This is the last thing I ever expected: “Obama to allow oil drilling off Virginia.” Gov. Bob McDonnell must be in heaven right now. Ditto for Virginia Beach Mayor William Sessons.
I share the environmentalists’ concerns about the potential for oil pollution on Virginia’s coastline, and I am hopeful that strict safeguards will be put into place to prevent oil spills. But oil is just a sideshow. The real fossil fuel wealth off the coast is natural gas. As I understand it, production of natural gas would nicely complement the production of wind power off the coast. Because wind power is inherently intermittent, Dominion Virginia Power would have to maintain a back-up capacity to kick in when the winds die down. The most practical fuel for such back-up power would be natural gas.
(I presume that Obama’s plan would permit natural gas drilling as well, although the MSNBC story does not address the point.)
Obama’s decision to open up energy production off the Virginia coast also jump-starts Sessons’ goal of making Virginia Beach the energy production capital of the East Coast. The idea once sounded far fetched. No longer.
