Where are you NoVa? I am currently sitting here at the at the lovely Holiday Inn on Eisenhower Ave, at a public Air Pollution Control Board hearing — one of the first of these types of hearings — and it is me, Kayti from the Sierra Club, Ernie from NOTICe, a few other activists and a room full of Dominion suits. The front row is literally comprised solely of Dominion “experts” who are working the podium, seemingly in a rotation, in an effort to deflect criticism and offer non-answers to serious questions. We have to be outnumbered… or at least that is the feeling that I am getting…
Dominion is talking the talk about how the proposed Wise County CFB coal fired power plant is going to be the best thing since sliced bread — how they their plant can use waste coal and biomass like wood-chips, how their plant will have lower SOx and NOx emissions than an IGCC coal plant. Yes, there are lots of wonky terms at a hearing like this (PSM, public health, environment, endanger), that not everyone will understand, but the feeling of deceit is palpable and accessible to everyone in attendance.
For example:
The presentation from Dominion to the Board included a large section about CCS, carbon capture and sequestration, and how compatible the Wise County plant may be, if the technology one day becomes available at a cost-effective price, with CCS and how that should mean that Virginians should not worry about this plant’s estimated 5.4 million tons of annual CO2 emissions. When asked when we could expect the plant to start to turn CCS compatibility into CCS reality, the Dominion speaker said, “decades.”
When asked where the sequestered carbon would be stored if it could be captured, the Dominion speaker replied, “there is great potential for storage in abandoned mines in Dickenson County, Virginia. “
Board member: “Potential, what does that mean?”
Dominion: “we are in the process of doing studies with Virginia Tech that should determine the Dickenson county site suitability — we will know for sure in 2018.”
So, what Dominion is basically saying is: “in 10 years we will know whether we can adequately store sequestered carbon in Virginia, and maybe a few decades after that we will figure out whether we can actually sequester carbon…”
In the mean time, nearly 15,000 tons of CO2 will spew from this plant every day. Mountains will be razed for their coal seems. Communities will be destroyed because the water is contaminated with SOx, NOx and heavy metals that inevitably will be emitted by this plant. More children will get asthma because they are breathing in particulate matter from the coal plant. And Virginia will commit another generation of people to live with another coal fired power plant and it’s pollution.
So why shoot first and ask questions later? There are better options to meet Virginia’s energy needs. But what is totally clear is the fact that Dominion’s Wise county plant is not right for Virginia, not now, not 10 years from now, not ever.
