Meanwhile the liberals and democratic leaning states and localities north of us, are able to clean up their states and shut-down their dirty power plants. States more skeptical about global warming and are consequentially more friendly to big energy, get the honor of being stuck with all the grid expansion, the environmental pollution, the sight of the industrialization of their communities, decreased property values, and coming higher utilities bills.

* Natural gas, up 25% in the last 12 months.
* Ozone standards tightening passed by the administration on March 12th will heavily penalize fossil-fuel emitters like Dominion and LS Power.
* Cap-n-trade and/or GHG tax coming this summer will hand out additional financial penalties.
* 6 of the 7 grid expansion proposals linked to Virginia are based on fossil-fuel. The 7th is nuclear but that won’t come online until 2015-6 at the earliest.

Novec having a choice? Please, when the choice is dictated by the market, and Novec or PWC will no more of an of an advantage than would New Jersey or D.C. or the city of Alexandria, Va.

When price caps expire this summer, thanks to pro-energy constituents who support Dominion and its re-regulation bill, and when states’ utilities who provide electricity via fossil-fuel, get hit by federally mandated improvements to clean their emissions, or get fined, and that’s before any cap-n-trade or GHG tax bill, you’re just going to blame the influences of liberal environmentalists in Richmond or on Capitol Hill, when in fact it was you who were to busy sitting on your hands when you had the chance.

Wake up! Big energy are opportunists. They don’t care if you are conservative and oppose global warming. They are in it for the money and will invest where regulation is weak and higher profitability exists. Red states and red counties “loyalists” have their guard down and are getting stuck with the pain.

Not only will it create jobs and tax revenue but offers Novec with choices other than Dominion, which may result in lower utility costs for residents.

If the county negotiates wholesale pricing for it’s own use, they can reduce a significant expense in the school and county budgets and, if we’re lucky that savings will be passed on to the tax payers.

It’s good for the economy, and the environment.

That’s my effort of a compound-word meaning jurisdictions + dictatorship.

Look at the RPS and EEC goals for the northeast? All are above national averages. Now look at states like VA, pretty low huh?

Liberal northeast states with green ambitions are being able to accomplish higher renewable standards and efficiency goals, then brag about their greeniness, only because they are replacing their dirty power plants with dirty power plants in VA, WV and OH.

If you can’t comprehend what I’m talking about as far as the northeast goes, take the very liberal city of Alexandria and their constant complaining and legal action against Mirant, the DOE and the EPA for the 485 MW coal-plant there on the Potomac River. I guarantee you that plant will shutdown by 2012. The plant has been teetering on the brink since 2003. Check out the permit page on the DOE/OE website. With enough fines and forced upgrades, the old plant will no longer be profitable to operate. That’s the city’s and their environmentalist attorneys goal.

What will replace Mirant’s Potomac River plant? Some rural or moutainous community in Virginia which doesn’t have the clout to fight the big energy company, will have to bear the burden for Alexandria’s energy appetite. Oh coincidentally, Dominion Power has proposed a coal plant in Wise County with 500 MW capacity, to be operational by 2012.

What Alexandria will do to Wise County, is what DC to NYC is doing to VA, WV and OH.

Come on, are you telling me you sympathize with the “green” citizens of Alexandria, and in Northeast?

Just look how much electricity is actually generated in Fairfax County, Arlington and Alexandria compared to its energy needs? And like the Northeast, those folks vote predominantly for who - politicans who support big-energy or support a pro-global warming agenda?

Energy companies are opportunists. They don’t care that you support conservative ideals, or that you are a loyal conservative fighting against the Algore-inspired Lieberman-Warner bill.

How long is it going to take for conservative red-county voters to realize that “falling in-line supporting BIG ENERGY” has gotten you nothing but increase electricity bills, 500′foot transmission towers and now 300′foot tall smoke stacks.

“Ah, its good for the economy”

Please Greg, this is not one of your better efforts.

I better start holding my breath, lest I “pollute” the environment.

I’m against the generator for several reasons, a few I listed above. But here’s something that hasn’t been discussed here.

There is a mass fevor building w/i our Congress about cap and trade and a tax on GHG emissions. Without a doubt, the costs for exceeding emission standards will be passed down to ratepayers. Dominion Power is one of the top emitters of C02 and GHG, in fact Virginia is ranked 9th out of the nation, as having the highest increase in C02 emission for all of 2007.

Here’s a list of what is developing here in Virginia which will affect all Virginians who buy electricity:

1. Dominion & Allegheny 500kv transmission proposal if passed, will mean the oft-intermittent 1581 MW coal-fired Mt. Storm power station will operate full-time. Mt. Storm is ~50 year old plant and even though it is operated intermittently, it is the 55th top C02 polluting plant in the nation. In 2000-3, Dominion had to pay millions in penalties for negligently allowing Mt. Storm to pollute the area.

2. Dominion in April of 2007, proposed to the SCC a 300 MW gas power plant in Caroline County.

3. Earlier this month, Dominion proposed a 851 MW generator in Buckingham County.

4. Last year, Dominion proposed a 853 MW old-style coal plant in Wise County.

5. PEPCO will be seeking to run a 500kw transmission line from Possom Point power station in Woodbridge, to export electricity to southern Jersey. Possom Pt. has 12 generators and 5 of them are oil-fired, and don’t run 100% of the time unless capacity is maxxed out. With the new line installed, Possom Pt. will operate full-time.

6. Now we have LS Power proposing 853 MW worth of gas generation.

All this increased C02 = penalties for exceeding GHG emissions= increase rates.

SECONDLY, understand what is happening in the northeast! Democrats and pro-environmental influences, it can be safely said, dominate state politics up there. With that, they have higher RPS & Efficiency goals. They have been able to force the shutdown of many generators (7 now and counting). With the installment of new renewables, utilities are now able to meet their RPS and efficiency goals, although they have less capacity to keep energized their customers.

Enter the PJM and the DOE’s lovechild, the National Transmission Corridors (NIETC). The policy is now to have generation capacity in VA, WV and OH imported to DC, MD, DE, PA, NJ and NY. Those states get to retire old power plants, those states get to have cleaner air, and renewable generation, while states like ours become the industrial dumping grounds like New Jersey was for NY City in the 50s and 60s. State politicans and regulation is so friendly to this policy, generation utilities like LS Power from those northeast i-95 states, are now coming to Virginia to construct electricity generation to export to meet their state’s energy needs!

This policy hurts conservatives and liberals alike in this county and in this state. This policy will net only greater costs for state ratepayers, more pollution, more unsightly transmission towers and smoke stacks. And you think this power plant will increase county revenue? Its only because the county will tax it and guess what happens then? The generator operator will just pass the bill to its customers.

This is bogus. The northeast and NOVA for that matter, needs to demonstrate they have exhausted all resources within their state and their state’s utilities, including maximizing energy efficiency and conservation programs, FIRST, before burdening other states and their citizens for their energy consuming needs.

That’s who will probably be building it.

Nuclear power? Great idea, but I don’t think there’s enough open land in PWC to support a plant.

I spoke with an energy expert at the State Department who is inclined to think that the power line technology is outdated, and that small “nuclear” power plants strategically located near the community in which it serves may be the best solution moving forward.

The biggest question is whether or not this will replace the need for the proposed high speed transmission lines. It will eliminate the need for additional energy resources as claimed by Dominion Power.

Our Nation’s power grid is an old DOS based grid that needs desperately to be replaced. I believe that Dominion hasn’t been upfront, and that they are actually helping rebuild the Nation’s electrical grid and in return Dominion is being compensated by a higher rate of sell through. This saves the federal government millions if not billions of dollars.

For Prince William, I would be willing to accept a power plant in place of the proposed power lines but would want to explore natural gas vs nuclear and take into consideration public safety and homeland security.

The electricity this plant will generate will be mighty expensive.

Ridiculous.

One is the need for generation in NOVA, foreseen demand growth in the state, generation retirement in the NE leading to transmission congestion from the west to the east.

Simply placing a new power plant here in NOVA will do nothing to ease the congestion of transmitted electrons trying to travel from generation sources to our west in the coal fields of in the Ohio River valley, to the load centers in the east along i-95 from DC to NYC.

Dominion also just purchased a company, who has the right build two 600 MW gas plants in the greater DC area. That company is called CP Warren and the proposals are in Warren County and St. Charles.

Also, Dominion just filed for a new gas generation proposals in Caroline and Buckingham Counties.

Everyone complains that “Not-In-My-Back-Yard” is some sort of selfish strategy. Virginia, the SCC, and our state’s assembly has been fairly polite and selfless these pass few years, and because of it, the state and Prince William County will stand to suffer even more. And with price regulations expiring this summer, we’ll not only have to pay more for our electricity, but we’ll have the added enjoyment of watching construction crews build 500′foot tall transmission towers and smoke stacks around where we live.

I’m not so sure about that.

Firstly, the study site is on the east side of i-66 and north of PWC Parkway on Balls Ford. The site already has a substation and a natural gas pipeline so the infrastructure for the most part is there.

This site is also pretty close to residential developments in Manassas. Considering that our area’s prevailing winds are SW pre-frontal and NW post-frontal, with the prevailing winds during the hot hazy dogs days of summer more southerly, I think that their will be alot of outrage from the City of Manassas. This doesn’t appear to me to be the type of “heavy industry” regular folks had in mind.

The smoke stacks would clearly be visible from the battlefield and neighboring residential areas, as one of the methods used to avoid emission problems is to build taller smoke stacks. Consequently, this could also pose problems for the local airport(s).

Secondly, why is it accepted that PWC has to be the industrial dumping ground for all of Northern Virginia? This county can’t be counted on again and again to take one for the rest of NOVA.

From the EIA:

City of Alexandria 511 MW with 482 MW soon to be retired
County of Fairfax 88 MW, none since 1994
County of Prince William 1758 MW, 545 MW since 2003
County of Arlington, zero
County of Loudoun, zero

If the power is needed for the greater NOVA region, then why can’t other counties contribute their fair share? Arlington and Loudoun have installed ZERO low-emission small generators and Fairfax hasn’t done anything since 1994. (FYI - Fort Belvoir expansion will self-generate.)

Undoubtedly, Dominion Power will say this proposal will forestall nothing for its 500kv transmission proposal. The northern subgrid of our state is being drained to supply the electricity needs from the i-95 corridor from DC to NYC. The northeast is being drained because of 5 power plant retirements in NJ, 2 power plant retirements in D.C., two new transmission lines from northern NJ to Long Island, and a stalled transmission proposal from upstate NY to NYC. The drain in the northern subgrid is affected the state’s southern subgrid which is where the new Wise County coal plant comes into play.

It doesn’t make sense that citizens of Virginia have to bear the burden for other state’s need for more energy consumption. Why doesn’t the law support energy efficiency and conservation first before grid expansion on others who don’t need the new electricity?

Tell me something - The northeast is heavily Democratic & liberally leaning who support green renewable energy. Why are they opting to allow more Republican & conservative leaning states like Virginia, where states politicans don’t support green renewable energy, to build power plants which will generate high amounts of C02. If global warming is a big issue for these Democrats and liberals in the northeast, why are they allowing the industry to support their energy needs with carbon producing resources? Its hypocritical and Virginia and now Prince William County citizens may have to bear the burnt of their political shenanigans.

Sure the proposal will be good for the county industrial economics and perhaps decrease residential property taxes. When those tax decreases take affect, it wouldn’t much matter, as the residential region on the north-end of PWC will have already taken a substantial hit due to its decreased marketability from a large 873 MW belching gas power plant.

No way. Find other solutions for the Northeast’s energy problems and find better industry more suited for this county.

One consideration in approving the permits should be the degree of security LS Power Group builds into its plans. A terrorist attack on a natural gas plant so close to a congested residential area would result in significant casualties.