Dominion Power is the focus of a new campaign from the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club. "The People Versus Dominion Power" seeks to make the utility accountable on multiple issues. Virginia Sierra Club Director Glen Bessa says they are recruiting people concerned about planned gas pipelines and plans for an additional North Anna nuclear reactor. Bessa says they're also reaching out to people concerned about Virginia's General Assembly giving the power giant relief from state regulation of some rates for 8 years:
“We think if we can bring all these different people together, we could actually create the kind of social movement in the state to begin to hold them accountable or maybe to push back on the power they have over our General Assembly."
Bessa says they believe Dominion Power lacks motivation to adopt clean, renewable technologies because of their big investments in fossil fuels and nuclear power.
“We’re lagging behind North Carolina. We’re lagging behind Maryland. We’re even lagging behind West Virginia, where they have large wind farms and we don’t.”
Dominion Power does have a Renewable Initiatives program listed on their website - with grants for research centers to explore such things as the Development of Onshore Wind Energy in Virginia.
