Category: Energy
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First Lawsuit Over Whales and Wind Dismissed
By Steve Haner A federal district judge in Massachusetts has rejected an effort to stop an offshore wind project near Nantucket Island on the basis of danger to whales, apparently the first court test of similar claims being raised against wind turbine proposals along the U.S. eastern seaboard, including here in Virginia. On May 17,…
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The Folly of Electrification
by Bill O’Keefe Although Dominion Energy seems to be hedging on its 2040 goal, Virginia is still stuck with the Virginia Clean Economy Act net zero mandate and its participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which seeks to achieve an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2050. However, neither the General Assembly nor Dominion…
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Dominion Seeks Permit to Harass 100s of Whales
By David Wojick The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is taking public comments on a massive proposal to harass large numbers of whales and other marine mammals off Virginia by building a huge offshore wind complex. There is supposed to be an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed harassment, but it is not there…
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Renewables? Fossil Fuels? Americans Want Both.
by Steve Haner Given a choice between an energy future that is dependent on a) generation using sun, wind or falling water; or b) thermal generation sources using fossil fuels or uranium; or c) a combination of both, which do Americans prefer? Should it surprise anybody that the answer is both? Reliance on both, the…
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Christie Using FERC Pulpit for Dire Prophecy
by Steve Haner Virginian Mark Christie is using his position on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as a national pulpit to preach a message of energy reliability doom, and he is being heard. It helps that he is not alone in spreading the alarm. It also helps that he is basing his warning on actual…
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CVOW on Schedule and Budget, Utility Reports
by Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia’s first wave of offshore wind remains on schedule, and within the announced capital cost of $9.8 billion; and the cost per unit of the energy from the turbines will be lower than initially projected, the utility reported last week. Details? Well, many of those are secrets. Much of the…
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Hearing Held, No Vote Taken on Beach Wind Cables
by Steve Haner One four-hour public hearing was not enough. Virginia Beach City Council wants another such debate before it votes on a wind company’s request to bring power cables ashore at Sandbridge Beach. Last week’s hearing on Kitty Hawk North’s application for an easement to bury cables apparently was not covered by any Hampton…
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Combining RACs in Base Rates May Be “Bill Relief”
by Steve Haner Simpler is usually better. Monthly electric bills for many Virginians are about to get less complex, and in the short run also lower. Will that lower cost be long term? It is too soon to tell. On July 1 Dominion Virginia Power will stop collecting separate monthly payments on its bills for…
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Nuclear Power “Essential” – Gates and Granholm
By James C. Sherlock Bill Gates and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm demonstrated and published a joint position on nuclear energy nearly two years ago: “Nuclear power is the only carbon-free energy source we have that can deliver power day and night throughout any season, almost anywhere on earth. And it’s been proven to work…
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Good Questions About Nuclear Power Answered
by James C. Sherlock A reader asked two excellent questions: The issues with nuclear power have been: 1. The waste generated remains radioactive and dangerous for a very long time. 2. In the case of failure, a huge risk is exposed as was the case in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukishima. Do these new,…
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Westinghouse Joins the Small Nuclear Reactor Market
by James C. Sherlock Westinghouse, whose flagship AP1000 nuclear reactor is the American entry into the international market for large nuclear power plants, today announced a new reactor, called the AP300, which it claims will be available in 2027. It will generate about a third of the power of the AP1000 reactor. It is targeted…
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Clean Virginia’s Views on Small Modular (Nuclear) Reactors
By James C. Sherlock I wrote in an earlier article that I had reached out to Clean Virginia on its policy on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and had not received a response. Laura Gonzalez Guerrero, Clean Virginia’s energy policy lead, has been kind enough to contact me with that answer. She was out of the…
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Generation IV and V Technology Offer to Make Opposition to Nuclear Power a Historical Artifact
by James C. Sherlock We write here often about electric power in Virginia, but usually related to public utilities. We focus on Dominion and Appalachian Power. There is another big market: industrial power plants independent of utilities and the grid (and thus not requiring State Corporation Commission approval). Those are not reflected in the plans…
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Enjoy the Blackouts — They’re Coming!
by James A. Bacon The graph above shows the key trend driving the major revisions in Dominion’s 2023 Integrated Resource Plan, which Steve Haner describes in the previous post. The projections of peak summer electricity demand, based on PJM Interconnection forecasts, has been consistently revised upward, taking a dramatic jump higher in the 2023 iteration.…
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Dominion’s New Plan Abandons Carbon Free Goal
by Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia has long been warning, albeit somewhat quietly, that the dream of running Virginia’s economy on nothing but solar, wind and battery power was not based on reality. With the filing of its most recent integrated resource plan (IRP) on May 1, proposing how to meet customer needs out 25…