Press Release
March 31, 2008
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On July 13, 2007, Dominion Power applied to the State Corporation Commission for approval of a coal-fired power plant in Wise County it promised would be "carbon capture compatible." Today, the SCC approved construction of what it termed "a conventional coal facility." This confirms what the project's opponents have been saying all along - that Dominion has no plan to capture the estimated 5.4 million tons of global warming pollution the plant would emit every year.
"We will continue to make the case that a dirty, old-style conventional coal plant - without any plan for future carbon capture - does not represent a smart way forward to meet Virginia's future energy needs," said Cale Jaffe, SELC Staff Attorney. SELC represented a coalition of groups opposed to the plant in proceedings before the SCC. "As our evidence to the commission has proven, Dominion has no plan to capture carbon, despite what it says in its radio and print ads and on its website."
In a finding issued today, the SCC found that not a penny of the $1.8 billion that Dominion proposes to spend on the plant would be for "recovery of any costs associated with future retrofitting, or other future modifications to, the Coal Plant to make it carbon capture compatible."
"Of the nearly $2 billion of its customers' money that Dominion would spend, not one dime would go toward doing anything to address the plant's global warming pollution," Jaffe said.
The SCC made note of evidence presented by environmental advocates on the exorbitant cost overruns of Dominion's proposal: "[W]e do not find that it is reasonable or prudent for the Company to incur any amount of costs above the cost estimates that comprise the projected level of $1.8 billion," the SCC stated in its ruling. "We cannot approve in essence a blank check for Virginia Power to build the Coal Plant at any cost ..." (emphasis in original).
Dominion still must get two permits pending before the State Air Pollution Control Board before it can begin construction on the proposed plant. SELC and other opponents have argued to the air board that the plant as proposed would violate federal health and air quality standards under the Clean Air Act, and that Dominion's permit applications must be rejected.
By statute, appeals of the State Corporation Commission's ruling may be made directly to the Supreme Court of Virginia. SELC and other opponents are considering all legal options and will continue to support progressive, clean energy solutions over outdated, conventional coal.
Dominion Va. Power proposes building a plant in Wise County
By Greg Edwards
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
Tuesday, Apr 01, 2008 - 12:08 AM
To a large degree it was anti-climactic, but Dominion Virginia Power’s proposal for a coal-burning power plant in Wise County won state regulatory approval yesterday.
Four years ago, the legislature declared that building a coal-burning plant in the state’s coalfields would be in the public interest. Normally, the State Corporation Commission would
The commission, facing new rules, gave the utility its required certificate of public need. It also approved a rate of return of 12.12 percent on Dominion's $1.8 billion investment, which it will collect through electric rates.
The only major obstacle to construction is the approval of state environmental permits for the 585-megawatt project, including an emissions permit pending before the state air-pollution control board.
The utility already has begun moving earth and making other preparations at the plant site near the town of St. Paul.
Dominion said the plant will fill a need for more electric generation in Virginia, which the company said is the second-highest importer of electricity behind California.
Critics of the plant proposal were not expecting a commission ruling so soon.
“The whole plant and process of approving it have been a railroad job from the beginning,” said Steve Calos, a spokesman for an environmental group, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Calos and other opponents who have been trying unsuccessfully to get an audience with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to discuss the plant gathered outside Kaine’s office yesterday.
Cale Jaffe, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, had fought the plant before the corporation commission for his organization, Calos’ group, the Sierra Club and others. The groups now will review their legal options, including a possible appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court, Jaffe said.
Jaffe said the commission was wrong in rejecting a constitutional challenge to a state law requiring that the plant burn Virginia coal. Regardless, he said, the commission decision highlights Virginia Power's plans to spend nearly $2 billion of its ratepayers’ money to build a plant without putting one dime toward addressing global-warming pollution.
Virginia Power said the plant, which received broad support, will be one of the cleanest of its kind, and it will meet or exceed environmental requirements. It will be able to burn waste coal, a potential source of pollution to the Clinch River and its tributaries.
A group of the utility's largest industrial electricity customers challenged the fairness of requiring Virginia Power's customers to pay more than the 10 percent customary rate for electricity to subsidize coalfield economic development.
“The costs of the plant greatly exceed the cost of electric generation resources that could have been acquired by the utility within its service territory in eastern Virginia,” said Louis Monacell, a lawyer for the industrial consumers.
In its ruling, however, the state commission said it agreed with Virginia Power that state law supporting the plant does not require that the commission find the plant is the utility's cheapest option.
Contact Greg Edwards at (804) 649-6390 or gedwards@timesdispatch.com.