Category Archives: Environment

The Wildest Energy Whirlwind Ever is Underway

Posted on January 6, 2020 by | 17 comments

by Steve Haner

If Bacon’s Rebellion at times has been “Dominion Pravda,” providing a window into that corporate giant’s C suite, our friends at the Virginia Mercury sometimes take the opposite role of “Environmental People’s Daily.”

Its story today is a good example, for what it includes and what it does not. The long, detailed and worthwhile summary of energy and environment issues coming to the 2020 General Assembly has a glaring omission. It makes no reference to the Transportation and Climate Initiative. If anybody could get a straight answer out of the Northam Administration, you’d think it would be Virginia Mercury. The silence is deafening and perhaps significant.

At some point soon somebody has to say something, wouldn’t you think? In others states in the proposed interstate compact, governors are being pinned down, actual TCI bills are pending, legislators are taking positions, coalitions are forming. This will have to happen in Virginia soon if the organizers of TCI want their proposed memorandum of understanding signed by enough states to actually impose the carbon caps and taxes by 2022.  Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Taxes

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After Santa Comes Carbon Tax Sugar Daddy

Posted on December 29, 2019 by | 20 comments

by Steve Haner

The Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources will be the sugar daddy for the carbon tax dollars raised from electricity customers, according to pending legislation to fully enroll Virginia in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) next year.

House Bill 20, sponsored by Norfolk Democrat Joe Lindsey, is similar (with some changes) to 2019 legislation which died on a partisan vote when Republicans controlled the General Assembly. Now that power has shifted the bill’s chances of passage are excellent. It has several unusual provisions and may hint at how the related Transportation and Climate Initiative will be implemented in Virginia. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Environment, General Assembly, Taxes

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The Good News Few Will Report or Admit

Posted on December 26, 2019 by | 18 comments

Click for larger view.

I ran across the illustration above on my favorite contrarian website, Wattsupwiththat.com, and decided to share. The media feed us a constant diet of gloom and doom and disaster, and only those with a sense of history understand this is a bit of a Golden Age (75 years ago the American and British armies were locked in the greatest land battle on World War II’s western front during a terrible winter).

Many of you will reject it merely because it comes from the Global Warming Policy Forum, which contains no Chicken Littles and sees no falling sky. But check the footnotes for the sources of the measured progress. The ten-year periods covered do not exactly match up, and course the decade really ends with 2020, not 2019. Perhaps the most important is the major drop in the percentage living in desperate poverty (thank energy supplies) and the incredible reduction (over a longer period of time) of deaths from natural disasters.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Environment

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Watch Out, Here Comes the Transportation and Climate Initiative

Posted on December 12, 2019 by | 17 comments

Virginia voter priorities. Source: Click to enlarge.

by James A. Bacon

A new poll from a “nonpartisan nonprofit think tank,” MassInc., has found that 60% of Virginians surveyed support the Transportation and Climate Initiative Framework while only 29% oppose it and 11% are unsure of their feelings, reports The Virginia Mercury.

We know right off the bat that the findings are nonsense. The fact is, most Virginians have never heard of the Transportation and Climate Initiative. Those who answered MassInc.’s questions were responding to a description of TCI provided by MassInc.’s pollsters:

Under the plan, companies that sell and distribute gasoline and diesel fuel to gas stations in the region would have to pay for the pollution created by the fuels sold and used there. Each state in the program would get a share of the money collected from those companies, based on how much fuel is used in their state. States could use this money to make transportation in their state better, cleaner, and more resilient to the effects of climate change. They could also use it to help residents with any higher costs the companies try to pass on to them.

That poll is about as loaded as you can get. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment

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Billions for Coal Ash Cleanup — for What Benefit?

Posted on December 3, 2019 by | 24 comments

Coal ash at Dominion’s Chesterfield power station. Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

by James A. Bacon

The cost of cleaning up coal ash at Dominion Energy’s old coal-fired power plants will run between $2.4 billion and $5.7 billion, the company said at a presentation to the State Water Control Board yesterday. Disposal costs could  add $5 to the monthly bill of typical households over the next 15 to 20 years, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Dominion’s original plan called for consolidating and capping coal ash on site at its coal-generating plants. Environmental groups criticized the plan on the grounds that underground water migrating through the coal ash would pick up contaminants and pollute public waters. Under orders from the General Assembly, the power company now is looking at a combination of strategies that include recycling, on-site landfilling and off-site landfilling.

We are getting a clearer idea of how much the General Assembly’s coal ash mandate will cost, but I have yet to see an analysis of how much benefit will come from exceeding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disposal standards. Continue reading →

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Posted in Environment

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Bacon Bits: Hemp, Housing and Solar

Posted on November 27, 2019 by | 6 comments

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 getting into peoples’ houses and permeating their clothing, reports the Progress-Index. “We’re worried that they’re going to continue planting around, which would basically mean [that] people will have to leave or just tolerate unbelievable skunk-like odors,” said Jarrod Reisweber, a director of the homeowners association. Daniel Lee, vice chairman of the Board of Supervisors held out the hope that, if solutions could be found to control the odor of hog farms, a remedy could be found for hemp as well.

Amazon offers $20 million toward affordable housing. Amazon is offering $20 million to the Arlington County Affordable Housing Investment Fund in exchange for permission to build a bigger headquarters complex than county zoning allows. The sum would amount to the greatest single infusion of money into the fund, reports the Washington Post. Amazon wants to increase the size of its proposed 22-story office towers from 1.56 million square feet to about 2.15 million square feet, reduce the number of parking spaces, and increase penthouse height. If we assume an average of $50 per square foot for office space in Arlington, Amazon’s concessions are worth about $30 million. That’s gross value. Once construction costs are excluded, Amazon would net significantly less. By that comparison, the $20 million offer seems pretty generous.

Virginia Schools turn to solar. An increasing number of public and private schools in Virginia are utilizing solar power. The number of schools with solar has nearly tripled since 2014 — from 20 to 86, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. A niche industry has evolved in which entrepreneurs package solar Public Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in which schools put no cash down and start generating positive cash flow from the first year. Pete Gretz with the Middlesex County school system says that ground-mounted solar saved just under $50,000 at its elementary school site. “There’s no drawback to this,” he said. “It’s completely a win-win.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Agriculture & forestry, Environment, Housing

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Northam Comes to the Aid of Menhaden (But is Chap Petersen Paying Attention?)

Commentary - Posted on November 25, 2019 by | 15 comments

By Don Rippert

Fish tale. Omega Protein, a Canadian owned company, has willfully exceeded its menhaden catch limit in the Chesapeake Bay. You can read the details here. The catch limit is controversial since menhaden is the only marine fish regulated directly by the Virginia General Assembly. All other saltwater fish in Virginia are regulated by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. Every other Atlantic state lets their state fishery regulator and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) set rules for menhaden in their waters. The US Congress chartered ASMFC in 1942. So, ASMFC sets catch limits for Virginia waters – one for the Atlantic and another for the Chesapeake Bay. In Virginia those limits are then incorporated into proposed legislation for the General Assembly. The most recent AMFC-set limits were put into a bill that was never voted on by the General Assembly. This left Omega Protein with two catch limits – the limit last passed by the General Assembly (based on ASMFC guidance) and the most current lower ASMFC limit. Once Omega Protein admitted it had exceeded the most current ASMFC limit Virginia was reported to the US Department of Commerce as being “out of compliance.” Last week Gov Ralph Northam sent a letter to the Secretary of Commerce requesting the feds to put a moratorium on menhaden fishing in the Virginia waters of the Chesapeake Bay. It seems that Northam is sending the General Assembly a message — clean up your act or I’ll ask the Feds to clean it up for you. But will the new Democratic majority in the General Assembly listen to Northam or Omega Protein?

Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Agriculture & forestry, Commentary, Courts and law, Environment, General Assembly, Money in politics

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Replacing One Existential Threat with Another

Posted on November 23, 2019 by | 45 comments

by James A. Bacon

I’m a big fan of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, whose thinking on such subjects as “black swan” events, “Intellectuals Yet Idiots (IYIs),” “antifragility,” and “skin in the game” I have incorporated into my commentary on this blog. So, when Taleb invokes the precautionary principle in the context of climate change, I take his argument very seriously.

In a nutshell, Taleb contends the accuracy of climate models predicting catastrophic increases in global temperatures don’t matter. We have only one planet, and if there is even a remote chance that rising CO2 emissions will wreck it, humanity cannot afford to take that chance. The environment is a complex system, he writes. “Push a complex system too far and it will not come back.” The uncertainty surrounding climate change projections, far from being a reason to dismiss predictions of catastrophe, puts the burden of proof upon those who claim absence of harm. Read a succinct statement of his thinking here.

I’ve been pondering this argument for quite a while, and I agree with it… to a point. But I think it is incomplete. In the statement I linked to above, Taleb (and his co-writers) do not explore the implications of their logic. The obvious follow-up question is, OK, if climate change is an existential threat, what do we do about it?

What if the proffered solution to climate change creates its own existential threat? Continue reading →

45 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment

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Northam Appointee Opposes DEV’s Green Tariff

Posted on November 18, 2019 by | 14 comments

Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center in St. Paul, which burns both coal and wood biomass. It is the centerpiece of Dominion’s proposed 100% renewable service, infuriating environmental opponents. Dominion photo.

By Steve Haner

Is Governor Ralph Northam now on both sides of the electricity retail choice issue? Having sent a strong signal weeks ago that he would oppose 2020 legislation creating competition for all customers, his administration has now intervened in a regulatory dispute asking to protect competitive choice for 100% renewable electricity. You are only free to choose if you choose green?

In order to stop other companies from selling so-called 100% renewable electricity in the Dominion Energy Virginia territory, the utility needs its own version of this shell game approved by the State Corporation Commission. The next hurdle in that long road is a hearing at the SCC Thursday.

When we visited this saga in August, Dominion’s application for what it calls Rider TRG had been filed but few of the likely opponents had responded. A long list of complaints about the idea is now part of the case record, including objections from the Northam Administration filed Friday in the name of the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy.

Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation

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Chesapeake Bay Foundation Embraces Social Justice Advocacy

Posted on November 18, 2019 by | 16 comments


I have long respected the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for its role as an advocate for the Chesapeake Bay. It has always stuck close to its nonpartisan, non-ideological mission, and it has enjoyed a high degree of credibility across the political spectrum. Until now.

Last week, the CFB issued a statement supporting the Environmental Justice for All Act, sponsored by Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Virginia, and Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, which would “protect minority and low-income communities that disproportionately suffer health risks from pollution.”

Said Chesapeake Bay Foundation Federal Executive Director Jason Rano:

Everyone has a right to clean water and air, no matter who you are or where you live. Congressmen McEachin and Grijalva are taking important steps towards meaningful action on environmental justice. This will protect our most vulnerable communities from pollution and ensure healthier local rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

The CFB has taken a huge step from science-driven environmental advocacy to ideologically-driven social-justice advocacy. Huge mistake. Disastrous mistake.  McEachin’s proposed legislation is riddled with questionable leftist suppositions. With this endorsement, the CFB has squandered its credibility with half the population. What a shame.

— JAB

16 Comments

Posted in Environment

The Cumberland Landfill: Another Case of Risk Illiteracy

Posted on November 12, 2019 by | 22 comments

by James A. Bacon

Last year the Cumberland County Board of Supervisors approved a conditional use permit for construction of a 500-acre mega-landfill. Some county residents welcome the facility, which would generate between $1.4 million and $2.8 million a year in host fees and provide a huge revenue boost to a county budget of roughly $15 million a year. But others oppose the project.

Irène Mathieu, a Charlottesville pediatrician, raises all sorts of phantasmagorical concerns in an op-ed today appearing in The Virginia Mercury. In her clinic, she says, she encounters children suffering from asthma or complications from premature births. “The scientific evidence tells us that air and water pollution are contributing factors to these children’s problems, and that the burden from pollution is disproportionately borne by children of color and those living in poverty.”

Threats to Cumberland County families and children — nearly one-third of whom are African-American, she points out — include groundwater contamination, dust, methane, and “dramatic surges in traffic.” The landfill, she adds, would close off a road in front of a historic African-American school, rendering community access nearly impossible. Further, she writes, “I worry about the self-worth of children who grown up with no access to their local history, the graves of their ancestors now a repository for trash.”

Wow! Where does one begin to dissect this kind of logic? Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Environment, Infrastructure

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Omega Protein Exceeds ASMFC Catch Limit of Menhaden

Commentary - Posted on November 7, 2019 by | 24 comments

Photo credit: Stephan Lowy

by Don Rippert

What, me worry? Omega Protein has admitted exceeding its menhaden catch limit for 2019 in the Chesapeake Bay. Omega Protein, a Houston-based company and wholly owned subsidiary of Cooke, Inc, a Canadian firm, operates a fishing fleet based in Reedville, Va. Employing about 300 Virginians, Omega Protein has been mired in controversy over the years regarding its heavy catch of menhaden.  Since this topic has been repeatedly covered on Bacon’s Rebellion, I won’t provide detailed background. However, the environmental group Menhaden Defenders operates an informative website describing the situation.

Menhaden Defenders writes, “The commercial menhaden fishery is made up of two sectors, a reduction fishery, which grinds billions of bunker up for fish meal and oil, and the bait fishery which supplies menhaden for lobster and crab traps. Reduction fishing is an antiquated practice that has been banned in every east coast state, except Virginia.” Virginia is the only east coast state that allows reduction fishing and is also the only east coast state that allows unlimited contributions to state politicians. Over the last 26 years Omega Protein has donated just under $600,000 to Virginia politicians, political committees and PACs with the majority going to Republicans.

Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Commentary, Courts and law, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation

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Republicans Must Find a New Way Forward

Posted on November 6, 2019 by | 26 comments

by James A. Bacon

Virginia is a blue state now. Not only do Democrats occupy all statewide elected positions — two U.S. senators, governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general — with yesterday’s election, they control both houses of the General Assembly.

Republicans got their booties  kicked. And the butt-stomping is not likely to subside. The Dems will control the next redistricting, which will cement their dominance of the legislature. Auguring well for the blue team in the future, the fastest-growing region of the state, Northern Virginia, now is pure blue with bits  of purple on the exurban fringe. By contrast, Republican strongholds in rural Virginia have shrinking or stagnant populations. Also favoring Democrats in the long run is the increasing percentage of racial/ethnic minorities in the state and the declining percentage of whites.

Republicans need to re-define who they are and what they stand for, or they will become a permanent minority. News reports say that dislike of Donald Trump drove Democratic voter turnout, but the Blue Tide is much broader and deeper than voter animus of one man. Take Trump out of the equation after the 2020 election, and Virginia Republicans still have a huge problem.

Can the Republicans re-calibrate? I certainly hope so, because I’m terrified of the Democratic Party agenda of $15 minimum wage, spiking the right-to-work law, a damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead rush to a 100% renewable electric grid, spending and taxing, taxing and spending, and injecting its grievance-and-victimhood agenda into the consideration of every issue. But Republican priorities on culture war issues — guns, abortion, transgenders — are not winning issues statewide. As long as Republicans remain captive to its rural/small-town base, I don’t see how it can reinvent itself.

What does a rejuvenated Republican Party look like? (Or, if the GOP is incapable of reinventing itself, what does a successor party look like?) Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Economic development, Elections, Environment, Health Care, Housing, Poverty & income gap, Transportation

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Virginia Air Pollution Continues Downward Trend

Posted on October 30, 2019 by | 3 comments

Switching topics from reading test scores, here’s a downward trend Virginians can appreciate. Air pollution emissions in the Old Dominion continued their long-term downward trend in 2017 for most categories of emissions, according to an analysis of federal data by the Consumer Energy Alliance, an organization of major energy consumers.

Between 1990 and 2017 Virginia has seen the following:

• 68 percent reduction in carbon monoxide (CO)
• 51 percent reduction in ammonia (NH3)
• 61 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides (NOx)
• 30 percent reduction in coarse particulate matter (PM10)
• 35 percent reduction in fine particulate matter (PM2.5)
• 89 percent reduction in sulfur dioxide (SO2)
• 60 percent reduction in volatile organic compounds (VOCs

The state has achieved these gains despite a 35% increase in population, a 252% increase in GDP, and a 4% increase in vehicle miles driven per capita, says the report. Continue reading →

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Posted in Environment

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Dominion Goes Whole Hog for Waste-to-Energy

Posted on October 25, 2019 by | 24 comments

Hog waste farm: from methane polluter to renewable energy source.

by James A. Bacon

Dominion Energy and Smithfield Foods are investing a half billion dollars to capture methane from hog farms and convert it to “renewable natural gas.” The partnership aims to become the “largest renewable natural gas supplier in the U.S.,” according to a press release issued Wednesday.

A few days ago, I noted how Dominion had sold a $2 billion stake in its Cove Point liquefied natural gas project as part of a larger restructuring of the company away from businesses exposed to market forces in favor of regulated businesses like electric utilities and gas distribution companies. I wondered if Dominion now sees its competitive advantage as its ability to manipulate the regulatory and legislative process.

This new venture, Align Renewable Natural Gas, suggests that Dominion hasn’t abandoned risk-taking ventures entirely. Dominion is making a $250 million bet that a “waste-to-energy” model, demonstrated only in pilot projects, can be implemented nationally. I don’t recall the company having taken a risk of this magnitude to create an entirely new business model before. Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Bacon and pigs, Energy, Environment

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