Dominion solar farm. Photo credit: Dominion.
by Steve Haner
How badly broken is Virginia’s energy regulatory system? One recent State Corporation Commission decision on Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed next wave of solar projects illustrates several of the problems. The projects are unimportant, routine. What matters are the policy failures revealed.
Only the rich can look at the future and yawn. Continue reading
by James C. Sherlock
CNBC reported today as breaking news a concern about hybrid and electric vehicle fires that professional firefighters have known about for some time.
Vehicles with lithium-ion batteries can be especially dangerous when they catch fire.
CNBC offers a video showing smoke billowing from three electric pickups parked tightly together.
Moments later, flames shoot several feet above the vehicles, which were unoccupied.
Fires involving EV batteries can burn hotter and longer and require new techniques to extinguish, posing a growing challenge to first responders.
Hybrid electrics, which have both a high voltage battery and an internal combustion engine, have a 3.4% likelihood of vehicle fires according to a study, far higher than either internal combustion or electric alone.
Spontaneous combustion of an EV battery is unlikely, but collisions are a concern. Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Protection, Energy, Environment, Public safety & health
Tagged James Sherlock
AdvanSix Chemicals Plant Hopewell Virginia Courtesy AdvanSix
by James C. Sherlock
We don’t see very many industrial strikes in Virginia.
Regular readers know that I have often supported blue collar unions in the private economy.
My family roots are linked to Pennsylvania coal mines. Those miners’ strongest claims were for their own safety. Followed very closely by their demands for living wages.
I started researching the story of the current strike by unions representing some 340 workers at the AdvantSix chemical plant in Hopewell with a bias towards supporting the strike.
Safety. I still do support it to the degree that they are striking for worker and plant safety. They reasonably want the company to prevent excessive overtime of current employees under inherently dangerous conditions that require close attention to detail.
Hopewell employees tell stories of consecutive 18-hour shifts.
They want the company to hire more workers to solve that.
But that workforce is far more skilled — better educated and trained, and higher paid – than I assumed.
AdvanSix has been unable to readily fill the jobs that they already advertise. It is hard to attract skilled workers to Hopewell. The company may need to cut production instead.
Wages. I thought I would also support the union wage increase demands in excess of what the company has offered, but I have found that issue is complicated and the public does not have a clear picture of the differences. Continue reading
Dominion wins one for the shareholders.
By Steve Haner
The State Corporation Commission has rejected arguments that the Virginia Clean Economy Act would allow Virginia’s dominant electric utility to get more than 35% of its new wind, solar and battery power from third party suppliers. Dominion Energy Virginia is guaranteed by law (actually, required is the better word) to own 65% of those assets directly.
The ruling was issued today in the Commission’s final order on Dominion’s most recent application for additional solar and battery assets, most of which were approved. The question has lingered through several recent cases since the General Assembly passed VCEA in 2020, with various stakeholders arguing that the third-party assets are usually cheaper for consumers and impose less risk from failure.
The lower cost of those alternative approaches was highlighted in this case and discussed earlier on Bacon’s Rebellion. Dominion had rejected several cheaper third-party choices in compiling its plan. That earlier story also touched on the dispute over whether the 35% referenced in the statute was a ceiling or a floor. The SCC looked at the plain wording of the law in effect and declared it really is a target that cannot be ignored or exceeded. To wit:
This particular law is written as follows: “… and 35 percent of such generating capacity procured shall be from [third party-owned resources], with the remainder, in the aggregate, being from construction or acquisition by (Dominion.) As written, the above says “35%” – neither something more nor something less – “shall” be from third party-owned resources.
Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight, Utilities
Tagged CVOW, Dominion, Stephen D. Haner
By Steve Haner
Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposal to ensure that any future wave of wind turbines built off Virginia must follow a real competitive bid process ended up dead as a beached whale. The General Assembly didn’t just kill his proposed amendment during its reconvened session April 12, it refused to even take up the matter.
Both the Republican-controlled House of Delegates and Democrat-controlled Senate voted to “pass by” the substitutes. The substitutes then died when the motion to adjourn was approved at the end of the day. Such a motion is often used to avoid a recorded vote loaded with political risk.
Rejection of the amendments, first discussed here, leaves Youngkin (R) free to veto the underlying bill (actually two identical bills, one in each chamber), but his argument was not with the underlying bills themselves. He was just trying to weaken Dominion Energy Virginia’s control over the wind development process, which has led to Virginia building the first and only $10 billion project with all the cost and risk on its ratepayers. At this point, any second phase will likely be the same.
The gubernatorial amendment on competitive bidding for offshore wind was injecting a new issue in the last stage of the 2023 session. Youngkin offered other amendments which constituted repeat efforts to pass things rejected during the regular part of the session. They met the same fate, some also by motions to pass by supported by his own party. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight, Utilities
Tagged CVOW, Dominion, Stephen D. Haner
Rise and fall of home runs in major and minor leagues compared. No climate change in minor league parks! Source: Roger Pielke Jr.
by Steve Haner
Maybe if a claim is repeated more than once, it won’t sound so absurd? Perhaps that is why the Richmond Times-Dispatch felt it necessary to print two stories today about the recent ludicrous claim that “climate change” is making it easier to hit a home run.
“Since 2010, more than 500 dingers can be linked to warmer than average conditions because of climate change, according to a new study,” is the summary in a photo cutline illustrating one of the stories, a Washington Post reprint on page C-2. The paper’s full-time climate alarmism correspondent Sean Sublette also discusses the “study” in his column on his daily weather and climate crisis page.
Perhaps neither had seen that the Post’s original story quickly drew a response so strong as to constitute disproof, from another climate scientist, this one not a member of the climate crisis priesthood. The Unbeliever dared to compare the Major League Baseball home run statistics at the heart of the “study” with similar home run statistics from AAA baseball, the NCAA’s Division 1 baseball teams, and even the Japanese professional leagues.
The home run patterns there are different. It seems climate change is only happening in MLB stadiums. What a relief!
The University of Colorado’s Roger Pielke, Jr. packaged his response on Twitter, and it was then shared by The Wall Street Journal. Very much worth a read. You won’t find any of the rebuttal data in that failed rag of a Richmond newspaper. Continue reading
by Joe Fitzgerald
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. The Hopewell chemical plant where Kepone was born and raised has been cited 66 times over the past eight years for releasing toxic chemicals into the air and into the James River.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch tells the story better than I do. What makes this latest stream of toxins so poignant is the release this week of the book Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and its Legacy, by University of Akron history professor Gregory Wilson. (From the University of Georgia Press, or from Amazon.)
Wilson’s work is an excellent history that brings alive what so many of us remember from back then. People we knew, including my brother Tom, worked and suffered at the Kepone plant in Hopewell in the mid-1970s. The James River, the cradle of American settlement, was closed to fishing. People who couldn’t spell “ppm” could tell you how many parts per million of Kepone were in their blood.
Tom died last summer, age 67, of what some medical sites call a rare type of kidney tumor that had also attached itself to his stomach and bowel and maybe a couple of organs I’ve forgotten. Kepone? Nobody will ever know for sure. But Wilson’s book makes sure everybody who wants to will know what happened in Hopewell almost 50 years ago.
Continue reading
AdvanSix chemical plant, Hopewell. Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch has a story that illustrates the importance and need for vigorous local journalism, while also illustrating the limitations of local journalism due to the lack of seasoned reporters and editors.
The story deals with the violation of environmental regulations by a chemical plant in Hopewell. The plant, a cornerstone of manufacturing in Hopewell, has been there a long time, under at least three owners. It is huge, covering about 200 acres. It is the facility responsible for dumping Kepone into the James River between 1966 and 1975, when it came under court order for the practice. The current owner is AdvanSix, headquartered in Parsippany, N.J.
As reported by the RTD, the plant has been cited 66 times over the past eight years for violations of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the company has violated the Clean Air Act “every month over the past two years.” Continue reading
by Bob Hurley
The next time you see a turtle think of what life on Earth might have been like 220 million years ago.
Turtles have been around for that long. They saw dinosaurs come and go; survived the Ice Age; and with their distinctive shells, have defended themselves against a variety of predators.
And we need them. Turtles are important in balancing ecosystems. They protect water quality by removing harmful bacteria, like dead fish and animals. They control aquatic vegetation; cycle nutrients; and contribute to new plant growth by dispersing seeds. A decline in their population can signal problems for water quality or habitat loss.
Today, their survival is threatened around the world and here in Virginia. The primary causes: unsustainable – and often illegal — capture and loss of habitat.
“Turtles are this incredible legacy to the history of nature on Earth,” said Tom Akre, a Sperryville resident, who is a program scientist at the Conservation Ecology Center at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) in Front Royal. “They haven’t changed in 220 million years and are now the most endangered group of vertebrates on our planet, with 60 percent of species threatened,” he said. “Turtles are the most traded four-legged animal group in the world, and that is a big cause for their decline.” Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Land use & Development, Science & Technology, Uncategorized
Tagged Bob Hurley
Pending Termination
by Steve Haner
The Richmond City Council member seeking to kill Richmond Gas Works is finally asking her colleagues to put some money behind her dream, seeking a budget amendment to pay for a study on a path to ending the government-owned utility.
Thus reports Patrick Larsen of Virginia Public Media, who wrote (and presumably also broadcast) on March 31 about Councilwoman Katherine Jordan’s request for $200,000 to be added to the next Richmond budget. This is about 18 months after she sponsored a successful council resolution committing the city to an anti-fossil-fuel future that would include ending the provision of natural gas to its residents.
The city natural gas monopoly also has the exclusive right to serve all of Henrico County, much of Chesterfield County and even a part of Hanover County. Along with residential and commercial customers it also serves several major industries using natural gas in their manufacturing processes. Those outside city lines have had no vote in electing Richmond’s City Council.
No state law requires the city to maintain its natural gas service, but contractual and debt obligations could complicate an effort to shut down the utility without selling it to another provider. Selling the physical assets and territory to another provider, very much a viable option, would not advance the goal of eliminating the use of natural gas to heat homes, cook food or run factories. Continue reading
by Kristina Nohe
Go to almost any parking lot in Prince William County and invariably you will see discarded gloves and masks, littered reminders of the pandemic we all lived through.
Litter tells others what the people in a community think about where they live. If someone walked into your home and there were chip bags scattered on the floor, a week’s worth of fast food containers piled in the corner, ripped-up notebooks in the sink and a few tires sitting next to the couch, it would make an impression – and not a very good one. The same is true for our community.
Litter comes from a variety of sources. There is, of course, the irresponsible person who throws trash from a car window or drops a soda bottle along the sidewalk, but a lot of the garbage that we see strewn about comes from other sources. Unsecured items in cars and trucks easily find their way onto the side of the street; anyone who lives along Route 234 near the landfill has seen evidence of this phenomenon.
We’ve all seen overfilled trash cans and recycling bins lining neighborhood streets from which a stiff breeze can blow items out onto the road. And if it’s not the wind, it’s animals looking for food who leave a trail of wrappers in their wake. Continue reading
Dominion’s proposed offshore wind project. Phase two, similar in size, would build out to the east.
By Steve Haner
Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has proposed a stronger requirement in state law that any second wave of offshore wind serving Virginia be subjected to a competitive procurement process, rather than simply allowing Dominion Energy Virginia to build it with all the costs and risks imposed on its customers.
The planned 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project now under federal environmental review remains the only such project in the United States which is being developed directly by a monopoly utility. Other projects involve third-party developers raising the capital and taking on much of the financial risk for the multi-billion-dollar investments, then selling the power to utilities.
This is just one of several consumer-oriented amendments Youngkin proposed on a series of energy bills, to be voted on at the General Assembly’s reconvened session April 12. Should the Assembly reject his amendments, his option then is to either sign or veto the bill as it passed in February.
The financial and operational risk imposed on ratepayers by direct utility ownership of the wind farm was the focus of debate before the State Corporation Commission (SCC) finally authorized the project, now estimated to cost $10 billion. A method to shift some of the risk to the company’s shareholders if power output fell below projections was initially accepted but then abandoned by the regulators. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight, Utilities
Tagged CVOW, Dominion, Stephen D. Haner
by James C. Sherlock
This is an ode to modeling and the inevitable contretemps in the comment section that followed Steve Haner’s article yesterday.
1.Time Magazine, April 8,1977. Two great modeling stories:
Perhaps we did all 51.
2. Cover of Science News March 1. 1975
By Steve Haner
Nothing beats being able to expose the sleight of hand behind one climate alarmism claim by using the data from another climate alarmism claim, with both from the same source: the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It also provides a teaching moment about some of the advocates’ favorite ways to deceive.
Concerned you might not get the message that “climate change” is responsible for making you miserable with allergies, the newspaper offered up two stories on the same topic this month. First, we had this, followed by a second story today. The basic premise that an early spring means that allergies hit earlier is correct; and then the claim is early springs are getting, in a word, earlier. Finally, predictions follow that worse is yet to come.
But two different charts are used t0 illustrate the issue, basically counting the number of days between the last spring and first fall frost. One covers a long time period (more honest) and the second uses an intentionally short time period, resulting in a knowing exaggeration intended to deceive. Continue reading
Cover for the 2023 update of Appalachian Power Company’s plan to comply with the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) in coming decades.
by Steve Haner
Appalachian Power Company (APCO), serving Western Virginia, has now filed its annual update on Virginia Clean Economy Act compliance, including long term bill impact estimates. As the State Corporation Commission begins its review process, here are some highlights:
Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight, Utilities
Tagged APCO, Stephen D. Haner, VCEA
