Dominion Energy | Electrical Generation | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Statewide VA | Virginia
Dominion Contemplates Building More Gas-Fired Power Plants in Va.
Even though Dominion Energy sold its interstate pipeline network in 2020 (see Dominion Cancels Atlantic Coast Pipe, Sells Pipe Biz for $9.7B) and is now rumored to be interested in selling its local gas distribution pipeline network (see WSJ, Utilities Pursue Pipeline Sales as Natural-Gas Bans Catch On), Dominion hasn’t completely forsworn all fossil energy. According to a report by the Associated Press, Dominion, via a report filed with the Virginia State Corporation Commission, contemplates a future of building new small natural gas-fired power plants to feed the electric grid in Virginia.
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Disappointing news has been a constant this week–and it’s only Tuesday! Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court proved that sometimes it’s not so supreme. The high court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who are arguing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia.
Last August, Columbia Gas Transmission (a subsidiary of TC Energy) filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the Virginia Reliability Project (VRP), which includes two new compressor units and the replacement of 49 miles of existing pipeline (see 
Yesterday the 303-mile, 94% complete Mountain Valley Pipeline project received a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement from the U.S. Forest Service, clearing the way for the pipeline to get built through a piddly 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest. Ring the bells! Dance for joy! Blow the party noisemakers, right? Wrong. This is the third time this same permit has been issued. Nobody was impressed. We only found a single news story about it. The stock of Equitrans, the builder, moved up one penny on the news. Why the muted response? Because everyone has seen this movie before.
Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) continues to ramp up the amount of “responsible” gas it purchases to resell to its customers. VNG provides clean, safe, reliable, and affordable natural gas service to more than 300,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in southeast Virginia. In October 2019, MDN told you that VNG cut a deal with Southwestern Energy to purchase enough supply of responsible gas for 20% of VNG’s customers (see 
It’s a miracle, A true blue spectacle, A miracle come true… (Lyrics from Barry Manilow’s tune, It’s a Miracle) In a 3-2 vote taken in December 2021, the Virginia State Water Control Board granted a permit (under the Clean Water Act) for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to cross about 150 streams and wetlands in Southwest Virginia (see 
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA is 94% complete (has been for two years) but sits idle, waiting for the other 6% to be completed so it can start up and begin to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules to the southeastern U.S. Lawsuits funded by Big Green groups (with foreign connections) have blocked the completion of the project…for YEARS. It would be fair to say the project is currently in a stalemate with Big Green radicals, who somehow have coopted the help of three Democrat judges who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Stalemates don’t go on forever. One way or the other, this situation will get resolved–likely this year. There are four potential outcomes for the stalled MVP project, a project critical to the future of the Marcellus/Utica.
We have an update to a project we first told you about in June of last year called the Southside Reliability Enhancement Project (see 
On Dec. 22, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) published a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that allows the nearly-completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to finish up construction through 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest straddling West Virginia and Virginia (see 
The clown judges who occupy the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circus) appear ready to reject a water permit granted by the Virginia State Water Control Board to help finish up the 94% complete Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Three judges from the 4th Circus were appointed back in 2017 to hear appeals by Big Green groups against the project. All three judges are profoundly bigoted and prejudiced against natural gas pipeline projects. Yesterday, the three clowns heard oral arguments from the foreign-backed Sierra Club (and its cronies) arguing the Control Board’s approval of a permit to cross streams and wetlands violates the federal Clean Water Act.
A small group of landowners in southwestern Virginia who have lost all of their previous attempts to block Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from crossing their property have made one last-ditch effort to fundamentally change the laws of the entire country to prevent this one pipeline. The landowners, obviously using Big Green money, have appealed their losing case to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the high court to hear their case against FERC’s (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) right to delegate its eminent domain power to a private pipeline company–in this case to MVP.
Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) is one of four natural gas distribution companies owned by Southern Company. VNG provides natural gas service to more than 300,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in southeast Virginia. Since 2012, VNG has replaced nearly 500 miles of the aging pipeline, resulting in a 27% reduction in methane emissions. VNG is a little over halfway through spending $360 million on infrastructure upgrades.
Last December, Virginia’s newly-elected governor, Glenn Youngkin, said that as soon as he took office, he would use his executive power to withdraw Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (see 
We’ve heard from a few MDN subscribers who think we’re being too hard on Joe Manchin and his sellout of the country in return for finishing the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. We don’t think so. The one thing everyone agrees on, those who support Manchin and the many of us who do not: It’s time to finish MVP…now.