Entergy Wholesale Operations, who had planned to construct a 1,000-megawatt power plant in Louisa, has abandoned their plans to do so. They were received quite badly at a public hearing last year, and subsequently withdrew their application in early December. It was thought that they would re-file, but it’s now believed that Entergy’s plans are dead. About 30 power plants are still proposed to be constructed in Virginia. Austin Graham has the story in today’s Progress.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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Several of the proposed (and much despised) power plants in this area have fallen through. Is this because of a general tightening up on availabilty of capital during the last 2 years, or is there some other common factor at work?
Perhaps this is one of the few benefits of a generally sluggish economy. The energy supply in Virginia is already adequate. I’d rather we not make the sacrifices involved in that type of development just to do a favor for other states that don’t have their energy distribution (not supply) under control.
Unfortunately, NIMBY is what caused the critical energy situation in California. While it might be true that Virginia’s energy supply is adequate (I don’t know, I don’t live there anymore!), the reality of power is that you have to start building 10 years AHEAD of the demand to have any hope of keeping up. That’s what California didn’t do.
Also, increasing generation capacity beyond demand isn’t exactly doing other states "a favor"…the excess power is not given away, it’s SOLD, helping the local economy.
Scott
Agreed that you have to build 10 years ahead of what you need. I would love to see some kind of evidence that Virginia will be lacking power supply in 10 years if we don’t build 30 power plants.
So far, I have agreed with the characterization of the problem in California as being a problem with distribution rather than a problem with supply. If you can direct me to some sources of information to the contrary, my mind could be changed.
Can you tell me what kind of taxes Virginia levies on energy sold to other states? Because if I an not mistaken (perhaps I am), taxes will be collected by the state of the purchaser. Virginia cannot levy export taxes. So I’m not sure how selling energy will help our local economy. There may be a small number of unskilled jobs available to local workers, but not enough to compensate for the trade-off in quality of life that the rest of us experience. I guess that there are property taxes at first, but depreciation on business assets accelerates so fast that there would be no substantial gains to the public in the long run.
I would have less of a problem with building more power plants in Virginia if we had law requiring decomissioning bonds. When those power plants cease to be profitable, we will be stuck with them blighting the landscape and the public will bear the cost of their removal. And frankly, at the pace that fuel cell technology is moving along, I am not entirely convinced that centralized electricity production will continue to be profitable beyond the next 10 years. When you can install an appliance for a few thousand dollars that converts hydrogen and free oxygen into power on demand, there’s not much reason to keep writing checks to the power company every month.
Companies like GE and General Motors are already betting billions of dollars on this shift in power consumption.