Wise County Coal Plant (VA)

 A coalition of citizens from Wise County and conservation groups, including SELC, continue their opposition to a coal-burning power plant in rural southwest Virginia. Among other problems, the power plant would boost air pollution in the region, accelerate mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, and increase carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.

The Wise Energy for Virginia campaign was launched in 2007 to stop the plant and to pressure the state and electric utilities to take aggressive steps to increase energy efficiency, conservation and renewable sources to meet future energy demands in the Commonwealth.

Anything But Clean

Though touted as a state-of-the-art “clean coal” facility, the power plant being built by Dominion Virginia Power will be anything but clean. The facility design uses outdated technology that will result in annual emissions of 5.4 million tons of carbon dioxide―equivalent to the annual carbon output of all the vehicles on the road in metropolitan Richmond.

The Wise County plant also will intensify the environmental destruction wrought by mountaintop removal mining, in which companies blast the tops off Appalachian mountains to expose coal seams and dump rock, rubble  and slurry in nearby valleys, destroying hundreds of streams and ecosystems. 

SELC Takes Action

Although SELC helped convince Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board to demand stricter limits on harmful emissions from the plant (resulting in an 82 percent reduction in sulfur dioxide and a 94 percent reduction in mercury from what was originally proposed), the facility’s air pollution permits are seriously flawed. Representing the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition, SELC has gone to court to overturn the air permits, which violate numerous sections of the Clean Air Act and fail to rein in the plant’s enormous carbon footprint.   

The permits also fail to set strict limits for fine particulate matter (soot) at levels necessary to protect public health. Soot pollution from coal-fired power plants has been linked to dire health effects, including decreased lung function, aggravated asthma, development of chronic bronchitis, heart attacks, and premature death. 

In addition, we led efforts to pass strong new laws in the 2009 General Assembly for energy efficiency throughout the state. Although the final legislation doesn’t achieve everything we’d hoped for, it represents a compromise among the many stakeholders and a step in the right direction. The legislation allows utilities to recover costs for energy efficiency in the same manner they do for traditional sources, such as power plants. This should provide strong incentives for the utilities to start energy efficiency programs, such as weatherization, smart metering, lighting and heating programs that will reduce electricity consumption, lower consumer costs, and forestall the need for building more coal-fired power plants.

In response to this new legislation, utilities are expected to submit plans to the State Corporation Commission for launching new efficiency programs. In addition, the state efficiency law mandates that the SCC file a report on Virginia’s energy efficiency potential. SELC will play a central role in these proceedings and will continue to press for meaningful, cost-effective investments in energy efficiency as an alternative to conventional, coal-fired power.