A natural gas fracking site in Warren Center, PA. Photo credit: Ostroff Law
The State Corporation Commission has approved Dominion Virginia Power’s proposal for a new gas-fired power plant in Brunswick County, rejecting arguments from the Sierra Club and others that ratepayers would be better served by a combination of low-cost energy efficiency and price-stable renewable energy.
The decision in the case (PUE-2012-00128) reflects the same discouraging themes we have seen from our regulators before: a tendency to believe everything Dominion tells them, coupled with an absolute refusal to acknowledge the climate crisis bearing down upon us and the changes in the energy market that make fossil fuels increasingly risky.
As the SCC put it in its order, “The relevant statutes… do not require the Commission to find any particular level of environmental benefit, or an absence of environmental harm, as a precondition to approval.” (Note to legislators: How about fixing that?)
The SCC’s state of denial is not just about the future. Since at least the 1980s, Dominion has consistently overestimated future demand growth.
A little skepticism might be in order when Dominion projects the same level of demand growth that keeps not materializing.
But the SCC is not skeptical. Its order declares Dominion’s load forecasts “reasonable.”
Evidently one can be both reasonable and wrong. Demonstrating this in real time, only a few days after the SCC issued its order in early August, Dominion CEO Tom Farrell had to explain to shareholders why electricity demand has not grown this year in line with company predictions.
Amnesia was also in evidence at the public hearing on the case, where proponents of the gas plant – everyone from Dominion employees to the SCC staff – kept insisting on the environmental advantages of natural gas.
But congratulating each other that at least it wasn’t a coal plant seemed odd to those of us who recall the fanfare surrounding the opening of Dominion’s newest Virginia coal plant, all of one year ago.
My, how quickly things change. No one is proposing to build coal plants any more. Now that natural gas costs half what coal does, people have suddenly noticed that burning dirty black rocks to make electricity is a terrible idea. “Look at all that pollution!” they say in wonderment. “How last century!”
A natural gas fracking operation in the Marcellus Shale. Photo credit: U.S. Geologic Survey
But in this century, natural gas is already wearing out its welcome – and not just among unhappy landowners who say fracking has spoiled their drinking water. Scientists measuring methane escaping from extraction wells warn that high levels of “fugitive emissions” may make natural gas a major contributor to climate change.
The SCC takes no notice of climate change, but it ought to consider that others do, presenting a financial risk for any fossil fuel plant. A national plan to reduce carbon emissions could make gas very expensive.
Yet building the Brunswick plant commits Dominion ratepayers to paying whatever the market price is for natural gas for the next three decades. Worse, it’s effectively a baseload plant, designed to burn gas 24/7; it can’t ramp up and down quickly to supply power when needed on a short-term basis, such as to fill in around the power supplied by wind and solar.
Analysts predict wind and solar will increasingly become the first choice for new generation, as these renewables get steadily cheaper and offer long-term price stability as well as environmental benefits.
Indeed, wind turbines beat out natural gas plants as the largest source of new generating capacity nationwide last year. Companies are designing natural gas turbines now that integrate with renewable energy, allowing utilities to hedge their bets on gas.
Well before the end of its 36-year life, a 24/7 baseload plant like Brunswick may be reduced to a giant concrete paperweight.
It would seem wise to hold off on building this gas plant, and we could. Investments in energy efficiency would more than meet the demand the Brunswick plant is supposed to serve, at a lower cost.
The SCC brushed aside this argument, pointing out that it consistently swats down good energy efficiency proposals – and intends to continue doing it.
So Virginia ratepayers, prepare yourselves: You’ve already been stuck with one of the last coal plants to be built in America. Now get ready for 30 years of paying for a natural gas plant. As for your dreams of wind and solar, keep dreaming.
Originally published in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot on August 29, 2013.
Power for the People VA 
Has any group (since Henry Howell) tried a popular political approach to the SCC, demanding that the agency alter their policies to serve Virginia’s utility customers? How about mounting a joint campaign organizing Dominion customers and their legislative representatives to petition the SCC with letters and public statements and actions designed to alter it’s policy of endorsing risky, expensive, new fossil fuel generation in favor of predictable, low-cost demand reduction by implementing conservation investment, inclining block residential and commercial rate structures, and load management techniques? If nothing else, it might get legislators’ attention.