Great photo! (Lowell - 2/19/2008 9:15:44 AM)
Over at the Bristol Herald Courier, my favorite Virginia columnist, Andrea Hopkins, nails it yet again. This time, she rips Dominion Power ("Global Warming: It All Starts Here") for trashing the environment of SWVA in a piece entitled, "Flattening the mountains in nation's quest for energy."
Coal advocates (and those who support Dominion Power's plans) argue that the nation's need for energy trumps all...But that's no justification to increase our reliance on coal, particularly while eschewing alternatives - including a national push for energy conservation. Virginia has done a particularly poor job of conservation, ranking 38th in the nation in energy efficiency. Some experts suggest aggressive conservation could eliminate the need for Dominon's planned plant and would cost less.
YET, DOMINION seems content to nibble around conservation's edges. The company rolled out a program to encourage its customers (none of whom are in this area) to switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs last year and recently started a "smart meter" pilot program.
One can only wonder what would be the result if Dominion pursued conservation as aggressively as it has pursued this power plant.
During a recent meeting with this newspaper's editorial board, a Dominion official seemed dismissive of the concept. Virginians, he said, want their energy-hogging plasma TVs and other high-end consumer goods; they don't want to conserve power.
Perhaps that's because they don't realize the destruction wrought by their gung-ho consumerist lifestyle. A look at Black Mountain provides a sobering wake-up call.
In short, we, the energy consumers, need to realize that every time we turn on a light bulb or the plasma TV, we're helping to trash the mountains of SWVA, West Virginia, etc. (not to mention the polar ice caps). And Dominion Power needs to get serious about conservation, or the government and people of Virginia need to make them do so.
There is so much low-hanging conservation fruit that can be picked before consumers even notice they're using less power, the consumerism card shouldn't even be played. Because of inefficient appliances, poor insulation, etc., the average Virginia house uses 150-200% of the power it actually needs.
Let's stay positive and promote home energy audits, programmable thermostats and energy-efficient appliances. That way people can have their plasma TVs, cut their power bill, and oh by the way, save the planet. It's a win-win-win for everyone but Dominion.
In public utility regulation, decoupling refers to the disassociation of a utility profit's from its sales of the energy commodity. Instead, a rate of return is aligned with meeting revenue targets, and rates are trued up or down to meet the target at the end of the adjustment period. This makes the utility indifferent to selling less product and improves the ability of energy efficiency and distributed generation to operate within the utility environment.Ideally, utilities should be rewarded based on how well they meet their customers' energy service needs. However, most current rate design instead places the focus on commodity sales, tying a distribution company's recovery of fixed costs directly to its commodity sales.
In order to motivate utilities to consider all the options when planning and making resource decisions on how to meet their customers' needs, the sales-revenue link in current rate design must be broken. Breaking that link between the utility's commodity sales and revenues, removes both the incentive to increase electricity sales and the disincentive to run effective energy efficiency programs or invest in other activities that may reduce load. Decision-making then refocuses on making least-cost investments to deliver reliable energy services to customers even when such investments reduce throughput. The result is a better alignment of shareholder and customer interests to provide for more economically and environmentally efficient resource decisions.
As an added benefit, breaking the sales-revenue link streamlines the regulatory process for rate adjustments. Contention over sales forecasts consumes extensive time in every rate case. If the sales-revenue link is broken, these forecasts carry no economic weight, so the incentive to game forecasts of electricity sales is removed and rate cases become less adversarial.
I don't think it is a false choice at all. Our culture of conspicuous consumption is not sustainable. The more we as a nation buy, the more factories that must be created in China, the more energy those factories require, the more coal plants that China puts into service, the more polluted air floating across the Pacific Ocean to our Western shores. Not to mention the increased traffic on shipping lanes that currently requires oil to power. Unless Eric is right and there is some technological miracle like super conductivity or commercially viable fusion reactors, we can kiss the state of Florida goodbye as it sinks below the rising ocean waves.
I attended a part of the DEQ air quality hearing in St. Paul this week. The coal companies stacked the deck to insure that economic development was the primary subject of the hearings. As you may know, no opponent was able to address the hearing until after 9:30 PM. A local organizer against the plant reports that local business people are saying that they have been threatened with boycotts if they speak out against the plant.
It is too tough for people to defeat the plant here becaue of these kinds of political and social pressures. Even though we in SWVA will experience most all of the immediate negative impacts on our land and our lungs.
Please make plans to attend the hearing in Richmond--TUESDAY, 2/19/2008, Hearing on Coal Plant - NEW LOCATION -
Richmond Marriott West. Perhaps in Richmond you can make the case against global warming without be laughed at. Sadly, I believe only Dominion ratepayers can stop this plant. We are being overwhelmed out here by the Almighty Dollar.
In addition to de-coupling, we need to demand the SCC and/or the General Assembly offer a substantially higher rate of return on conservation investment by Dominion and all electric and gas utilities, to reverse the incentives.
BTW, the late Governor Godwin responded to my letter to let me know that strip mining was none of my business.