Mountain Madness

New coal plant approved in Virginia, may fuel mountaintop-removal mining

Posted at 11:53 AM on 26 Jun 2008

An embattled $1.8 billion coal plant slated for Wise County, Va., was granted pollution permits Wednesday by a state regulatory board, allowing construction to proceed. The company that will be building the 585-megawatt plant, Dominion Resources, promised local officials it would only source coal from within Virginia; that move is expected to fuel increased mountaintop-removal mining in the state. Air officials were quick to point out that they issued permits for air pollution at drastically lower levels than Dominion had requested -- some 80 percent lower for both sulfur dioxide and mercury. As part of the deal, Dominion agreed to switch its oldest coal-fired power plant in Virginia to natural gas. When construction of the new coal plant is finished around 2012, it's expected to produce some 5.3 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

sources: The Washington Post, The Guardian, Associated Press
see also, in Gristmill: Dominion Power's dirty plans for Virginia
see also, in Gristmill: Forest Service objects to Va. 'clean coal' plant that would be one of state's biggest polluters

ADVERTISING POLICY

Comments: (4 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Better than Nothing I suppose

I certainly had hoped for better news, though I can't say driving to Richmond was completely useless

by Orfintain at 4:17 PM on 26 Jun 2008

Net CO2

You didn't say how much CO2 the old plant is producing. What is the net gain (or loss) by swapping out this cleaner coal plant for the old coal plant?

by jabailo at 4:40 PM on 26 Jun 2008

That's what I was wonderin'...

...comparin' the new emissions from the natural gas plant, and combinig those with the emissions from the new plant, will there be a total net loss/gain when this is all said and done.

But also, it should be noted that just because they only gave out permits at lower levels than what was requested, that the plant will actually stick to those levels.

It's not uncommon at all for plants to exceed their permitted levels, and fines are fairly rare for such events.

by Tasermons Partner at 8:14 AM on 27 Jun 2008

Pony up the cash!

Who's financing this abomination?

by catman at 7:08 PM on 28 Jun 2008

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?