and many pressures, I am sure; and, with the best will in the world, many of the needs of his constituents are incompatible with each other, so there has to be an ordering of priorities. The science on climate change is in a very volatile state, with new discoveries and new research coming online almost daily, and the layperson cannot keep up, especially considering the cacophony rising from anti-science quarters, so Kaine may not really grasp how almost overnight there is a horrible new urgency---- we may not have the time to debate this much longer, before it is too late. Really.

It's difficult for the non-scientist to follow the sometimes involved connections between increased carbon-dioxide to global warming to change of ocean currents or connectors, to how global warming can end up triggering another Ice Age and a consequent mass extinction, for example.

Kaine needs to read "Under a Green Sky" by Dr. Peter Ward(Smithsonian Books, published by Harper-Collins). It is guaranteed to curl your hair (even if you have none).  If our overworked Governor does not have the time to do so, maybe someone could provide him with a Reader's Digest condensed or precis version.  

With that said, what is going to stop the slew of penalties facing the highests emitter of GHG, like Dominion Power?  Mind you, Lieberman-Warner is now out on the floor in Congress.  

Mt. Storm is an intermittent coal plant, but its still ranks 55th in the nation out of all generators.  When that 500kv line is installed, Mt. Storm will operate 24/7 and being some 50 years old, its GHG emisions it will place it near the top in the nation.  The same can be said for all of these new fossil-fuel burning proposals.  Dominion already powers most of its custmoers with coal plants across the state!  And when state utilities get hit with the cost for its fossil-fuel generation, you and I will have to pay the bill.  

A few weeks back, I posted a diary regarding the FERC Chairman acknowledgement to the power industry and state regulators, that they should no longer consider coal just because it is a cheap fuel.  This is no longer a reality.  Coal is now expensive due to construction costs and the coming realities of expenses associated with new emissions policies.  With the price of kWh from coal increasing, other alternative resources are no longer as expensive as they once were perceived, and are now worthy for consideration across the board.  This is what is being realized in states like CA, OR, NM, AZ, NV, KS, FL, TX, MD, NC, SC and others.  All these states or their primary state's utilities have taken action against new coal plants (until CCS) and have turn to other means.  

Meanwhile, with a democratic Governor and a democratic majority in the state senate no less, Virginia is just bending over for Dominion power and the will of the Northeast.  In order to understand Virginia's energy dilemma, one needs to understand how the northeast plays into this matter, and this can be done by understanding EPACt of 2005, the roll of the PJM and the DOE and PJM lovechild, the national transmission corridor (NIETC).

In the northeast, democrats dominate state politics for the most part.  Because of environmental pressure, they are able to retire their old power plants, but instead of building their own power sources, they are able to turn towards others in order to meet their own electricity needs.  Sure they are installing renewables but they are falling well short of demand.  Plus those sources are intermittent and unreliable.  The regions tranmission authority, the PJM (which stands for Pennsylvannia, Jersey and Maryland), is enabling the northeast to import its power, and simply put, Dominion has gone along with it.  The northeast will now get more and more of it powers from southern and western states like WV-VA-OH.  Utilities in those 3 states are offering to build coal-fired plants for them.  In fact, these states are so welcoming to new generation, a generation operator out of New Jersey now is proposing to build a new 853 MW gas generator b/n Gainesville and Manassas!  

MD, DC, NJ, PA, DE and NY get to have reduced C02 and increased EEC in exchanged for increased C02 and greater EEC in our neck-of-the-woods.  By retiring old inefficient power plants (7 so far and counting) C02 will decrease and EEC will increase.  Now in order to meet RPS goals, state utilities only need to install or buy renewables.  The plan works well for those states.  The northeast with its higher RPS standards & EEC goals, generation operators are being driven out of the northeast to capitalize on their energy needs in states were standards are lower.  (Do you smell the need for a national RPS instead of states?)

Meanwhile, Virginia risks picking up the tab for the increased C02 production, decreases in air quality, and the sight of smoke stacks and 500'foot transmission towers.  The inefficiency created when old plants like Mt. Storm or the C02 producing plants like the 5 distilled oil fuel generators in Woodbridge run full-time will generate expenses which will need to be paid.  

Conservative, liberal, environmentalist, skeptic... it doesn't matter how you are.  A few decades ago, NJ was considered the industrial dumping grounds for the energy needs of NYC and Long Island.  Today, Virginia, along with WV and OH stand on becoming the NEW JERSEY for the i-95 northeast corridor.  

PS - we'll have this discussion again around 2016-2022 when Dominion seeks permits to build 4 more reactor @ North Anna.  Last year Dominion was forecasting 8 reactors total by 2030.  Imagine the sight of that transmission superhighway.  

your argument, just pointing out that Kaine faces a lot of problems, and requires a lot of reliable information at once. When the Commonwealth has steadily increasing needs for energy, what are we to do today? Give the man some credit, he usually does try to Do The Right Thing, but how can he without the necessary information or data to inform his decision? He needs help, as do a lot of other people, which is why I suggested Green Sky for deep background info. You have some very persuasive points to make, is Kaine aware of them? What do you propose as an alternative?  

however, the opinions that matters, Dept of MME and committee members in the GA were already approached by Dominion and the rest is history.  

Granted it is difficult to meet tougher renewable and efficiency goals when growth is high.  However, if all we were concerned with was this state's capacity and its ability to meet is own needs, then like NERC stated just in 2005/6, the state of Virginia's capacity and grid was of "no concern."  This changed overnight with the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  The next thing we know the DOE was imposing our region with transmission corridor status and seven (7) grid expansion proposals, six which utilize fossil fuels, have been introduced w/i the last 15 months.  

The solution?  

How about a federal or regional RPS for starters.  State's utility planning is already superceded by the regional transmission operator, while generation capacity improvements are not.  The RTO's acknowledge they cannot control generation planning, so they plan transmission accordingly.  Hence certain states have to bear the brunt of generation planning, which because of political environments differing from state-to-states, inequities develops.  The state of Arizona is fighting California and the western RTO for this same very reason.  That region was slapped with the nation's only other national transmission corridor as well.  

States developed their own RPS because this pro-energy administration had been to slow to act on the environment.  This has allowed some states a head-start to implement favorable environmental policy, which because of regional tranmission planning and state generation planning, has impeded other states with less pro-environmental policies to now do the same.  Virginia cannot meet the same renewable and efficiency standards as its northeast neighbors, because the region's RTO is allowing capacity to be exported.  Exported capacity costs more, so Dominion is rushing in cheaper fossil-fuel capacity before price increase take affect and it becomes too late for them.  Once the policy is set in place, the right-of-way is established, then next the infrastruture is constructed.  Dominion is about to successfuly deliver a strategy which will increase its cash-cow status for its shareholders.  

Seems like a made up conspiracy?  Remember early on this adminstration's state of the union addresses? Bush vowed to revamp the energy industry?  Dominion's own VP was on the Bush Energy transmission team in 2000.  Their first attempt to enact new energy policy failed in 2001.  After the blackout and 9/11, new policy was drafted in 2003 and passed in 2005 by the GOP Congress.  When the policy was introduced by to public, the keynote speaker was none other than the Chairman and CEO of the PJM.  Dominion was not only first in-line with its transmission proposal, they proposed their line before the corridor was ever approved.  With the likelihood of CCS and nuclear expansion, 8 total reactors stated by 2030, Dominion will be more than happy to supply the northeast with this state's capacity, because everything has been put in place for them to do so.  

Virginia's energy dilemma is badly politicized.  Opposition to the 500kv transmission line not only won Republican support, it created Democratic opposition in favor of Dominion!  The reverse can be said with Wise County and pro-environmental energy bills defeated by conservatives against Whipple and Peterson.  

Imagine, a local county in Nova having the areas 1st and only resolution to reduce energy consumption within its county governmental buidlings and operations.  Would you believe the only one's oppposed were the two democrats on the board!  There was no reason given, except the obvious distrust of the other side.  

Other solutions should follow the lead of California - rank energy efficiency and conservation (EEC) first in load order.  A state's utility should be forced to demonstrate they have exhausted such resources before appealing to others for capacity.  The goal is reduce the footprint, that means in the air and the land.  EEC does just that.  Increases "usable" capacity, cost the least, doesn't affect the land nor the air, and has to political or public opposition.  So why is the indusry against it?  Capacity improvements have always equated to increased marketshare.  The tenticles of revenue receipts expand with new generation and transmission.  That's has been the 60 year-old practice for the power industry, and EEC doesn't provide indusry with this advantage as traditional expansion does.

Change rate pricing from revenues-based to time-of-use, a more dynamic pricing method based on supply and demand.  Given a choice, customers will undoubtely choose more wisely which will result in demand reduction..  

This can be easily accomodated with the implementation of smart grid equipment.  Why not invest in the grid, instead of always investing to expand the grid?  Mandate incentives to establish greater utilization of an intelligent grid: smart metering, smart switches, more efficient powerplants, t&d delivery equipment.

Utilize existing utility right of ways before breaking new ground.  Public planning can be turned upside down when policy provided by regional transmission and state generation planning are not meshed across state-lines with a long-term vision in mind.  

Earlier this week, the Galvin Institute put out this flyer - it runs right down our alley.  

Imagine, the vast majority of power plants in this nation spend about half of the electricity available to generate, on the process of generation itself.  Then some 15-20% of the capacity is lost because old and inefficient T&D equipment lets it all slip away.  Then the end-user is permitted to use electricity, unknowingly wasting it at a period in time when it is the most expensive, which is the primary cause for grid expansion itself.  No other industry functions this way, all while it has the most layers of governmental regulatory bodies and agencies overseeing itself.  This is what happens when there is no competition in an industry and government is in charge for the most part - expensive and inefficient.