Let's tell VA-DEQ to protect our planet
Tell VA-DEQ: NO To Dominion’s Giant Gas-Fired Power Plant
From the Sierra Club of Virginia, March 18, 2016
In 2015, Dominion Resources Inc. announced plans to build what could become the state’s biggest fracked gas plant — the proposed $1.3 billion, 1600-megawatt Greensville County gas plant in Southside Virginia.
This plant is yet another project — like Dominion’s risky 590-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline — that threatens to lock us into decades of continued reliance on fossil fuels when what we need, and what its own customers overwhelmingly support, is clean energy.
Not only would the Greensville gas plant be bad news for the climate, it would put the community of Emporia at risk for increased exposure to toxic air pollutants like beryllium, lead and mercury. And it’s only a few miles from a gas plant that is set to come online later this year.
In January, Virginia’s State Corporation Commission heard Dominion’s plans for the Greensville. Dominion failed to show that Virginia needs this plant, or that it’s the lowest cost option for meeting our future energy needs, but the SEC has yet to decide.
Now Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board needs to hear from you. The board will soon decide whether to issue the air pollution permit the utility needs to move forward. The Department of Environmental Quality will hold a town hall at the Greensville County Government Building in Emporia on March 16th, and will be accepting written comments through March 31.
Contact information: http://sierra.force.com/actions/Virginia?actionId=AR0037740
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Moundsville Power Project Still On Schedule (Marshall County, WV)
From an Article by Alan Olson, Wheeling Intelligencer, January 20, 2016
Moundsville Power officials assured Marshall County commissioners Tuesday that a proposed natural gas-fired power plant several years in the making remains on track.
Developer Andrew Dorn was joined by Myphuong Lam, accounting manager with Quantum Utility Generation, to provide updates on the construction of the natural gas power plant. Lam said the process of confirming the project’s permits is still underway.
“We’re continuing with the permitting process, because that’s one of the key goals of the financing process,” Lam said. “Once we have that in place, we can get the financing done. Once we sign off on the financing, the construction will start. … We are still on the same projection as far as timelines go. There hasn’t been any change.”
Dorn spoke briefly, only saying that the project is awaiting approval of permits from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. “So much is contingent on getting those permits issued. We’ve got to have the air permit, we’ve got to have the water permit,” Dorn said. “Those permits were issued, now they’re being reviewed again. We’ve supplied all the engineering backup, all the data they wanted, and we’re just waiting for the WV-DEP to move on those. Most of the other pieces have fallen in line.”
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Natural Gas Power Plant Planned For Central West Virginia (March 2015)
From an Article by Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, March 5, 2015
Moundsville, WV – Developer Andrew Dorn believes there is enough Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas and ethane to fuel multiple electricity generators throughout West Virginia, starting with the $615 million Moundsville Power facility he plans to have running before June 2018.
Just one day after Dorn’s son, Matt, announced Energy Solutions Consortium’s intention to build two new natural gas power generators near the former Wheeling Corrugating plant in Beech Bottom, the Dorns entered a memorandum of understanding to build another such facility near Clarksburg, WV.
Harrison County Administrator William Parker said the agreement the county’s commissioners entered with ESC Harrison County Power “is very preliminary at this point.”
American Electric Power produces 580 megawatts of natural gas fired electricity at this plant in Dresden, Ohio. Moundsville Power plans to have a similar facility running by 2017.
Curtis Wilkerson, a spokesman for Moundsville Power, Energy Solutions Consortium and ESC Harrison County Power, said the Dorns are the principals for all three firms, but the potential plants are technically separate businesses.
“If this is a 10,000-mile journey, we are on about step three,” Wilkerson said regarding the Beech Bottom and Clarksburg projects. “We have to stress the tentative nature of this.”
Still, Andrew Dorn is “really confident” the Moundsville project will become reality, with earthwork set for the 37-acre portion of land along W.Va. 2 and the Ohio River in “October or November.”
Dorn’s company recently cleared the final construction hurdle for its $615 million generator by receiving its siting permit from the Public Service Commission of West Virginia, as well as the air quality permit from the WV Department of Environmental Protection.
Burning about 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per year, the plant is expected to be the largest consumer of natural gas in West Virginia. It will also be one of the first in the U.S. to burn ethane, according to company officials. “There is currently a glut of ethane in the wet gas area, particularly in Marshall County. There is just so much of it,” Dorn said.
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