“Peaker plants” are small electric generating plants that produce electricity for brief periods during high demand. Older peakers were often powered by oil. Newer peakers are powered by natural gas. In early November Dominion Energy floated an RFP (request for proposal) for companies to build a series of peakers (no smaller than 50 megawatts) totaling a combined 1,500 MW to come online beginning 2022 in Virginia. A month later, following criticism from a competitor, Dominion has canceled the RFP…at least for now.
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Category: Virginia
4th Circus Grills Dominion Lawyers About “Racist” Compressor Stn
Of all the issues that drives us crazy, this one is near or at the top of the list–the charge that building a low-emissions compressor station for Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) about an hour outside of Richmond, Virginia is “racist” because it will be built in a community founded by emancipated slaves following the Civil War. The so-called “environmental justice” issue.
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Out-of-State, Paid Protesters Continue to Hassle MVP in WV, VA
What appears to be an organized, ongoing effort to stop legal construction activity for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) continues in both Virginia and West Virginia. Out-of-state (paid) protesters chain themselves to equipment and block roads in a “death by a thousand cuts” approach to prevent the completion of the 85% completed MVP project. Is it time to bring racketeering charges against the groups and people behind these activities? We think it is.
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Virginia Approves Marcellus-Fired Power Plant Project Near Richmond
MDN first told you about plans to build the Chickahominy Power Station, a 1,650 megawatt state-of-the-art natural gas-fired power plant, in June 2018 (see Huge New Marcellus-Fired Power Plant Coming Near Richmond, VA). We’d not heard or read anything about the project since March of this year (see Marcellus-Fired Power Plant Project Near Richmond, VA Advances). However, there has been an important new development.
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VA DEQ Stops Works on Tiny 2-Mile Segment of Mountain Valley Pipe
It appears the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has become politicized. Why is it that leftists (like Va. Gov. Ralph Northam) politicize what are supposed to be impartial government agencies? The DEQ has issued a “stop work” order to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) for construction activities along a tiny two-mile stretch in Montgomery County. Fine, if there are issues, stop the work. It’s the highly politicized and inappropriate press release the DEQ issued that accompanied the stop work order we object to.
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Mountain Valley Pipe “Critical” to Roanoke Gas Customers
Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile natural gas pipeline from West Virginia into Virginia (being built by Equitrans Midstream) is now 85% complete. Lawsuits are holding up completion of the pipeline, now expected to be done in mid-2020. The project has faced opposition from a small but dedicated group of loons willing to break the law (see Left-Wing Radical Arrested, Removed from MVP Excavator in Va./). Roanoke Gas is stepping up to say MVP and the gas it will bring to the region is “critical” for their gas customers.
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18 Virginia Legislators Oppose Atlantic Coast Pipe, 122 Don’t
A small cabal of 18 leftist Virginia state legislators sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulator Commission (FERC) last week trash talking the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) proposed by Dominion Energy. The odious Sierra Club “applauds these legislators for standing up to polluting corporations like Dominion Energy that are putting their profits over people.” Same old tripe the Clubbers always peddle. What the Sierra Club doesn’t tell you is that there are 140 Virginia legislators, meaning 122 legislators either support, or certainly don’t oppose, ACP. Translation: The vast majority of Virginia residents and their representatives are in favor of ACP.
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Left-Wing Radical Arrested, Removed from MVP Excavator in Va.
A long-haired hippie chained himself to the top of an excavator being used to construct the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) last Friday in Montgomery County, Va. He stopped construction for six hours. A small group of radicalized protesters stood nearby using megaphones to shout support for their comrade and to hurl foul language against workers building the pipeline (typical antis). Around midday, Virginia State Police used a lift to reach and remove the hippie, promptly arresting him.
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MVP Work on Streams/Rivers in WV & VA May Restart Soon
Last week the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, being built by Equitrans Midstream, got a boost from the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection (WVDEP). WVDEP has submitted a revised stream/river crossing permit previously rejected by a federal court. The reworked permit means construction will once again resume in some areas where it’s currently stalled, maybe by mid-year.
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Radicals Try to Use Weakened Va. Gov. Northam to Defeat Pipeline
Anti-fossil fuel radicals really know no depths to which they won’t sink. Democrat Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, elected last year, has been embroiled in several controversies that would have driven a Republican out of office long ago. He was pictured in a 1984 yearbook either wearing blackface or a Ku Klux Klan robe–he won’t say which. Yet he’s still in office.
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Radicals Continue Tree Sitting >200 Days in SW VA to Protest MVP
We thought the tree sitting weirdos trying to illegally block construction of Equitrans’ Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in Virginia had long returned to earth. But as we reported in early March, there are still a couple of wackos sitting, still engaging in a crime, in Montgomery County, VA (see Still a Few “Tree Sitters” Left Blocking Section of MVP in Va.). An illegal out-of-towner from Texas (24 years old) has now been up his tree for over 200 days and counting.
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Marcellus-Fired Power Plant Project Near Richmond, VA Advances
Local media in Charles County County, Va. is shocked and surprised at how little opposition there is to a planned new mammoth Marcellus-fired electric generating plant coming to the county. The Chickahominy Power Station, as it’s called, will be a 1,650 megawatt state-of-the-art natural gas-fired power plant (see Huge New Marcellus-Fired Power Plant Coming Near Richmond, VA). A public comment period closed yesterday and by all appearances, this project will indeed receive state approval and will get built–with little opposition.
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FERC Issues Timeline to Decide on Mountain Valley Pipe Expansion
Equitrans’ 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from West Virginia to southern Virginia is now 70% done (see Shocker: Mountain Valley Pipeline Now 70% Built, Online by 4Q19). Last November MVP filed a new project plan with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to expand MVP *another* 70 miles south, into North Carolina (see EQT Makes it Official, Files with FERC to Extend MVP into NC).
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Va. Water Control Board Shocks Antis re Vote on MVP Water Permit
Gloom, despair and agony on me. That’s how we would describe the reaction of fossil fuel haters who thought they had successfully bullied Virginia’s Water Control Board members into revoking a permit earlier granted to the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. But last week the Board voted to NOT revoke the previously issued permit. That sent the antis into despair…and into a rage.
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Still a Few “Tree Sitters” Left Blocking Section of MVP in Va.
We thought the tree sitting weirdos trying to block construction of Equitrans’ Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in Virginia had long returned to earth. The last of the sitters, at least in Franklin County, VA, came down last May (see Last MVP Tree Sitter in Franklin Co. Comes Down, Trees Cut). What we didn’t know is that there are at least two other sitters in Montgomery County, VA–one of whom has been up a tree for more than five months.
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Al Gore Calls Atlantic Coast Pipe Compressor Station “Racist”
The race-baiting, bloated old windbag Al Gore has popped up again, coming out of his massive fossil fuel-powered mansion, traveling to Virginia via fossil fuel-powered motorcade, sitting in a fossil fuel-heated church with a handful of black folks to pronounce Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s plan to build a compressor station nearby is “reckless” and a “vivid example of environmental racism.”
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