Dominion: Sorry About All That Coal Pollution. Have a Discount Light Bulb!

By: TheGreenMiles
Published On: 10/2/2007 9:25:29 AM

Dominion Virginia Power has been getting tons of good press over the last couple of weeks for its new "energy efficiency" effort, highlighted by discounted compact fluorescent light bulbs at Home Depot.  CFLs are great, but they won't stop global warming:
If every household in the US changed a 60-watt incandescent light bulb to a compact fluorescent...
The CO2 emissions from just two medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate this entire effort.
As CCAN's Mike Tidwell detailed recently, CFLs are nice and will save you some money, but they aren't enough on their own to even put a dent in global warming.  Unfortunately, the rest of Dominion's proposal doesn't get much better:
Dominion is asking the Virginia State Corporation Commission for permission to create new pilot programs. The programs range from providing incentives for large nonresidential customers to reduce load during peak demand periods, to providing energy efficiency kits to 250 residential customers and 50 small commercial customers.
If Dominion really was concerned about the environment, they'd stop trying to build new coal-fired power plants.  Or simplify their convoluted process for switching your home to green power.  But hey, enjoy that $1.50 you save on a CFL!

Comments



What to do then? (tx2vadem - 10/2/2007 8:19:12 PM)
Will CFLs really not put a dent in our emission levels?  If we use less electricity, then there is consequently less need for expanding power plants.  That then reduces the growth of emissions, right?  And if it is dramatic, we would reduce the utilization of existing plants; thus, we would be truly reducing emissions.

I hear you on this issue though.  I tried to stop that Dominion bill that ended competition and rewarded Dominion so richly.  But alas, I don't give millions to VA politicians every year and I was unable to raise enough public ire.  There was but a handful of Democrats and Republicans who voted against it.  It could very well have passed by unanimous consent.

I just don't think anyone cares as long as they get cheap power and it is not in their backyard.  It's a Herculean task to beat Dominion.



Things to do (TheGreenMiles - 10/3/2007 9:34:11 AM)
CFLs WILL save you money.  They're a great economic move.  But these things will do more to save the planet:

1) Switch your home's power source to renewable energy
2) Use less fuel (either by driving less, driving a more fuel-efficient car, or both)
3) Green your home through programmable thermostats, the most efficient appliances, etc.
4) Tell your politician to support climate change legislation (currently in VA only Reps. Bobby Scott and Jim Moran do)
5) Buy Lowell a beer (he'll give you 20 other things you can do while emitting zero greenhouse gases as he does it)



The real story (Kindler - 10/2/2007 9:56:21 PM)
Let's take the spotlight off CFLs -- which are part of the solution, though of course not the whole solution -- and put it on the story you link to about opposition to Dominion's new planned coal-fired plant:

Representatives of the five groups of the Wise Energy for Virginia coalition highlighted their concerns with the proposed 585-megawatt dirty coal plant, including an increase in mountaintop removal coal mining in the region and millions of tons of additional greenhouse gases that cause global warming.  They groups stated that Dominion plans to continue investing billions of dollars in the old way of doing business, a way that increases global warming, air pollution, as well as other negative environmental and health effects. Dominion's proposal to construct a coal-burning plant in Wise County that fails to use state-of-the-art pollution control technology and efficiency, and instead locks Virginia into 40 or 50 more years of polluted air and greenhouse gases with the proposed old-style coal-burning plant in Wise County.