I'm against the Wise County plant, too. However, I think both you and Grist are seriously overstating the political impact of Kaine's policy on coal plants.

In an election several years from now, allowing this coal plant would be an asterisk that induces a shrug from most voters even if anyone managed to remind them of it. In fact, I bet that if you asked most Virginians outside of the SW portion of the state to point to Wise County on a map, they couldn't do it.

There will be no political consequences either way for Tim Kaine on this issue. He should say 'no' to the plant and move us away from a coal economy because it's the right and sensible thing to do.  But let's not kid ourselves into thinking that this is going to even register on the political radar screen in state politics a few years from now.  

The goal is that, in a few years, there will be big political consequences for messing up the planet.

for doing great things for the planet.  Look at Teddy Roosevelt, still remembered to this day as the greatest U.S. president from an environmental perspective.  This is major legacy stuff - and also a political plus in the here and now -- as Martin O'Malley, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlie Crist, and many others understand.

Landers is right.

This will be an issue only with those who are so involved in advocacy that they have tunnel vision. Most people will do exactly what Landers says, shrug and move on.

Where does the power come from if not the plant in Wise.

By the way, I don't want the plant there either. But what I disagree with is the tactics being employed here.  

Well, this isn't a binary choice.  There are other energy sources besides coal.  You could build a natural gas fired power plant.  You could build or expand a nuclear power plant.  You can even import the power from other generators within PJM.  Better than any of those choices, we could all conserve energy and then we wouldn't need a new power plant at all.

This coal plant is just the easy choice.  It requires nothing of Virginians now.  The hand outs that Dominion will receive from the state to build this will be hidden in rate payers' bills.  We'll just pick up the cost in later years.

n/t

I have to agree with Jack Landers that this will be a blip on Kaine's career.. Furthermore, there would be serous political consequences, at least down in SW Virginia, if Kaine were to be seen as against the plant.  If the Governor's office were to contact any elected official down in Wise County, or indeed in any areas down in that part of the state, he would get a big "Yes, WE WANT THIS PLANT" from them....And while citizens of SW Virginia are asking questions and some are very vocal about the downside to this plant, unfortunately many people down there believe adding jobs trumps everything else.  The big problem as I see it is that our government should have started a Manhattan Project during the last ten years to deal with the energy crisis which looms, but George Bush has chosen to waste billions of dollars on this war instead.  Kaine is in a corner.  NOVA needs the power that will be generated by the plant, most citizens including most elected officials in SW VA are FOR the plant, and trying to come up with realistic and effective alternatives to the plant is near to impossible given that the federal government needs to devote resources to this cause.   I have to admit, though Kaine's position is dissapointing, I truly feel if you put the man under sodium pentathol he'd say this plant is the best thing for the state even if Dominion weren't throwing around all its dirty dollars.  I lay Kaine's quandry at the feet of George W. Bush.

The ones that admitted they've accepted bribes from Dominion? Yes, we should clearly take their word on this.

I would've agreed with you a couple of years ago. As Kaine told me, "When legislature passed legislation calling for this plant, no one asked me to change it that I can recall." But when Mark Warner makes clean energy the first policy proposal in his speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, you know times are changing fast.

Riddle me this, Jack Landers -- when Congress passes a bill cutting carbon emissions (be it the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act this year or some other version next year) and Virginia is still getting 50% of its power from the most carbon-intensive form of energy there is, how will that not be an issue?

as people's electric bills shoot up and they scream, "why didn't anyone think of this BEFORE?!?"   Uhhhh....

In 2007 only 3 regions comprise their energy less from coal than the mid-Atlantic (37%), Alaska-Hawaii (12%), the contiguous Pacific (3%), and New England (15%).  New England (58%), however, burns a greater portion of their overall energy from fossil-fuel than the mid-Atlantic (46%), and only the Pacific states (36%) use a lower percent of fossil-fuel than the mid-Atlantic.

I think everyone has to realize how intense the matter is for both sides.  Right or wrong, more than just climate concerns are on the minds of the utility industry, which is why the industry has been busy as beavers since the year 2000 when Bush first took office.  The idea of a national transmission corridor has been on their minds ever since the 2000 election campaign, the mid-Atlantic NIETC corridor designation is the root cause for Wise County at the moment.  Even Dominion was in the act back in 2000, as one of their own VP's was on Bush 2000 DOE transition team.  After the GOP's first attempt to revamp energy policy failed in 2000-2001, it took the dramatic events of 9/11 and the blackout of 2003 to pull off what they did in the EPAct of 2005.  Soon after in August 2006, PJM's CEO was the keynote speaker when the DOE released its first Congestion Study, which was the writing on the wall for us in Virginia.

The problems we have outside of climate, are very real and overwhelming.  Our problem was, while the industry and the Dept. of Energy were planning, most of us didn't know or bother to pay attention, and I don't recall CCAN or Sierra Club providing any input when the DOE called for it when they began their research for the Congestion Study.  An appeal is ongoing with the DOE, but as you can see Dominion and the PJM are moving forward.  

If Dominion was a decent corporate citizen, they would have approached the state more openly about these problems they knew were around the corner, long before the 11th hour as they have with Meadow Brook to Loudoun and Wise County.  Today's development occurred because Dominion was convincing to state politicans who mattered most, and backed it up with monetary contributions - nearly $600k over three years from 2003-2006.  Apparently, Dominion made a corporate decision that these investments would bring a better financial outcome for them.  And today, it appears both proposals were "grandfathered" in by Kaine and the GA, as both the re-reg bill and Kaines' VEP 2007 seemed to have sealed their fate.  

I believe it will take an unpresidented movement of people, not just from the likely group of folks, your environmentalists; but rather, it will take education to bring in others who are not typically motivated by these developments and include your more conservative-types and your typically Republican leaning citizens.  Its the only way I believe.  Politicizing the matter b/n left and right and b/n Dems and Repubs, will only bring more of what we already know.  

Who ever heard of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius before she killed a coal plant a few months ago. Look at her now!

It almost seems like if you want to boost your popularity, kill a coal plant.  If you want to boost it a lot, kill a bunch of coal plants.  

Gov. Charlie Crist in FL -- from winning election by a hair to being talked about as McCain's running mate. Or the Governator, who was embroiled in petty squabbles until he embraced climate action.

Why don't we start a fund to do ad buys in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads?  These ads would focus on informing consumers on how they can reduce their energy demand.  I recognize that there are easy sources where people could find out this information.  But you know the Department of Energy does not put enough money into these programs to have a wide market penetration.  And no one is really out their with TV ads or Newspaper ads or Internet ads really advocating this.  Dominion does it through billing statements, but who reads that garbage they throw in with the bill.  And if you get electronically billed, then you get nothing.

We could create a website with resources and links to other consumer help sites like EnergyStar.  And we could contact insulation contractors, energy auditors, HVAC contractors, as well as drywall repair contractors in the state to advertise on the web site and contribute money to our ad buys.  I mean afterall they would benefit from the home improvement work.  

We could set this up as a 501(c)3 corporation so that all donations were tax deductible (though I'm not sure whether consumer education can get 501c3 status).  And depending upon how successful we were, we could supplement the state's weatherization assistance programs.  Surely, I'm not the first to think of this idea.  Maybe there is already such a program in existence, just underfunded.

We cannot rely on Governor Kaine, we cannot rely on Dominion, and we cannot rely on legislators.  They will follow us if we make a change.  But until then, they will just give us lip service.  We need to be the change; the movement has to come from us.  We can chide Governor Kaine all we like, but we are not going to win unless it is a movement of the people.  The battle over this power plant is all but lost.  But we can reduce our demand so drastically, that Dominion's assets sit with idle capacity.  And this won't make a lick of difference to anyone's political career or legacy unless the people make it an issue.

Do you want to take the lead?

n/t

Lets just see if climate control or global warming even come up in the next debate between Obama and Clinton next week.
The issue while portrayed on blogs as being such a priority is hardly even spoken about on the campaign trail, except as a side show to pander for votes in CA buy both Parties. I am not saying that the issue is not important, to the contrary, but as far as the economy, the war, healthcare, immigration exactly how much are the American people supposed to swallow this election cycle in terms of promises.
While we see Ohio, PA and TX coming around the corner you can bet this debate on clean air gets shelved. Ohio like Michigan needs job creation policies and no one has proven that clean air and the technology required will bring those jobs at a rate that causes much excitement over the short term....now you want to talk about building a new nuke plant then we are talking lots of new jobs, but selling Texans on clean air and regulation is a very hard sell and I do not expect to hear too much about as close as the race is.
Perception just like the after the 80's with the Clean Air Act is that the end result of this agenda will be a net loss of jobs just like it was in the 80's/90's. Until people step up and can prove that new jobs will replace those I wonder how Democrats will sell this in rural SW VA again when once the coal goes then so do all the jobs.
We are pushing an issue here that can result in greater dividing the state in terms of interest whereby reinforcing the current perception as NVA goes so does VA and run the risk of alienating voters in the western part of the State playing right into the hands of Republicans ( ala Huckabee's numbers recently against McCain out there).
Coal is a great natural Virginia resource and instead of talking about ways to kill the industry maybe we should shift gears and focus on how we can clean it up a bit here and market it internationally as China is becoming the biggest net user of coal and one of the largest importers to meet world wide demand for steel products.
I will keep posting it and maybe one day someone else will catch on just what Kaine is seeing and the death of the coal industry is more than just coal, look at the railroad companies, rail service companies, port authorities and management companies etc all participating in the export of coal abroad. These are all jobs Virginia in this economy can ill afford to lose.
Exactly when do we finally say enough is enough in terms of globalization; we have lost our manufacturing base, our steel base in PA, or textile base in NC and now we want to put a nail in the coal industry as well. I guess there are alot of people out there who simply want America to become solely a consumption ecomony and no longer a producing one.

And FYI without coal furnaces used for steel fabrication we would not have the ability to produce 70% of our arms currently in service in our military, you want to be the guys to explain to the Norfolk Naval shipyard constituencies that we do not have the capacity for construction anymore unless we purchase the steel required on the international market (ie from China).

Come to think of it I think Kaine, who gets praised frequently here, has thought this through I think.

The issue of "where does it come from if not Wise" has popped up here and on the other related post from today.  

Well, to borrow one of Floodguy's themes (correct me if I'm off): We've got enough power to meet demand most of the time.  It's only a few peak demand situations where we would fall behind in the future - peak demand situations like during midday heat in the summer when everyone is blasting the AC.

So, at least for the short term, we basically aren't using all the power Dominion wants to generate.  And even less so if they get to add the Wise Co. plant.  

As for the minimal periods of deficit, conservation can solve the problem.  I know, we talk about that all the time.  Hell, so does Dominion.  Instead of building a new plant, why don't they put their money where their mouth is and enforce some conservation?   No new power plant is required - just tightening our energy belts a notch and we'll be fine.

I wish I could find the graphic that shows how much can be saved with aggressive conservation program.  

Virginia uses 15% more power per capita than Maryland. That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that  Virginia uses twice as much power per capita than California.  

of usage between the commercial and residential sectors or even military usage in terms of Virginia's power per capita. Our business growth has been one of the greatest increases in the country the last 20 years and of course the military along the coast and Dahlgren must require quite a bit. I think we may be talking about a little more than just individual conservation.