From Sarah Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury, December 16, 2020

When the State Corporation Commission on Dec. 1 rejected a proposal by Virginia Natural Gas to expand its pipeline infrastructure largely for a new power plant planned for Charles City County, opponents celebrated the decision as a critical blow to expansion of the fossil fuel in Virginia.

“The residents can rest easy for a while and celebrate that there will be no fracked gas piped into our community,” said Wanda Roberts of the grassroots group Concerned Citizens of Charles City County in a statement. Northern Virginia organizer Tiziana Bottino of the social and environmental justice group Mothers Out Front similarly wrote that “moms and concerned residents alike can breathe a sigh of relief,” while Jolene Mafnas of climate group Food and Water Action said the decision was “a big victory for climate justice.”

But in the two weeks since the ruling, both Michigan-based NOVI Energy, which is developing the C4GT plant in Charles City County, and Virginia Natural Gas have forged ahead with plans to add new natural gas infrastructure.

NOVI Energy signaled that despite the failure of its plan to obtain gas from the utility for C4GT, it hasn’t given up its intention to build the facility: On the day its construction permit from the state’s Department of Environmental Quality was set to expire, the company hastily poured concrete for a fire pump house and installed silt fencing to avoid losing its permit.

Earlier this week, Virginia Natural Gas also filed an application for a smaller pipeline expansion, citing demand from Columbia Gas of Virginia and Dominion Energy subsidiary Virginia Power Services Energy, as well as reliability concerns. The new project, estimated to cost $205 million, would add almost 10 miles of pipeline and an additional compressor station in Prince William County to the utility’s footprint.

“In order to perform its legal duty to furnish adequate and reliable service, the company must, from time to time, update and expand its gas delivery capabilities through additional facilities to meet customer demand and to serve the public interest of the commonwealth,” the company wrote in its application.

See the balance of the Article below, and support the fine reporting of the Virginia Mercury —

https://www.virginiamercury.com/2020/12/16/despite-setbacks-for-new-natural-gas-projects-companies-push-forward-with-plans/

How a Biden presidency will help Virginia’s energy transition | Power for the People VA, Ivy Main, November 16, 2020

Immediately following the 2016 election of Donald Trump, I wrote a column titled “Why Trump won’t stop the clean energy revolution.”

If you were to read it now, you would yawn. What seemed bold back then now feels like forecasting the inevitable. Of course coal has not come back. Of course wind and solar are cheaper now than fossil fuels. Of course people agree a zero-carbon future is achievable.

Still, few of us could have predicted how far off course Trump would try to take us. Withdrawing from the Paris climate accord was the least of it. The Washington Post tallied more than 125 rollbacks of environmental regulations and policies over the past four years. Trump’s more flamboyant acts of perfidy distracted attention away from his sustained attack, not just on climate science, but on the laws protecting America’s lands, air and water.

Really, we should be grateful Trump staffed his administration with grifters and sycophants who repeatedly bungled the details and opened their decisions to legal challenge. Incompetence is underrated. Skilled managers would have done much more damage.

Yet the past four years have also pushed us closer to the brink of climate chaos and the collapse of ecosystems. We wasted time we did not have.

As president, Joe Biden will be able to undo most of the environmental rollbacks with new executive orders and agency actions. Biden has also promised a long list of new initiatives, though many of them would require Democratic control of the US Senate.

….. more ……. see link below ……>>>

https://powerforthepeopleva.com/2020/11/16/how-a-biden-presidency-will-help-virginias-energy-transition/