commercial fusion power plant. “This is an historic…
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Outside Study Confirms Natural Gas Must Remain for Data Centers
By Steve Haner Another analysis of the energy dilemma facing Virginia, this one commissioned by a Democrat-controlled legislative panel, has concluded that the use of natural gas to make electricity is going to have to grow over coming decades, not shrink. Virginia’s anti-hydrocarbon energy laws are doomed to fail because of the data center industry. …
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Capping Marine Mammal Harassment Constrains Offshore Wind
by David Wojick Prior to approving offshore wind development NOAA routinely authorized the loud noise harassment of large numbers of whales under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). New research by Professor Apostolos Gerasoulis shows that this harassment is causing a lot of whale deaths. For example, it is known to cause deafness which can…
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Data Centers: Will Virginia Bend the Knee to the Green Lobby?
by James A. Bacon Electricity demand from data centers in Virginia potentially could double over the next 10 years if unconstrained by infrastructure limitations, according to an independent forecast produced for the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). Billions of dollars of new solar farms, wind farms, gas-fired generators, battery storage facilities, and electric…
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RGGI Carbon Tax Decreases in Latest Regional Auction
The final 2024 auction for Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon allowances, held December 4, broke the recent pattern and produced a noticeably lower clearing price. The price of $20.05 per ton of emitted carbon dioxide is still higher than was ever charged to Virginia electricity producers during Virginia’s three years in the program. The December 2024…
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Voting to Impose Big Solar on Other Legislator’s Voters
by Steve Haner Virginia’s legislators are expected to look at more bills in January to provide ways to override local objections to major renewable energy projects, especially the large solar fields that can cover hundreds of acres. A regional media outlet with a focus on rural Virginia just pointed out an inconvenient truth. The legislators likely…
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The New Normal: Massive Infrastructure Cost Overruns
by James A. Bacon When the Mountain Valley Pipeline was proposed in 2018, the estimated cost was $3.5 billion. When completed in June, the final cost was reported in a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission filing to be $9.6 billion — nearly three times as much. A fraction of that increase can be attributed to inflation…
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RGGI is Back. Prepare to Pay.
By Steve Haner Grapevines sequester carbon dioxide, so Virginia’s climate alarmism activists are pulling corks without guilt today, after learning that a Virginia circuit court judge will order Virginia to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). During the three years Virginia was part of the multi-state cap and tax compact, Virginia collected $827 million…