Huge New Marcellus-Fired Power Plant Coming Near Richmond, VA
While it’s been in the planning stages since 2016, we’ve only just become aware of an important new (mammoth) Marcellus-fired electric generating plant coming to Charles City County in Virginia. What’s that? Never heard of “Charles City” County? Neither had we. The county is located southeast of Richmond and west of Jamestown. It is bordered on the south by the James River and on the east by the Chickahominy River. The Chickahominy Power Station, as it’s called, will be a 1,650 megawatt state-of-the-art natural gas-fired power plant. The facility is owned and being developed by Balico, and built by Gemma Power Systems. According to a press release announcing Gemma’s involvement with the project, “The project will be powered exclusively by clean natural gas from the Marcellus shale formation.” That’s cool! We’re not exactly sure which pipeline(s) will flow Marcellus gas to the plant, but it’s good to know that our gas will power it. This is a huge plant. It ties as being the largest natgas-fired plant ever, along with the 1,650 MW Apex Power plant being planned for Guernsey County, OH (see Country’s Biggest NatGas Power Plant Breaking Ground in OH Oct-Nov). Here’s more on the coming Chickahominy Power Station near Richmond…
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The good news keeps rolling in for Mountain Valley Pipeline–a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline currently under construction from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. MVP is being built to move Marcellus/Utica gas south. Following multiple lawsuits and regulatory challenges by Big Green groups, MVP is getting work done and on track to be completed this year. Just last week we told you that following delays by illegal protesters sitting in trees in the Jefferson National Forest, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission helpfully extended tree cutting season for MVP to July 31 (see 
Big Green protesters with names like “Ink,” “Sprout,” “Red,” “Nutty,” “Fern” and “Decard” illegally sat in the tops of trees (or on poles) in Virginia as a tactic to prevent Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from cutting trees along the path of the pipeline. Some of them sat up there for a few days, some for a few weeks, and some for months. Eventually they all came down, as of early June (see 
A faux religious group calling itself the Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice (IACJ) is mad that this past Tuesday 27 agencies (many of them police departments) from across the Richmond, VA metro region trained together for a large-scale civil unrest opposing pipelines. Which is totally realistic. The IACJ, a Virginia-based nonprofit 501(c)(3), says it was organized for “supporting resistance to the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline.” Community organizers. Anarchists who refuse to follow the rule of law. That the police in the greater Richmond area are preparing to deal with them is smart. IACJ calls it, “American fascism, state violence, late stage capitalism, state repression.” We call the IACJ not only anti-capitalist, but anti-American. They are the fascists, in the truest sense of the word…
Who knew that Quakers, formally known as the “Religious Society of Friends” or “Friends Church,” could be so, well, unfriendly? Turns out the Quakers, who at first blush you might think are conservative, like the Amish, are far-left liberals. At a recent meeting of the Roanoke Friends, the Quakers adopted a statement (below) to “speak out against two natural gas pipelines [Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline] proposed in Virginia, and all pipelines transporting gas extracted by hydraulic fracking. Fracking is a process documented to contaminate air and water with toxic chemicals, accelerating climate change and encouraging our dependence on fossil fuels.” Sorry my Quaker friends, but you just out-and-out lied. Fracking is not documented to contaminate air and water with toxic chemicals. Period. If you have real scientific evidence to the contrary, please produce it. If we take them at their word, the “friendly” Quakers want all pipelines that flow natural gas everywhere–including the ones that feed their own homes (!)–to be shut down. All pipelines, including local utility pipelines that feed the homes of millions of Americans, flow “fracked” gas. Most gas these days is “fracked.” The “friendly” Quakers also state their support of illegal, law-breaking protesters who sit in trees against a judge’s order, to stop work on pipelines. The Quaker Friends in Roanoke have shown themselves to be just one more non-thinking, knee-jerk reacting group of liberals who really don’t know what they’re talking about…
We’re happy to report that “Fern” and “Decard” have joined “Ink,” “Sprout,” “Red” and “Nutty” back here on Mother Earth. No, we’re not talking about a new Disney “Snow White” remake (Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey, et al). The names we listed are the names of so-called protesters who have been sitting in the tops of trees (or in the case of Fern and Nutty, on top of poles) in Virginia, part of an illegal action to prevent the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. These last two protesters, Fern and Decard, were recently forced down to earth and arrested. Pipeline construction through the areas they once occupied has resumed. Which is good news. This bunch of kooks were making a mockery of our justice system. Nutty was a woman who sat on top of a pole for nearly two months. Yeah, her self-selected nom de guerre was appropriate. She finally came down two weeks ago when she ran out of Snickers bars (see 
Talk about cutting off a $200,000 nose to spite your face! One of the counties through which the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) will travel is Franklin County, VA. MVP is a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. For more than a year residents in Franklin County have opposed and hassled the MVP project (see 
Despite all of the media attention on a handful of protesters who sit in the tops of trees or on top of a poll in order to block construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), the pipeline nonetheless continues to receive regular new permissions from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to construct the actual pipeline and (yes), even to cut trees past the March 31 deadline. The good news is that MVP is on track to be completely built and flowing Marcellus/Utica gas by the end of THIS YEAR! Despite the best efforts of radical protesters and multiple lawsuits by Big Green groups. Recent FERC permissions for MVP include: (1) allow MVP to cut trees in Jefferson National Forest past the March 31 deadline; (2) build parts of the pipeline in Roanoke and Franklin Counties, VA; (3) work 24/7 on building a compressor station in Wetzel County, WV; and (4) build pipeline in Jefferson National Forest, on both the VA and WV sides…
Yesterday the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued a report saying it predicts 32 gigawatts (GW) of new electric generating capacity to come online this year, in 2018. Of that 32 GW, 21 GW (or 66%) will come from new natural gas-fired plants. And of that 21 GW of new gas-fired generation, Pennsylvania alone will generate 5.2 GW, and Maryland and Virginia will each generate 1.9 GW. Put another way, 9 GW out of 21 GW (or 43%) of all new demand for natural gas for power plants is happening right here in the Marcellus/Utica region. As we have observed on many occasions, power generation is a very important source of new demand for abundant and cheap Marcellus/Utica gas…
A rather juvenile, kindergartenish attitude appears to be taking root in the Democrat Party–at least in the Old Dominion. Dems there have decided that wind and solar, which provide something like 2.9% of all electric generation in the country, should just take over now and that we should stop building any/all pipelines that flow evil, nasty, “yesterday’s energy” called fossil fuels. And on that self-deluding basis, a group of Dems from Roanoke and across the state signed a (blithering idiot) letter to Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam demanding that he just stop both the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline projects in Virginia–federal projects. Of course the Dems are not really THAT stupid. This is a sleazy political calculation–playing to the nutjob base that elects them. States don’t have the right to overrule the federal government. The last time Virginia tried to overrule the federal government was in 1860, and you know how that turned out…
Theresa “Red” Terry (whom we call Grandma Red) and her daughter Minor Terry finally came down from the trees where they were perched since April 2 in an illegal attempt to block Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from cutting the trees. They came down on Saturday after a federal judge said if they stayed past midnight Saturday, they would each be fined $1,000 per day. The money would go to MVP. Red said, “Mountain Valley has taken enough from us…There wasn’t a lot more I could do up there besides show my ass and give them money.” As we previously reported, a number of Virginia lawmakers expressed their support of the Terrys and their flagrant disregard of the law (see 
There is nothing mysterious or complex about the actions taken by a Virginia State Senator, Chap Petersen (Democrat from the swamp, the D.C. area). Petersen is a lawyer and has just sued the U.S. Forest Service because the Forest Service is blocking a road in the Jefferson National Forest, which is their RIGHT to do (they manage it), because down that gravel road are several ILLEGAL TRESPASSERS who refuse to come down from trees that need to be cut down to make way for the federally-approved Mountain Valley Pipeline. There’s nothing complex in understanding that Petersen (did we mention he’s a Democrat?) supports lawlessness and anarchy. Imagine that, a lawmaker who supports people that break the laws he makes. How idiotic is that? Here’s the story of how Virginia Dems in high places continue to flout the laws of our country in their quest to retain political power (and contributions) by currying favor with radical Big Green supporters…