I hope you enjoy this account of Dominion getting grilled before the State Corporation Commission on the Wise County Power Plant, courtesy of Diana Dascalu, staff attorney for CCAN. Cross posted from chesapeakeclimate.org/blog
I went and observed the first day of a 4-plus day evidentiary hearing at the Virginia State Corporation Commission yesterday. The hearing is set up like an actual trial, with Dominion's Wise County coal plant construction permit at the heart of the case. The first day consisted mainly of two of Dominion's Senior Vice-Presidents. They were the first of Dominion's witnesses that submitted direct testimony. The evidentiary hearing is held so that each side of the case (Dominion as the applicant and Southern Environmental Law Center representing App Voices, Sierra Club, SAMS and CCAN as one of a few of the respondents) to cross-examine each parties expert witnesses.
Cale Jaffe of the Southern Env. Law Center attorney SELC did an excellent job of asking very poignant questions to the Dominion representatives which clarified a few key points about this proposed coal fired power plant's application to the SCC:
* The 2007 re-regulation bill that gave Dominion Power a HUGE added bonus for building this plant is the largest supplemental benefit to Dominion for a new generating facility in Virginia history. Never before has a utility gotten a handout for constructing a new generating facility as big and robust as the benefit they are getting out of the 2007 legislation. The Dominion representatives made it very clear that they probably would have not proposed the plant had it not been for this incredible incentive. It's convenient that they actually wrote the legislation and had the heaviest hand in getting it passed.
* Dominion has done very little analysis as to energy efficiency, demand side management or conservation planning as least cost alternatives to building this facility.
* Dominion has added "clean coal compatibility" to their application and are asking the SCC to guarantee them a huge benefit from rate payers for over 27 years, even though there is NO guarantee that they will ever install clean coal or carbon capture technology at that plant. So basically, ratepayers will have to pay an extra amount for a technology that doesn't exist and might never be implemented at that plant.
* Finally, Dominion is aware that carbon caps and climate legislation is coming down the pike in the near future. They have done NO analysis to predict how risky this plant is going to be to rate payers because of climate regulation and have already stated that they do not support the Warner-Lieberman bill or any other aggressive timetable climate legislation out there.
It is pretty clear that Dominion representatives are rushing approval of this project so that the plant could potentially be "grandfathered" into any climate regulation program that will come out of Congress in the next few years. They are counting on the SCC granting this permit so they can start construction on this plant as early as April. The worst part is that our own legislature and Governor have given Dominion an added financial benefit to do just that.
I hope that the SCC will see the writing on the wall with regards to this application. I don't have a prediction as to whether the SCC will deny the permit outright, but even if they approve it with some serious conditions which would effectively delay construction of the plant, that would be a huge victory as well. If we can delay the plant until climate legislation is passed then it will be very unlikely that Dominion and the SCC will determine that the plant will be economically feasible at all. Let's hope that is what happens. Until then we keeping fighting this power plant from every angle and with every resource we have. Onward!