CEAC-2020-04-April

Supporters of the legislation say retiring fossil
fuel-fired generation is an essential step
in moving the state toward a renewable
energy future and helping stem the tide of
climate change.
“How many years have we wasted since that
plant decision was made and put in place?”
said Kathy Selvage, a Wise County native
and the daughter of a coal miner who
helped lead the fight against the Virginia
City Hybrid Energy Center more than a
decade ago.
The facility was one of the last coal plants
built in the United States. Only 10 others
have come online since the $1.8 billion facility
went into operation in 2012, and only
two are currently proposed anywhere in the
country, according to the most recent data
available from the federal Energy Information
Administration.
The plant’s advocates have emphasized that
the plant is capable of burning gob — which
stands for garbage of bituminous — a mining
waste product that over the course of
decades has been left in more than 100 piles
across southwest Virginia.
Environmentalists say that’s not reason
enough to keep open a plant that emitted
more than 3 tons (2.7 metric tons) of carbon
dioxide in 2018, the most recent year for
which federal records are available, equivalent
to the emissions from nearly 600,000
cars driven for a year.
Despite President Donald Trump’s efforts
to boost the coal industry, utilities are
increasingly retiring coal-fired power plants
because the dropping prices of natural gas
and renewable energy technology have
made them less economical. Apart from the
Wise County plant, Dominion has previously
laid out plans to retire all its other coal-fired
power plants by 2025 at the latest.
One of the bill’s patrons, Democratic Sen.
Jennifer McClellan, said during debate over
Chafin’s amendment that the plant only
operates 25 percent of the time.
A closure would gut the budgets of the town of St. Paul and
Wise County, where the plant is located. O’Quinn warned it
could send them careening toward bankruptcy.
In Wise County, the plant contributes about $8.4 million out
of a $56 million budget, and in St. Paul it accounts for about
$2 million out of the $3.8 million annual budget, local officials
told The Associated Press.
No matter when the plant closes, Dominion will recover its
costs associated with the facility from customers, said Ken
Schrad, a spokesman for the State Corporation Commission.
The average residential customer is currently paying about
$4 a month for the plant.
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