From an News Report by Larmie Sany, WBOY News 12, January 6, 2020

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – In October, Longview Power announced plans to expand their facilities, but fast forward a few months and environmental activists want to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Activists gathered outside the Monongalia County Courthouse for a press conference and as a means to voice their complaints about Longview’s plans to expand by adding on natural gas and solar power to their clean coal operations.

They were angered by what they said would be very negative environmental impacts on the quality of air and life if the natural gas plant goes into operation.

James Kotcon, one of the event organizers, is the conservation chair of the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental organization. Kotcon, like the other speakers, said he didn’t want Longview to receive any county or state level tax breaks for their expansion because it wouldn’t be worth it.

“It already has far more fossil fuel capacity than it needs,” explained Kotcon. “Building additional fossil fuel capacity locks us in continued emissions and does not resolve the issue with climate change. We must be reducing our greenhouse gas emissions much faster than a simple transition from one fossil fuel to another. We need to get to zero emissions by 2050.”

Kotcon is using 2050 as a deadline because that is the date the United Nations climate scientists provided for Earth to be carbon neutral before there’s no turning back.

Carbon neutrality means having technology that captures all the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases or not producing any greenhouse gases, either way resulting in zero emissions.

One of the ways to head toward that future is through renewable energy production, like solar power. Although it is included in Longview’s plan, Kotcon and other activists said it was not enough.

“If you read the application carefully the plans for building the solar plant are very ambiguous,” Kotcon said. “As we pointed out, they don’t have a labor agreement and so on. The biggest issue is that the fossil fuel is supposed to generate 1200 megawatts, the solar farm will generate 20 megawatts. The solar farm is definitely a step in the right direction, the fossil fuel plant is not.”

He said they have asked the Monongalia County Commission to require some form of carbon capture technology for the natural gas plant if Longview is going to receive a tax break. At this point, Kotcon said, Longview has not included any greenhouse gas controls in its plans, leaving them completely unregulated.

Also, activists from the Greater Morgantown Sunrise Movement voiced their perspectives.

https://www.wboy.com/top-stories/activists-protest-longview-powers-plan-to-expand-to-natural-gas/