(Reuters) – The Virginia Legislature passed a bill on Friday that puts the state on a path to 100% clean energy by 2045 as part of the commonwealth’s effort to reduce its impact on climate change.
Virginia Senate Bill 851 requires the state to get all its electricity from carbon free sources like renewables and nuclear. It still requires a signature from the governor, who has advanced a similar plan through executive order.
The legislation would also allow fossil plants to operate if they install carbon capture and storage technologies.
The bill heads to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s office. He made an executive order in September with a goal of producing all the state’s electricity from carbon-free sources by 2050.
The bill also commits Virginia to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 10 U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.
In 2019, 60% of Virginia’s electricity came from natural gas, 30% from nuclear, 4% from coal and 7% from renewables like hydropower, solar, wood and other biomass, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Is Virginia a Commonwealth? Wealth, really? Not much longer ..
The key word is “nuclear”. Is that really stated in the bill? If so, that’s something of a milestone.
Virginia and every other state that signs on to this nonsense will quietly change course when it becomes impossible in practice, prohibitively expensive, or electorally unpopular.
All the more reason why Virginia should embark on a crash program of windmills and solar power.
Pick a county and have it 100% renewable electricity in two years.
This will allow Virginia to determine how much battery back up to provide.
Preferably pick a county of wealthy democrats.
Oh and have massive fines for gas or diesel generators. Also ban burning wood.
You have a great idea however, The county picked should be the one with the most elected Democrats
Arlington. Not a single elected Republican. Most races no longer even contested.
The amount of battery backup needed will depend on local conditions.
How often and for how long does it get cloudy?
How often and for how long does the wind stop blowing?
How long are winter nights?
What one learns in Florida will have very little use in Maine.
What caliber of engineer is going to want this project on their resume?
Answer, not the smart ones.
Virginia and every other state that signs on to this nonsense will quietly change course…
Bingo…
Trouble is, heads would never roll
Yes, heads will roll — in the sense of political realignment. Can’t say how quickly though. The timelines in the bill are kind of long.
Not a real problem, they have 25 years to repeal it.
The problem is that now that the law is on the books, every single action taken by the state will be reviewed by the various NGO’s, and lawsuits will be issued whenever the state fails to make sufficient progress towards this goal.
As is happening in the UK.
Are you saying that once the law is on the books, the law can not be changed, once people fully realize how wrong they were?
Any law can be changed – you can’t have something there in perpetuity. BUT it is the time it will take for common sense to make an appearance and how much damage will be caused before then? How many will die, lose their jobs etc. However if they are Democrats then who cares.
It can be changed, but it can’t be ignored.
Lawmakers try to just ignore laws that are unpopular, but supported by politically powerful groups.
We have a lot of ugly high-tension power lines going through eastern of West Virginia, mostly feeding the areas in Virginia adjacent to D.C. It sure would be nice to take ’em down. We could use the right-of-ways to plant tree as part of the billion-tree CO2 abatement program.
As far as we’re concerned they can go 100% clean energy next year as long as they do it within their state and quit wrecking our beautiful mountain views and clean, forested environment. :<)
Joe,
There are lines going east to DC and lines going south to southwestern Virginia. And other interconnections across the border by Appalachian Power Co., which only has one plant left in Virginia. Do you want to isolate West Virginia from the grid?
Nah they should isolate Virginia from the grid. Thereby showing the fallacy of “100% carbon free” electricity in short order.
Tyranny of the slight majority in action.
ATheoK, I wonder what the various incentive voting reasons there were? There’s this tendency to vote against anything President Trump might be in favor of, then the rabid Environmentalist/Global Warming/We’re all going to die crowd, mixed in with hardcore Democrats that vote the party line. At face value this is “Dysfunctional And Proud Of It” writ large. The worst voting block in Virginia is the DC suburbs, which are Never Trump zombies.
“Tyranny of the slight majority in action”
How many of these Democrats were purchased by Mike Bloomberg?
Virginia seems to have elected a particularly radical bunch of Democrats this time around.
Hey, if Bloomberg has enough money to give each U.S. citizen one million dollars, just think how much he would give to an important Democrat state senator!
~$1.50
Yes John, coz one million X approximately 340 million people is unimaginable. If he was able and willing to do it I’d be looking to come to the US as a climate refugee with a view to permanent residency!
Tom Northern Virginia is made up of mostly Permanent Government Employees protecting their collective Bargaining jobs with perpetual cost of living raises, Cadillac benefits and Gold Bond Health Insurance.
They don’t need Mike Bloomberg. They are getting rich off middle class private sector tax dollars most of which is paid out of debt issuance to your great grandchildren who will be saddled, not with Global Warming but a Great Depression that will make the 1930’s look like a Bouncy Castle Birthday Party Celebration.
For an example of how that works, check out Illinois, and to a lesser extent Ohio.
You got it Tom, there is pent up leftist agenda bursting over the dam.
We might eventually see the majority of the state join West Virginia and become Southwest Virginia and then Virginia will come a swamp appendage the size of Rhode Island. Their is a lot of hot air to draw upon for energy in Swamp Virginia, unfortunately not a lot of sunshine. All Doom and Gloom manufacturing Hobgoblins.
Someone please keep track of retail and wholesale electricity prices in Virginia from the date this nonsense is enacted. There is a 1:1 correlation between increased renewable electricity in the mix and the price of electricity.
Good luck with that, Virginia.
Beat me to it, Robert. My thoughts exactly.
Regards,
Bob
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
The UK also has a law coming like this, and much sooner, too! Just how much ‘renewable’ electricity can that small nation hope to generate? I predict HUGE blackouts when the power companies can’t produce enough!
UGH! It’s those damn NOVA types. Freaking northern Virginia is so blue…all the federal government employees and contractors. The rest of us rightly despise being held hostage (politically speaking) by them.
rip
Talk about Democrats F-ing the middle class of Virginia with skyrocketing electricity prices!
Just part of the Climate Scam as a Trojan Horse to impoverish the middle class to serfdom via funneling a reworked electricity infrastructure so the “new” money goes to the GreenSlime billionaires, their Green Hedge Funds, and underfunded state employee retirement funds.
12 years ago, Obama of course said this:
“Under my plan, of a cap and trade plan, electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket.”
…
“Whether it’s coal fired plants, natural… (he started to say ‘natural gas’, but caught himself), these plants will have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. And that will be passed on to consumers.”
We “climate deniers” understand that a misinformed Government “is not our friend.”
A well informed government is even more dangerous.
How on Gods green earth is this a well informed government, the best estimate now on CO2 warming is around per doubling is 1.6 C we cannot double CO2 three times how is 5 C warming a problem, if that true(we have no reason to believe its not” we would get to were we were 8000 years ago. This is green insanity, more and more we are approaching the French solution to our elites, after all to all of them they think we can eat cake. God I hope our “elites” wise up if they don’t they may take the route of Marie Antoinette.
1/2 of that 1.6 C is due to CFCs. 0.85 C per 2x tops. May well be 0.
I would say at least half, probably closer to 3/4ths, maybe even 4/5ths.
The US is already doing the best in the world for cutting emissions and provide clean air. Virginia is not engaging is this stupidity out of concern for the environment. Zero carbon energy policies have nothing to do with the health of the planet.
Will U.S. Success In Cutting Greenhouse Gases Kill The Paris Climate Deal?
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/greenhouse-gases-drop-u-s-paris-climate-deal/
Meanwhile, it’s looking like “green” energy solutions, barring nuclear, are far worse than natural gas.
Duke Energy application points finger at solar for increased pollution
http://bit.ly/2qU0grH
…“After committing $2 billion in tax credits, and more than $1 billion in electricity overpayments for solar power, we now learn from Duke that nitrogen oxides have actually increased, and that CO2 may be headed in the wrong direction,”
Sounds like they needs some adults in the Virginia legislature.
Virginia needs some adults in the voting public. If you vote a fool into office, that makes you a fool.
Virginia is for lovers.
Perhaps that’s why there are so few adults there.
Unicorns on treadmills. Plugging into “rainbow power” after showers and making sure the sun shines and the wind blows morning , noon and night.
What is wrong with Virginia? they are madly legislating on things they cant realistically implement and dont understand the consequences of. Have they become East California?
It’s all one interconnected grid in the Eastern US that stretches across state lines.
They are just moving their Virginia emissions for electrical generation from in-state supplier to out-of-state electricity suppliers in West Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
What will happen though is by Virginia taking their coal- and gas-fired generation fleet offline through uncompetitive cap-n-trade and CCS schemes, it will decrease the available (structural) supply of baseload power to feed the grid for everyone in the entire region, the states around Virginia will pay for Virginia’s virtue signaling and pay-off to their GreenSlime billionaire Masters.
Remember when Bloomberg admitted he “bought” those Democrat two weeks at the debate? Well, he also bought those Virginia state Democrats, just like Tom Steyer bought California Democrats in Sacramento. Those bought Democrats now do the little gig and dance for their billionaire paymasters who control their campaign purse strings.
So everyone’s electricity prices go up, in all the surrounding states, because of supply and demand economics on an interconnected grid across state lines. Fewer suppliers feeding an increasing demand = much higher prices. And into this supply void in states like West Virginia and North Carolina will come spot-market suppliers with fast-startup natural gas turbines able to respond within minutes to the grid operator demands. But these NG turbine operators will respond with very high prices spot-market priced electricity. And who invests in these schemes? The GreenSlime of course. Just like they invest in the unreliable wind and solar crony capitalism schemes.
And the state regulators will have no choice but to allow those much higher electricity prices to be passed-on through the electric bills to the consumers.
The Bloomberg-Steyer-Rockefellers-et al GreenSlime gets their pay-off 100-fold over what it cost to buy the Democrats who made it happen in those legislatures. And buying the Democrat politicians to do their bidding is simply a business expense for the GreenSlime as they fleece the middle class.
A website run by James Bacon covers a number of topics in Virginia politics, including where the state is going with its zero carbon initiatives:
Bacon’s Rebellion: Reinventing Virginia for the 21st Century
Over the next two decades, the utilities which supply electricity to the region will become the paid whipping boys for the politician’s mistakes, the same role PG&E now fulfills in California.
Those utilities will be working together to supply a highly profitable spot market as low cost baseload generation is progressively replaced by high cost variable energy resources a.k.a. VER’s.
Virginians, especially rural Virginians who are in some bit of economic distress these days, will be paying the price for these political decisions.
This is exactly how South Australia has achieved its high level of ambient power generation. Any interconnector to dispatchable generation can be used a battery of the interconnector rating and infinite storage capacity.
South Australia has a 650MW link to Victoria and that has enabled South Australia to achieve in excess of 50% of ambient sourced energy generation; average demand is around 1200MW. The exported intermittency has doubled the wholesale power price in Victoria by causing the demise of one of the brown coal generators due to loss of base demand.
The Australian energy regulator has permitted the South Australian transmission provider to build an 800MW link to NSW. That will enable South Australia to get close to 100% ambient sourced generation at a huge cost to the NSW consumers as they bear the true cost of intermittency along with their share of the enormous cost of building the interconnector.
Other states networked with Virginia should just open any interconnectors and let the silly state fend for itself.
The surrounding states should sell them any excess electricity that they have, but make sure to charge every bit of premium that they can get.
Fools pay for their folly, while the wise cash in.
yarpos. As a political refugee that lives in “East California”, the sane but unfortunately sparsely populated side of California, please refer to Virginia as California East. Thank you.
A large swarm of liberal locusts have moved into the state from further up the East Coast over the last couple of decades after ruining their home states, and in the last couple elections they have managed to turn the state blue.
Why liberals got the color blue instead of the far more correct (Marxist) red, I’ll never understand…
Don, here in Australia our two major political parties are the Liberal Party which is blue and the Labor Party which IS red. However our Liberal Party, the party currently in power, would cover most people that were right of centre in regard to politics as with your Republican Party.
It was a little confusing for me at first with this site, the views gel with mine but for a nano second I couldn’t understand why you were all so down on the liberals, and based on all the articles coming through here there is certainly nothing democratic about the Democrats. 🙂
Liberal pretty much means socialist/authoritarian in the United States nowadays. There are still some classic Liberals around but you never hear from them and they have zero political power.
About the only time Democrats and Republicans work together is when they are passing laws to make it hard for third parties to compete.
There’s also the “don’t want to waste my vote” philosophy.
It was an accident of the 2000 election of Bush vs Gore, where the Repubs were marked in red, the Dems in blue.
Whereas the red and blue colors switched in recent times prior to year 2000 from one election to the next not to show implied meaning or favoritism, “Red State” became such a meme that they cannot change it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states
What is there to change? Red is the color of life-sustaining blood; blue is the color of death.
What is wrong with Virginia is a lot of D.C. Democrats live there. Just like Oregon has been ruined by the Peoples Democratic Socialist Republic of Portland ,Washington by Seattle, and California by Californians. Vote for any Dems in the November election and get the same thing everywhere.
good let idiots like Calif and Vir be the test dummies
Dummies is the right word.
Well the problem with that thinking is the money is pouring in to state races from billionaires like Steyer and Bloomberg to screw the people too stupid to know they are about to get F’d if they let the Democrats take over.
Plus here in AZ we’re getting slammed with Cal’s middle class economic refugees looking for affordable housing, lower crime and less public vagrancy (homeless tent cities). But too many of them are bringing their Left-leaning politics with them (love of free stuff not realizing the trap), and forgetting why the fled California in the first place.
Then on top of that, Steyer and Bloomberg are dropping $10’s of millions of cash into the Democrats’s PACs that are running ad campaigns to support the Democrats running for state political offices. TV and radio ads are already running here, on issues that are deeply slanted to support the Democrat’s takeover.
So far Arizona has maintained itself as Red, but in places like here in Tucson, but we have far too many Intellectual-Yet-Idiots (IYI’s as Nassim Taleb calls them) here because of University of Arizona. And Phoenix has its IYI’s also with the ASU in Scottsdale, but they are a smaller percentage of the population up there than Tucson. And Flagstaff has it’s IYI’s with the NAU faculty there.
The billionaire class is very much funding the Democrats via massive PAC spending, then those bought Democrats do what they are told for the Climate Hustle. And the campaign cash from the Bloomberg’s is the opium that keeps them addicted, and screwing the middle class.
Joel isn’t it amazing that people claimed the Russia spent up to 10k to “steal” the election for Trump, but Steyer and Bloomberg spent more than a 1/2 billion dollars and couldn’t move the needle enough to stay in the race 🤓
Russian bots are smarter than your average Democrat billionaire politician.
Most “Russian bots” originate in W. Virginia.
Spam social media with “bot posts” via VPN. A proportion will show a final IP in RF or Ukraine. The rest just blend into noise. You have traffic originating RF and eastern Ukraine.
Vault 7 showed that CIA has software to insert cyrillic characters and other “russian” markers into communications.
Then analyse the traffic you’ve been collecting on everyone and find your own “Russian” content. Blame it on something with “bear” in the name, just for good measure.
Write a report finding strong evidence that Putin rigged the election and got Trump elected.
Yep, them Russian bots are smarter than you think.
Scissor I guess Steyer and Bloomberg should have used there money for bots instead 😉
“Spam social media with “bot posts””
Does anyone have an example of a bot post. I’ve been hearing about bots posting all over the place, yet I have never seen one. Or have I? How does one know? How do we identify these bots?
The bot “problem” is hoax. There are no Russian bot programs.
Tom,
The most recent example I can think of was hilariously trivial…
The movie “Sonic the Hedgehog” had a bunch of negative bot reviews on Rotten Tomatoes right before it launched in theaters. You could tell they were bots because the reviews were all similarly worded and all made the same (false) claims about racism and such in the movie. Again, it was pretty obvious that these reviews were bots because of the quantity of posts all containing the same messages based on false information.
rip
It’s ok none of them will be in office in 2045 so it’s not their problem. But they get brownie points.
What’s not to like?
I just moved here. Lunatics running the asylum. Non-knuckleheads nowhere to be seen. Am too old to move.
“I just moved here. … Am too old to move.”
You just hit a tipping point?
They chose … poorly.
Businesses will flee the state. Pity the farms can’t also. Maybe secession of the red counties (to join WV) is the answer.
Would someone point me to a good article(s) on why renewables will not lower fossil fuel usage ?
I have a friend that is convinced that when the wind stops blowing or the suns stops shining the grid is able to adjust instantaneously and use power from fossil fuels to backfill the need.
Thanks
Derg,
The best overall analysis of large scale unreliable “renewables” is by GWPF analyzing the ongoing dumpster fire that is Germany’s Energiwewnde. https://www.thegwpf.com/germanys-energiewende-in-crisis/
On this side of the pond, the Manhattan institute goes over the physics of why renewable will not get orders of magnitude cheaper or more more efficient per unit of power going forward, so there will be no cost competitive replacement for reliable baseload power from coal, nuclear or natural gas anytime in the next century. https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
These sum up the high points. And for a plain language description fo the future of those who barrel headlong into the unreliable power abyss, Joanne Nova”s youth talk on how to destroy an energy grid in 5 easy steps from a few years ago should be mandatory watching for anyone who thinks wind and solar can from the basis of a metropolitan power grid. Not. Going. To. Happen.
V/R. –pwm
Joanne has it down to 3 easy steps now.
JoNova video here:
I would ask that the legislation drone the term “renewables”. Any honest appraisal of wind turbines and photovoltaic arrays would fail to find anything renewable about them. They both get “renewed” every 20 years or so, right in the old landfill.
John, at least one of our States here in Australia has declared PV solar as toxic waste. It is now illegal to send them to landfill as the risk of contaminating soil and waterways is too great.
What is crazy is that we have no operating recycling plants here in Australia. The recent fires have all been finally put out by the rain, but we’ve had some horrendous hailstorms in parts.
I wonder what they’ve done with all the solar panels, both rooftop and solar farm, that were damaged by fire and hail? Given that they can’t be sent to landfill, I wonder how many in situ waste dumps there are, and what damage are they doing to soil and waterways?
The list of areas joining in this nonsense is getting long. Looks like I lucked out and lived during the apex of civilization. I should be checking out before serious consequences begin.
I have no children, so if the next generation actually tries to implement these laws, I hope they get exactly what they are asking for.
I wish there could be an effective way to educate ordinary folk on the climate scam. Sceptics have already been widely identified as d*nyers and shills by the globalist conspirators.
What I tell people now is it doesnt matter whether the scammers are correct about global warming or not. CO2 ’emissions’are going to continue to rise, probably to accelerate, no matter what draconian measures Europe and US might take for reducing THEIR Carbon Dioxide output. China, India, Russia, Bangladesh, Africa, Brazil and other Asian countries ensure that we are going ahead with The Big CO2 Planetary Experiment. European style policies will only impoverish their economies to no effect. Something like that might be an education shortcut for voters.
“I wish there could be an effective way to educate ordinary folk on the climate scam. Sceptics have already been widely identified as d*nyers and shills by the globalist conspirators. ”
We need the Chief Denier, President Trump, to lead the charge. Nothing else will head off this stampeding herd of alarmists.
Maybe we will get something like this after the next election.
One of the most important things Trump could do for the world is to debunk the Human-caused Climate Change narrative. It should be easy to do. All he has to do is require that the alarmists provide evidence that CO2 needs to be regulated. There is no evidence for the alarmists to provide and as soon as the general public realizes this, the CAGW lie will be shown for what it is. And then human beings can stop the foolishness with unreliable power sources and spend that money improving people’s lives instead.
Only a Trump can take on the entire establishment scientific community and a radical leftwing political movement. And he does have one “Ace in the Hole”: The Alarmists can’t really prove what they say. This will be obvious if they are ever forced to try to do so. Trump should make them “Put up, or Shut up”.
“Virginia Senate Bill 851 requires the state to get all its electricity from carbon free sources like renewables and nuclear.” But, that’s just electricity- Massachusetts has a far more extreme plan- to have no net carbon emissions by 2050: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/massachusetts-governor-lawmakers-aim-for-net-zero-emissions-by-2050/570912/
I often ask state politicians how this can be possible- they don’t respond. There isn’t enough acreage in the state- if it was all covered with solar and wind “farms” to produce all the needed energy. So, it’s impossible at any cost.
No Virginia, there is no Santa Claus.
+10
And there is no free lunch either. You get what you pay for and, in the case of ‘renewable electricity’, you pay through your nose to get an unreliable power grid typical of 3rd world dictatorships. Not to worry, though. The Dear Leaders of Virginia will magnanimously declare “Power to the People… on Tuesdays and alternate Thursdays!“
You have to wonder whether the climate change scam will make it to 2045. Eventually, hoaxes are almost always exposed, though this has been a durable one. There’s a tremendous amount of money involved, and so-called journalists covering it are implacably ignorant.
Fine. They can blanket their state with turbines, mine for uranium, install solar panels. If they want to virtue signal, they can do it ALL ON THEIR OWN. Forget selling anything to them to keep the lights on or heat houses, and let’s see how their cars run on zero fuel.
This should be a piece of cake…just need to replace two thirds of their current generation capacity and handle any increase in demand with those low cost renewables…and might need to check when those nuclear units go off line….I believe the nukes serving that area have already extended their licenses so they migt need to make up that 30% as well…still no bid deal I replace 94% of your generation capacity in twenty five years…as th black knight would say, merely a flesh wound.
The fullest extent Virginia Senate Bill 851 will have on the environment is the carbon captured in the paper and ink that will eventually be stored away in some records archive.
I thought that certified carbon-free sugar thing had to be a parody, but alas parody cannot compete with real life.
They really ARE…
THAT STUPID!
This is why you ignore the precious sincere folks from the humanities dept, they are sincerely wrong about pretty much everything on a routine basis.
Brainwashed useful idiots, incapable of independent thought.
Inefficient transport for mobile and heating applications, but an excellent source of laundered, redistributed, renewable greenbacks.
Go green, dump Green. Save the birds. Swat a wind turbine. Don’t be green. Clear the Green blight.
The Virginia legislature is doing their darndest to start a revolution. First, they’ve passed what amount to gun ban and confiscation laws. Now, they’re about to destroy their economy. They obviously didn’t listen to the 20k or so, heavily armed protesters that marched on the Capitol.
At the same time as they want everyone to “change a few lightbulbs” to save energy, they are quite happy to totally waste over 30% of our energy resources in an insane CCS program.
“WASTE ENERGY TO SAVE THE PLANET” . Way to go !
First, it’s not renewable energy, it’s only renewable electricity, and more accurately its only intermittent electricity. Renewables have been the primary driver for residents of Germany, Australia, and California behind the high costs of electricity, as renewables have proven to be an inefficient redundant source of electricity to the continuous uninterruptible electricity from coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
Second and most important is, electricity alone is unable to support militaries, aviation, and merchant ships, and all the transportation infrastructure that support commerce, as wind and solar are incapable of producing the petroleum derivatives that make more than 6,000 products.
Well, if Virginia opts out of the carbon cycle, they shouldn’t get any food!
I wonder how long it would take them to reconsider!
Yeah. Gas powered turbine generation plants in Kentucky qualify as “carbon free” in Virginia…
The reality is that there is no real evidence that CO2 affects climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. So all of their efforts to reduce CO2 emissions will have no effect on climate. There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them. The best approach is to replace ageing fossil fuel burning power plants with nuclear power plants. Apparently they have no plans to reduce emissions of the primary greenhouse gas that is responsible for the vast majority of the radiant greenhouse effect for those that believe in such a thing. Compared to H2O the radiant greenhouse effects of added CO2 has got to be trivial at most.
Low efficacy, and the anthropogenic contribution is a fraction of a fraction.
Renewables do not generate as much energy in their lifetime as needed to manufacture, install, maintain and dispose of them when they become no longer productive. The joke is the realization that renewables are not ‘carbon free’. Most of the energy needed to manufacture, install, maintain and dispose of them will come from carbon based fuels.
Yup. Kind of like using a billion BTUs of fossil fuels to produce 600,000 BTUs of “fuel cells,” and convincing yourself that this is “clean energy,” when it could have produced 800,000 BTUs of gasoline, diesel, and kerosene (just making up numbers here, but you get the idea).
Of course with renewables, it’s even worse. Because they conveniently ignore the landscape blight and environmental destruction, the slaughter of birds, particularly magnificent raptors, and bats (and insects for that matter), and the waste disposal issues and associated pollution. PLUS the need to KEEP the fossil fuel powered backup generation to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing at the right speed or the sun isn’t shining. (At least “fuel cells” or “hydrogen” wastefully produced from fossil fuels would provide consistent power “in use;” windmills and solar panels, not so much.)
“carbon free sources”, I suppose that means no steel or any other material containing carbon atoms.
From recovery to reclamation, completely carbon-free. A fantasy worth repeating, if not actually indulging.
That said, save the birds, the bats! Whack a wind turbine. Clear the Green blight, reduce, reuse, and recycle photovoltaic panels.
Leftists don’t really care whether they are doing any good or not.
They are posturing so that they can look good to their friends.
In other news, PETA objects to plans to power windmills using unicorn farts.
Every time I read or see something like this, I envision cars running down the highway with huge windmills on top, providing electricity to run them! It’s an idiotic idea, for sure, but no crazier than this one! One of my uncles had the same idea, living out in the very windy California desert, years ago. He couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t work! Other wise, he was a very wise old gentleman. I think, though, that he may have been a Democrat. Just sayin…
They do not think it crazy in the Netherlands. Universities from around the world build wind turbine powered vehicles to race along a coastal strip in the Netherlands:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1DsfAPawHU
They are not as effective as solar powered vehicles though that race in Australia each year:
“…all its electricity from carbon free sources like renewables and nuclear…..” If they are serious they need to start the nuclear portion now. I support all states adopting a similar law.
Since many highly influential government bureaucrats live in Virginia, perhaps there will be “exempt” areas.
I don’t see them giving up their life style as they insist the common man should. Maybe some are more equal than others is about to come true.
“Virginia Senate Bill 851 requires the state to get all its electricity from carbon free sources like renewables and nuclear.”
I’ve asked this question before regarding similar bills in other states—and in other nations—and never received a clean (pardon the pun) answer. However, hope springs eternal so I’ll try here once again: “What is the penalty or other consequence of the State of Virginia NOT meeting this requirement, assuming the Bill becomes law?”
Will all of its citizens turn into pumpkins?
Will each person in the state have to write out 1000 lines of “Ooops, we should have tried harder”?
Will each taxpayer in the state have to fork over an additional $30,000 in taxes as a penalty?
Will any housing unit or business/factory location found to still be using fossil fuel energy in 2045 automatically be forfeited to the State?
Will the government squads come around at midnight to take away the firstborn male in each family?
What in hell are “we, the people” allowing to be done to us?
Pity the FOOLS!
Loudon Co. was up in arms a couple years ago when plans to put in a new feeder from the west to service new and existing customers. No one wanted the power towers and the lines. I’ve got mine, let the others suffer!
Wait ’till they see what Northam and Co. have wrought!
It’s a good start, but they need to do more. The mathematics to achieve this are too complicated, and need to be simplified. Here’s how: They should also make pi and e equal to each other, and an even 3.0. They should make sine equal to tangent, and both equal to 0, with , of course, cosine equal to 1. And, of course, i should be made real. The calculations required, in order to achieve their mandate will become much, much simpler.
Renewable is not a thing, and nuclear’s side costs and extreme regs imply enormous use of resources and hence fossil fuel use. It doesn’t have to be that, it’s that way because of the influence of Big Oil shills.
And by the way, that where the REAL fossil fuels subsidies are:
– mandating “renewables”
– mandating radiophobia
Also, that where the risk of radiological terrorism comes from.
They should make it simple and ban anything that generates human (tech)-produced heat or energy. No fire or flame as well. That’s what they’re really after. Lights out for the state. Stop mincing words.
The legislation would also allow fossil plants to operate if they install carbon capture and storage technologies.
Sequestering CO2 is an idea entirely without merit.
Carbon Free Earth 2045
Virginia may pass a law, but ZERO carbon by 2045 is NOT possible.
In Vermont, rabid RE folks have similar ambitions.
A program to install heavily subsidized air source heat pumps in energy-hog houses has been a total flop.
COST SAVINGS OF AIR SOURCE HEAT PUMPS ARE NEGATIVE IN VERMONT, MAINE, ETC.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cost-savings-of-air-source-heat-pumps-are-negative-in-vermont
This article shows, an ASHP in an average energy-hog house in VT:
– Displaced only 28% of the space heat from the traditional fuels. See URL of CADMUS survey report
– Reduced CO2 from 25,123 lb/y to 20,129 lb/y, or 20.0%, if 28% of space heat from ASHPs in energy-hog houses. See table 1 and 6
– Would reduce CO2 from 25,123 lb/y to 8,231 lb/y, or 67.2%, if 100% of space heat from ASHPs in highly sealed/highly insulated houses. See table 1 and 6. The CO2 reduction percentages would slowly increase as the NE grid would have less CO2/kWh.
– Provided the owner energy cost savings of about $200/y. See table 7 and URL of VT-DPS website
– Required a turnkey capital cost of about $4,500/ASHP; excludes subsidies.
If the objective is to “get rid of” fossil fuels and reduce CO2, then the use of ASHPs in energy-hog houses in VT, NH, ME, etc., has been an expensive flop.
https://publicservice.vermont.gov/sites/dps/files/documents/2017%20Evaluation%20of%20Cold%20Climate%20Heat%20Pumps%20in%20Vermont.pdf
https://publicservice.vermont.gov/sites/dps/files/documents/Energy_Efficiency/Reports/Vermont%20ccHP%20Summary.pdf
And recall all the folks that celebrated Climategate was the death knell of the human caused global warming hoax?
In a rational world, it would have been.
“In 2017, 41% of the electricity generated in Virginia was produced by the four nuclear reactors at North Anna and Surry. Nuclear reactors total just 23% of the potential generating sources in Virginia, but produced a higher percentage of the state’s electricity because the reactors run steadily.” Source :http://www.virginiaplaces.org/energy/nuclearpower.html
I note that the NRC approved a Combined Operating License for North Anna 3 in 2017, which is nominally good for 40 years. NA3 would add another 10% or so of real world electrical supply. NA3 is NOT under construction, but the NRC License is a huge investment to have in the bank.
I also note that Hydro produces somewhat near 17% (see above link).
So, with a 5th nuke, and Hydro, they could easily be at 60% plus “renewable plus nuclear”.
Note that NA3 would be expensive in the long run, but only when compared to subsidized solar/wind, with there real world required natural gas backup. Very little backup required for nukes running at 90% plus capacity factors.
Given the reality of how Virginia already gets its electric power, and how it could easily add another nuke, the bill is virtual signaling. The rest is natural gas, and its low cost and high reliability will keep it in the mix for a long time.
This is how it might work in 15 years: 5 nukes plus hydro produce the base load of 60-65%. They install or contract with enough paper capacity wind and solar to reach near 100%. On sunny windy days they are there. The rest of the time (read most of the time), they are using natural gas to fill in the gaps. That’s what the future legislative exception will be.
Bottom line, reliable electricity at 50% or more higher than national average due to nukes, hyrdro and gas (the reliable part), with wind and solar providing expensive window dressing.
What the legislation likely does in the next 5 years or so is give NA3 a boost.
I like nukes, but selling your soul to get them is disagreeable. It may be the best we can expect.
Ethan Brand
Construction will not begin on North Ana 3, a large 1600 Mw GE-Hitachi ESBWR reactor, unless and until the nuclear utility industry is able to get its capital costs under control.
For the near term here in America, all hope for getting nuclear’s capital costs under control now rests with NuScale and its much smaller 60 Mw SMR design. Twelve of these 60 Mw units will be ganged together for a total of 720 Mw nominal. The first NuScale facility is targeted for going online in late 2026 or early 2027 in eastern Idaho.
Back in the mid 2000’s when we were doing project estimating and scheduling for new build reactor construction, our biggest concern was that the nuclear utilities would forget the hard lessons of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and would not commit themselves to meeting the stringent requirements their NRC construction licenses impose on them.
That is just what happened at VC Summer and at Vogtle 3 & 4. The hard lessons regarding nuclear construction management which had been so painfully learned three decades earlier were ignored. Every mistake it is possible to make in managing a highly complex nuclear construction project was repeated several times over.
VC Summer was cancelled and the estimated capital cost for two AP1000’s at Vogtle 3 & 4 rose from 12 billion dollars in 2012 to approximately 28 billion dollars in 2020. Stating the capital cost differently, the price tag went from $5,000/kw nominal to $13,000/kw nominal for those two AP1000’s.
Unless Dominion Energy and its EPC prime contractor are able to demonstrate conclusively that they know how to build the GE-Hitachi ESBWR design on cost and on schedule, then no serious consideration will ever be given to allowing that project to go forward.
How very, very – Democrat. Right down to trying to dictate the future.
The Lefties will rule the World if they can produce electricity using Bullshit!
I hope I live long enough to see Virginia utterly fail using 100% renewables.
Virginia passes bill requiring the state to be raising unicorns by 2045.
Sooner (I hope) or later data from the OCO-2 CO2 measuring satellite or a follow-on will show that the World-wide increase in broad leaf vegetation is the cause of increased atmospheric CO2.