Category: Energy
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Where Do Candidates Stand on a Discredited Environmental Law?
by J. Kennerly Davis With statewide elections coming up this fall, all candidates have an opportunity, indeed an obligation, to state clearly their position on a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation passed during the Northam administration: the net-zero greenhouse gas emission goals contained in the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The VCEA mandates Virginia reductions…
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SCC Faces Dueling Experts, Models on Future Energy Reliability
By Steve Haner The State Corporation Commission’s (SCC) decision on whether Dominion Energy can build a new natural gas-fired power plant will depend on which expert or set of experts it believes, and which of the many computer models that dominate the testimony it judges best predict Virginia’s energy future. Dominion has filed testimony…
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No, Spanberger Did Not “Embrace” Natural Gas, But Earle-Sears Does
By Steve Haner A recent headline indicated that Abigail Spanberger, Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia, had “embraced” natural gas in an interview. A reading of the text left a very different conclusion, as in reality what she embraced was the anti-natural gas Virginia Clean Economy Act. Spanberger did tell Inside Climate News that natural gas…
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Four More Dominion Rate Hikes Hitting By Sept. 1
By Steve Haner The State Corporation Commission Friday approved two separate increases in Dominion Energy Virginia’s rates; one caused by the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) and the other related to regional transmission services. Combined they add more than $5 to a 1,000-kilowatt hour residential bill effective September 1. The VCEA driven increase is an…
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LCV Attack Ads: Three Swings, Three Misses
By Steve Haner The best defense has always been a good offense. With Virginia Democrats under some political pressure over their wind, solar and electric vehicle addictions (not enough pressure, in my opinion), Virginia’s environmental activists are counterattacking at Republicans who won’t drink their green Kool-Aid. The Virginia League of Conservation Voters has announced a…
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$104 Billion for Batteries in 5 years, $40K Per Customer
By David Wojick, The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) mandates that Dominion Energy Virginia, the state’s major electric utility, rapidly shift its power generation to wind and solar. Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) provides dramatic evidence that this shift does not work, making blackouts inevitable. Making it work would be fantastically expensive with the…
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Backup Generation Within PJM Earns Another Stunning Price
by Steve Haner The regional electricity marketplace that serves Virginia, PJM Interconnection, was shocked (pardon the pun) by last year’s high price auction to secure future excess generation capacity, needed for days of tight supply. In response, several changes were made to the process to lower the price faced by the member utilities and their…
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AI, Solar and Trees
by Chap Petersen If you read this newsletter, you are aware of the ongoing struggle between the data center industry and conservation groups in Virginia. Most of those proposed projects are in suburban counties like Prince William or Loudoun or in the exurbs. In rural Virginia, a separate struggle is playing out as utility scale solar seeks to establish a…
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Rocky Forge Wind Opponents Still Working to Stop It
By Steve Haner Virginia’s first (and so far, only) installation of onshore utility-scale wind turbines is in its early construction phase, with opponents hoping the Botetourt County project will draw the attention and opposition of the new Trump Administration. They are also complaining to regulators about soil running off the job site and fouling a…
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Another Week of Misleading Media to Scare Americans on Climate
A Critic Answered, a Narrative Destroyed By Steve Haner The propensity of American news outlets to spread outright falsehoods about extreme weather and the claimed (but easily refuted) link to “climate change” has been on full display this week. Any observant person who spends even a day driving in the Texas Hill Country can see…
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This Week Showed Again Wind and Solar Don’t Beat the Heat
By Steve Haner Once again, a spell of hot weather has proven that our economy and comfort depend on hydrocarbon fuels. As you can see from these simple pie graphs from the PJM regional energy market, two-thirds of the electricity sustaining Virginia on a recent hot afternoon was produced by natural gas, oil and coal. …
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NC Assembly Repeals a Key Carbon Emissions Goal
By Steve Haner The North Carolina legislature has retreated from its aggressive targets to reduced hydrocarbon-fueled electricity in the state, eliminating the goal of being 70% carbon free by 2030. Strong Republican majorities in both chambers supported Senate Bill 266 last week, but so did some Democratic legislators. That smattering of Democratic support could weigh…
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Bob Blue’s Big Opportunity
by Paul Goldman America needs to win the Artificial Intelligence battle. Winning apparently requires building hundreds and hundreds more data centers. At least say the experts right now. Do I have the intelligence artificial or otherwise to know if this is true? No, I don’t. Neither, I suspect, do more than a few hundred Americans.…
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Pennsylvania Joining RGGI is All Cost, No Benefit: PJM
By Steve Haner A Republican leader in the Pennsylvania legislature asked the regional electricity market PJM Interconnect what would happen if that state joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. PJM reported it would raise consumer costs but have next to no impact on carbon dioxide emissions. The report, dated April 25 but just shared with Bacon’s…
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The Energy Policy Minefield Facing a New Virginia Governor
By Steve Haner When the smoke clears on the November elections and Virginia has a new governor and a different House of Delegates, energy policy will still head the list of crucial issues. It is in the state’s best interest to highlight those issues during what’s left of the campaign season and force candidates to state…