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Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center Receives Go-Ahead

Environmental Activists Mount Appeal

Story by Sam Calhoun

On June 25, the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board approved permits for the coal-fired Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center power plant—the first plant to be constructed in Virginia in more than a decade—located in Wise County, Va. The plant will become operational by 2012 but environmental activists, while commending the board’s work to reduce pollution limits for the proposed plant, say the limits aren’t stringent enough and claim that the state did not look hard enough at alternatives.

Background

Virginia Electric and Power Company, doing business as Dominion Virginia Power, plans to construct and operate a 585-megawatt carbon capture compatible, clean-coal powered electric generation facility in Virginia City, known as the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center. The project consists of a new electric generation facility (power plant) and an associated solid waste management facility (SWMF).

Dominion’s project is in response to legislation enacted by the 2004 Virginia General Assembly that encouraged the development of a clean-coal powered electric generation facility that uses Virginia coal and is located in the Commonwealth’s southwest coalfield region.

According to Dominion Virginia Power, the energy center will expand electric capacity to meet growth in Virginia and promote economic development in southwest Virginia. The State Corporation Committee, in a final order dated November 1, 2006, determined that the construction of this facility is in the public interest.

A consortium of energy companies, led by Dominion, studied several sites before selecting the Wise County location for further evaluation. The Virginia City site meets the major necessary criteria, including an adequate fuel and water supply, electrical transmission requirements, construction logistics and minimal environmental impact, according to Dominion Virginia Power.

The power plant requires a long-term disposal/utilization plan, such as the proposed SWMF, in order to operate. The proposed SWMF will be designed for the exclusive disposal of the plant’s coal combustion byproducts associated with power generation.

Controversy

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) reported that the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board approved two air pollution permits for the power plant on June 25. The Air Pollution Control Board, made up of five citizens volunteering their time to oversee permitting proposed by Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), made a number of significant changes to the permits DEQ and Dominion drafted. These changes, according to the SELC, drastically curtail Dominion’s ability to emit mercury, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen chloride and carbon monoxide.

The Air Pollution Control Board also removed a provision that would have allowed Dominion to emit higher-than-permitted levels of sulfur dioxide in exchange for paying for sulfur reductions out of state. In addition, the Air Pollution Control Board held Dominion to its promises to use some biomass at the facility and to convert its 1931 Bremo Power Plant—the oldest coal-fired power station managed by Dominion Energy—from coal to natural gas.

The board’s actions that cut some proposed pollution levels by as much as 95 percent make it clear that Dominion’s plant, as originally planned, was far from the environmentally cutting-edge facility that the corporation touted in a months-long advertising campaign, according to the SELC.

The SELC wrote in a statement, “Although SELC applauds the air board for its hard and important work to drastically decrease allowed pollution levels, the permit as finalized still fails to meet the federally required maximum controls for the neurotoxin mercury and 60 other hazardous air pollutants.”

The SELC is also concerned because Dominion is not required to use advanced methods of burning coal that would prepare the plant to control its carbon dioxide emissions; and the permits fail to address the approximately 5.37 million tons of carbon dioxide the plant will emit annually, the SELC maintains. The Clean Air Act requires strong controls for regulated pollutants emitted by power plants; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA that carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, is a regulated pollutant.

Another major environmental impact from the power plant, according to the SELC, will be further destruction of mountains for mountaintop removal coal mining and possible degradation of water quality from improper disposal of toxic fly ash. Although the Air Pollution Control Board acknowledged that both the federal Clean Air Act and Virginia legislation require them to take non-air quality impacts into consideration, the permits do not address mountaintop removal beyond requiring the plant to use 5 to 10 percent biomass.

“Thanks to the hard work of many, many concerned citizens, and the diligence of the state Air Pollution Control Board, the permits approved yesterday are far better than what Dominion had originally proposed,” said John Suttles of SELC in a press release. “Unfortunately, the permits fall short of full compliance with the Clean Air Act for carbon dioxide emissions and for mercury and other hazardous pollutants. When you run a marathon, it doesn’t make sense to stop just short of the finish line—but that’s what this permit does. Despite the vast improvements in these permits, they are still flawed, and illegal. We will be challenging them further in court.”

In April, SELC filed a notice of appeal with the Supreme Court of Virginia, challenging the State Corporation Commission’s ruling that grants Dominion a certificate of need to build the plant. SELC argues that the statute upon which the SCC relied violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution; therefore, the SCC ruling is void and should be overturned. In the court case, SELC is representing Appalachian Voices, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

According to Mike McCoy, Virginia field organizer for Appalachian Voices, there are two main reasons for the appeal from his point of view—mountaintop removal and a lack of alternatives considered.

McCoy said the project contributes to the mountaintop removal of coal in Wise County. According to McCoy, 25 percent of the land area in Wise County is already strip mined, and according to a study by the United States Geological Survey, the high-quality coal in southwest Virginia will be depleted in 10 to 20 years, forcing mining companies to go deeper into the ground and creating dangerous work environments.

McCoy also said the Virginia government did not look hard enough at alternatives. According to the American Council for Energy-Efficient Economy’s State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, Virginia ranks 38th overall and tied for last with Kansas and Wyoming for the amount of money spent on energy efficiency, and McCoy thinks the approval of the power plant supports the ranking.

McCoy brings up Austin, Texas as an example. Trying to meet the needs of a population that is expected to double in the next decade, Austin, Texas officials conducted a study on energy efficiency instead of building another coal-fired power plant. The city found that by making energy-efficient changes to its government and private infrastructure, it could save money, handle more people and forgo building a new plant. McCoy said that the Virginia government did not do this.

“This would be a situation where we wouldn’t be asking people to consume less,” said McCoy. “We’re just asking for a mix of new production and energy efficiency and we have not seen that.”

Once the plant is operational, McCoy expects air quality impacts as far south as Linville Gorge, so the High Country will be affected.

“The air quality in [the High Country] will be affected and [the power plant] will contribute to the haze [in the High Country],” said McCoy.

For more information, click to www.wiseenergyforvirginia.org, www.appvoices.org or www.vchecjpa.info.