As Dominion employees gathered in Chesterfield County to tell locals about the plant they hope to build there, dozens of protesters rallied outside – calling on the utility’s CEO to scrap plans for a facility that will increase air pollution.
“Bob Blue, get a clue! Methane’s just not good for you!" they chanted.
Company spokesman Jeremy Slayton claims the plant, which Dominion calls an Energy Reliability Center, is needed to supply power when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
"We’re building the largest offshore wind project in North America. We have the second-largest solar fleet in the nation, but renewables alone cannot keep our customers’ lights on 24/7, 365," he says.
Slayton implies burning gas is the most reliable way ensure power during periods of peak demand.
“Combustion turbines are tried and true technology. During those periods of peak demand, like especially on the hottest days of the year, the coldest days of the year, we’ll be able to turn these on, and they’ll start generating reliable power to keep our customers’ lights on.”
But Victoria Higgins with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network says there’s a better way to ensure reliability.
“Battery storage is not an emerging technology per se, although there are advancements all the time," she explains. "It’s widely in use across the country and across the world, so it’s absurd to argue that we need new fossil fuel resources, when we have zero pollution resources that can do the same job at a fraction of the cost.”
And she warns that the proposed Chesterfield plant would produce even more heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
“Even if this plant were to operate just 15% of the time, that’s the equivalent of adding 120,000 cars to the road each year in terms of carbon pollution.”
Higgins believes Dominion is building fossil fuel infrastructure because it can pass the cost onto consumers while providing the company with a generous rate of return.
“Dominion knows that new fossil fuels are not economically viable anymore and that there is a very small window of opportunity to continue to build them.”
Dominion will need sign off from local officials, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the State Corporation Commission. It hopes to break ground in 2025, with completion of the plant in 2027.
