Ceremonial Groundbreaking on US’s Biggest NatGas Electric Plant
In March 2015, Dominion–a huge natural gas and electric utility as well as a midstream company–announced plans to build the State of Virginia’s (indeed the country’s) largest natural gas powered electric generating plant, in Greensville County, VA (see Virginia’s Largest Electric Plant to be Powered by Marcellus Gas). The $1.3 billion state-of-the-art natural gas-fired electric generating station will generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity. Dominion’s own 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (when built) will provide cheap, abundant, clean-burning Marcellus/Utica Shale gas to power it. In June, Dominion actually broke ground at the construction site (see Dominion Begins Building Virginia’s Biggest NatGas Power Station). However, yesterday there was another groundbreaking for the project–or perhaps it was the ceremonial groundbreaking–or perhaps they actually began to build the structure itself. We’re not sure. What we do know, from reading the article below, is that the local region is pumped about this plant, a plant that will bring $2.5 billion of investment, 1,000 construction jobs to build it, and ongoing tax revenue of more than $8 million a year. No wonder the residents of Greensville County love this project!…
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Are those war drums we hear beating? Perhaps! If you are involved in the oil and gas industry in just about any capacity, it’s hard to miss the story of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and the paid criminal protesters who are trying to stop it (see 
Something noteworthy has happened in Buckingham County, VA. Planning Commission members in the county worked hard to evaluate a request by Dominion for their Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, a request to build a compressor station in Buckingham County. Residents expressed concerns–over noise, air pollution, explosions–you name it. Planning Commission members listened, and in the end, voted to recommend that Dominion be allowed to build the compressor station, as long as they adhere to 40 conditions set forth in the Commission’s recommendation. You see, this is how adults do things. They are reasonable (able to be reasoned with). They listened, closely. They heard the concerns. They devised a plan that will allow Dominion to build the compressor station, but at the same time protect the residents that live near it. Of course that wasn’t good enough for the children-in-adult-bodies who chanted a threat to shut down the pipeline…
The Sierra Club, which may have been founded for good reasons, long ago left the realm of sanity. Sierra Clubbers, as we call them, now live in an alternative universe where clean-burning natural gas and all fossil fuels are from the devil himself. The Clubbers have tried to get multiple LNG (liquefied natural gas) export facilities blocked on the theory that if you cut off the demand you can cut off the supply (i.e. end fracking of new wells). Yeah, crazy. But that’s what they’re trying. Lately they’ve tried to attack and bully both the Dept. of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. With legions of lawyers, they file frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit, hoping if they throw enough legal (ahem) feces against the wall, some it will stick. So far it hasn’t. One of the facilities the Sierra Club continues to fight against is Cove Point LNG in Maryland. They filed an appeal of a Dept. of Energy approval to allow Cove Point to export LNG to non-free trade agreement countries–namely Japan and India. Yep, the Sierra Club doesn’t want us to help out Japan or India. They’d rather have us help Saudi Arabia and Qatar, apparently. After the appeal went nowhere, the Clubbers have no sued in the uber-liberal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Thing is, that very same court recently handed the Sierra Club a defeat in a similar case…
In September midstream giant Dominion completed its $4.4 billion takeover of Questar Corporation (see 
So often very small, loud-mouthed antis appear to be winning the battle that we sometimes forget about the silent majority. Case in point: In reading the typical mainstream media story about Dominion’s $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline–a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina–you would assume the project is reviled and opposed by “everyone” and doomed to failure. But reality if far different from the false picture painted by the media. A poll conducted recently by the Tarrance Group for the Virginia Chamber of Commerce of Virginia residents shows that by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, Virginians support the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. That would be a “landslide victory” if it were an election…
Dominion recently announced a new pipeline project called Eastern Market Access Project. The project will beef up two compressor stations in Virginia, build a new compressor station in Maryland, and add a couple of pipeline taps near Washington, D.C. The purpose of the $145 million project is to deliver more gas to Washington Gas, and to deliver gas to a new gas-fired electric power plant being built in Maryland. We suspect Marcellus/Utica gas will be the added gas flowing to both Washington Gas and the new electric plant in Maryland. [Note: A Dominion spokesman later confirmed to us that the gas will come from either the Marcellus or Utica plays.] You may recall that in May 2015 Washington Gas announced a plan to invest in Marcellus wells in Greene and Clearfield counties in PA (see 
We doubt many MDN readers buy Patagonia outdoor wear (appeals mainly to aging hippies). But just in case, we thought we’d pass along something we noticed. The store chain is making a push to sign up Democrat voters, which doesn’t surprise us. As part of their overt political activism, the Washington, D.C. Patagonia store also elected to bash the Dominion Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. We thing that deserves a call to boycott their stores and their brand…
In October of last year, MDN shared the news that Duke Energy, the largest electric power holding company in the United States and a utility with 7.3 million customers in the southeast and Midwest, announced they are buying Piedmont Natural Gas (see 
In the southeastern U.S. much of the Big Green opposition to pipelines has centered on preventing pipeline companies from entering properties to complete required surveys. If you can stop the process before it begins (so they reason), it saves them from having to hop in the VW Microbus and go to (pot smoking) anti-pipeline rallies all over the place. Peace man! Landowners in West Virginia and Virginia have challenged the rights of various pipeline companies to enter their property. It happened with EQT’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 