Tag: Solar energy
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The Energy Free Market that Isn’t
by Jane Twitmyer The South, including Virginia, has been slow to build clean, transformed utility systems. Last year, major corporations including Costco, Cox, Kroger, Sam’s Club, Target and Walmart petitioned Virginia regulators to allow them to meet their renewable energy goals by purchasing their electricity from third parties. Dominion Energy’s response was to commission a…
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Dems Win Big on Renewable Energy, But Issues Remain
by Jane Twitmyer In the 2019 election, Virginia voters finally figured out the one weird trick that allows any jurisdiction to pass good climate and clean-energy legislation, according to Dave Roberts at VOX. “They put Democrats in charge.” Virginia is the first southern state in the U.S. to set a goal of sourcing 100% of…
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Does Solar Power in Virginia Still Need the M&T Tax Break?
by James A. Bacon Solar energy is the cheapest source of electricity now available, solar advocates tell us, and that’s a big reason we should build more of it in Virginia. At the same time, says the solar lobby, the industry needs local-government tax breaks, in particular a state-mandated 80% exemption from local machine-and-tool taxes.…
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The Growing Clout of Virginia’s Solar Lobby
by James A. Bacon It may be a while before the solar industry matches the clout of Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power, but it has come into its own as a lobbying and political player. The new reality hit me forcefully when the Virginia Solar for All Campaign issued a statement applauding the advance of…
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Bacon Bits: Hemp, Housing and Solar
NIMBYs against hemp. Farmers across Southside Virginia have turned to growing hemp (the THC-free version used in industrial applications) as a replacement crop for tobacco. But at least one Dinwiddie County neighborhood has risen in revolt. A hemp farm near the Lake Jordan neighborhood emits an offensive odor. The smell is so bad that it’s…
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How to Eliminate Regulatory Barriers to Battery Storage
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s move to an energy future dominated by solar and wind power will necessarily be accompanied by battery storage. Vast arrays of batteries will be needed to store and release electricity to offset the intermittent generation of solar and wind farms. Battery storage is exceedingly expensive now, but the price is…
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Prison Sunshine
The Virginia Department of Corrections is getting further into solar energy. The department has recently completed the construction of a five-acre solar farm at Haynesville Correctional Center. The correctional facility is a medium- security prison in Richmond County, near the town of Warsaw, in the Northern Neck region of the state. According to a DOC…
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Making Solar Power a Win-Win for Everyone
by Felix Garcia There is a simple and common-sense approach to energy policy in Virginia. Go to the energy source which provides abundant, safe electricity at the least cost — solar. Our company is called AgriSunPower (ASP). Along with our co-developer Hecate Energy, our thought process begins with a simple premise. Solar power is the…
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Bacon Bits: Of DNA and Electrons….
Getting 39,999 right out of 40,000 not too shabby. After 18 years the Virginia Forensic Science Board has wound up its review of 530,000 cases in which DNA evidence was available. The effort identified 13 men who were wrongfully convicted, including the highly publicized cases of Earl Washington Jr., and Thomas Haynesworth, reports the Richmond…
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Is Solar Permitting Stacked against the Little Guy?
by James A. Bacon The Van Kesteren family, owner of Van Kesteren Farms in Accomack County, wants to build solar panels on 180 acres as a way to supplement the income from its farming operations. But the price tag for connecting to the regional grid is posing a major barrier. The estimate for connecting to…
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What? More Solar Means More NOx? No One Saw that Coming!
by James A. Bacon The surge in solar power production in North Carolina has caused an increase in nitrogen oxide (NOx), a serious air pollutant, North Carolina’s Duke Energy has concluded. Without changes to state regulatory policy, according to a report by North State Journal, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions also could increase. These counter-intuitive findings…
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Hurricanes, Solar Panels and Grid Resilience
by James A. Bacon According to what the nation’s ruling elites tell us is the climate-change consensus, a warming climate increases the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. “Because global warming is intensifying, scientists expect the number of extreme storms to continue rising,” writes David Leonhardt, a New York Times opinion columnist. One would think, then,…
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Down to the Nitty Gritty on Solar Farm Development
by James A. Bacon If Virginians want more renewable energy, they need to solve a number of practical problems. One of those is how to decommission old solar panels and wind turbines. When their useful lives have expired, we can’t just let these devices litter the landscape and collect rust. In particular the question of…
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Solar Developer Pulls Culpeper Application
Cricket Solar, developer of a proposed 1,600-acre solar farm in Culpeper County, has yanked its application in the face of extensive local opposition to the project, reports the Culpeper Star-Exponent. “On behalf of Cricket Solar LLC, I am writing to formally withdraw Cricket’s Conditional Use Permit application,” wrote attorney Ann Neil Cosby in a letter…
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Delay-and-Block for Pipelines… and Solar?
Last December the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond found that the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail is part of the National Park System, which blocks federal agencies from authorizing a pipeline crossing. Depending upon U.S. Supreme Court action, the ruling in the Cowpasture River Preservation Association v. U.S. Forest Service case could well doom the…