ENERGY + ENVIRONMENT
Federal proposal requiring Mountain Valley Pipeline completion halted
WASHINGTON — A permitting reform proposal by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin that would have required completion of the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline was halted Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer removed the measure from a catchall spending package late in the afternoon after Manchin released a statement calling on him to do so. […]
Amid a massive American clean energy shift, grid operators play catch-up
For the better part of the past century, the American electric power system evolved around large, mostly fossil fuel power plants delivering electricity to residences, businesses and industry through a network of transmission and distribution wires that collectively came to be called the electric grid. But as the threat of climate change driven by carbon […]
Dr. Petrolove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love fossil fuels
We always knew it would come to this. That it would start … out there. Out on the Left Coast where all the loonies live: California, the land of surfboards and wildfires; of Google, Apple and Microsoft; of swimming pools and movie stars. And godless liberals. That’s the sort of place where wild-eyed, un-American ideas […]
Will Governor Youngkin’s energy plan look anything like what the law requires?
What happens when state law requires an anti-clean energy governor to draw up a plan for a zero-carbon energy economy? We’re about to find out. Virginia gives a new governor until Oct. 1 of his first year in office to write a plan “identifying actions over a 10-year period consistent with the goal of the […]
Kaine says Mountain Valley Pipeline provision in Manchin bill ‘could open the door to serious abuse and even corruption’
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) on Thursday sharply criticized a provision of a federal energy permitting reform bill that would force completion of the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, saying that “it could open the door to serious abuse and even corruption.” “If they demonstrate on the merits that they should be entitled to build a […]
Manchin permitting reform bill includes approval of Mountain Valley Pipeline
WASHINGTON – The energy permitting proposal that centrist Democrat U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin III made a condition of his support for the Inflation Reduction Act would impose timelines on federal agencies responsible for approving energy projects, according to text of the measure released late Wednesday. Congressional Democrats are deeply divided over the Manchin permitting bill, with […]
New state funding could help freshwater mussels make a comeback
The Cumberland monkeyface, Pistol-grip and Rayed bean may be some of the most unsung heroes of Virginia’s waterways. All three are types of freshwater mussels, one of the planet’s most unique and underappreciated creatures. But these species have also been vanishing from waterways in alarming numbers for decades. In Virginia, more freshwater mussels than any […]
Regulators approve Dominion bill increase for rising fuel costs; Appalachian Power also seeking hike
Dominion customers will see their monthly electricity bills increase as a result of rising fuel costs, with Appalachian Power Company seeking similar hikes on the same grounds. On Friday, the State Corporation Commission approved the increase for Dominion, which went into effect provisionally on July 1. According to estimates, the average residential customer, defined as […]
A hydrogen plant could rise near a former King George coal plant
Efforts to convert the site of a former coal plant in King George County into a solar and storage facility are being rerouted to develop the parcels surrounding it for an emerging power source: a hydrogen plant. Clark Lemming, a Stafford-based land attorney representing Green Energy Ventures, LLC, told the Virginia Mercury Tuesday the company […]
National approach is more urgent than stopgap funding for Tangier Island
A so-called “doomsday glacier” in Antarctica that could raise sea levels several feet is disintegrating faster than previously predicted, according to a new study. And an analysis by Climate Central, an independent science and communications group, found that because of sea level rise, local governments will face steep cuts in revenues as taxable land is […]
Troubled Fones Cliffs property listed for bankruptcy sale
Nearly 1,000 acres of land at Virginia’s famous Fones Cliffs on the Rappahannock River will be put up for auction at a bankruptcy sale. A listing by New York-based Auction Advisors puts the minimum bid for the property as $4.25 million in an auction to be held Nov. 3. The 977-acre undeveloped property, which is […]
Study projects major local tax losses due to sea level rise
A new analysis by Climate Central finds that as sea level rise shifts tidal lines along the nation’s coast, local governments face potentially steep drops in tax revenue as a sizable amount of once-taxable land is subject to flooding. “Coastal flooding caused by sea level rise is shifting the tide lines that many coastal states […]