Eastern shore, the Delmarva Peninsula, east of Chesapeake Bay, is 180 miles of flat farmland

From an Article by Diane Bernard, Maryland Public News Service, July 10, 2020

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Environmental groups and local residents are speaking out against a proposed fracked-gas pipeline to run through rivers, farms and forests from Delaware to Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The Hogan administration held a public hearing about Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company’s plan to build more than 20 miles of pipeline to bring fracked gas to the historically black University of Maryland Eastern Shore campus and the rest of Somerset County.

Anthony Field, Maryland campaign coordinator for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, says with the recent setbacks for both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Dakota Access pipeline, the project is out of step with the public’s desire to move away from fossil fuels.

“The era of fossil fuels is over,” says Field. “We simply cannot be building new infrastructure for toxic methane gas. Eastern Shore officials should promote the speedy development of clean energy sources like offshore wind instead.”

Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company officials say the pipeline is needed in the area to meet growing market demand. They point out it also would bring gas service to Somerset County, one of only three counties in Maryland without access to natural gas.

But Field says the public must weigh any support for a fossil-fuel energy source with the pipeline’s potential threat to the area’s ecosystems, particularly water supplies. And he notes that once the pipeline is up and running, its emissions would boost greenhouse gases – ultimately affecting air quality in a low-income area already challenged by climate change.

“This is extremely concerning,” says Field. “Especially UMES, for example, is an HBCU, and largely disenfranchised folks – people of color, lower-income individuals – are mostly the ones affected by the changing climate, and the issues that these kind of infrastructure bring to the state and the country.”

Field says his group and others will continue protesting the pipeline. In the meantime, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan plans to spend more than $100 million to increase fracked-gas pipelines and infrastructure in the state.

PJM Grid Generation Outlook to 2040

From an Article by Chloe Holden, Green Tech Media, May 20, 2019

Solar and wind have struggled to compete against a flood of cheap natural gas in the largest U.S. wholesale power market, operated by PJM, the Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland Interconnect System which includes the electrical grid in the middle Atlantic states even WV, Ohio, Indiana, and VA.

Interconnection queue requests across all the major North American markets show that over 90 percent of new requests now consist of solar, wind and storage. This is the result of state-level policies and declining costs.

Even in PJM, where natural gas has dominated the generation queue, new requests are now giving way to wind, solar and battery storage projects. (PJM is the country’s leader for front-of-the-meter storage, though it will likely be overtaken by California in 2020.)

However, as utilities replace retiring coal assets in PJM, coal capacity has been replaced at almost a one-for-one rate with new combined-cycle natural-gas generation. Over the last several years, 29 gigawatts of retiring coal plants in PJM have been replaced with 23 gigawatts of natural gas, according to a recent Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables webinar.

PJM Generation Outlook (GW) is shown the color graphic insert above.

PJM’s natural-gas plant building boom has been centered in northeast Pennsylvania, with additional recent activity in southwest Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Ohio, near natural-gas resources. Operation costs are low and gas supplies plentiful, driving the cost of electricity down.

Because of this plentiful natural gas, wind and solar are not yet competing with natural gas on price in PJM when it comes to replacing coal. Wood Mackenzie’s analysts contrasted PJM with Texas’ ERCOT territory, where wind and solar dominate the generation queue.

In ERCOT, plenty of coal plants have been retired, including 4 gigawatts in 2018 alone. Prices in ERCOT’s energy-only market are not consistently high enough to make the market attractive for new natural-gas development. Wind and solar are picking up the slack; even small solar installations under 1 megawatt have flourished, nearly doubling capacity in just two years from 2016 to 2018.

With PJM’s natural-gas boom in full swing, will the region be locked into natural-gas generation for the lifetime of today’s new plants?

Wood Mackenzie analysis for 20 years out suggests gas will continue to make up around 40 percent of the generation mix, barring dramatic changes to how the energy mix is determined. Resources still must compete in an open market, and PJM holds a forward capacity auction three years in advance. (This year’s 2022/2023 Base Residual Auction will be held in August 2019.)

While front-of-the-meter renewables struggle to gain ground relative to natural gas in PJM due to low prices, one area to keep an eye on is flexibility and distributed energy resources in PJM. Organizations like the Solar Energy Industries Association argue that to level the playing field in PJM, grid operators will need to evolve power markets in order to take advantage of “inverter-based resources.”

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs)

Recent developments have shown what’s possible, as changes to wholesale markets are poised to bring more storage and DERs into the mix in the independent system operator and regional transmission organization footprints. FERC Order 841 has nudged market operators to take a closer look at storage, although the commission still has to rule on the pending DER proceeding.

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See Also: PJM and Argonne National Laboratory Collaborate to Study Guidelines for Solar Resources, PJM News Release, April 2, 2019

And now, a year later, the protests continue against the MVP

From an Article by Tommy Lopez, WSLS News 10, Roanoke, May 20, 2019

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Va. – Some opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline are still sitting high up in the trees in protest, blocking construction of one section.

The last remaining tree-sit still has support in eastern Montgomery County near Elliston. Many pipeline opponents remain there, at the site that’s called Yellow Finch, which is just off US Route 460.

They’ve maintained the protest for the last eight months — through snow, rain and wind — blocking the pipeline’s path and preventing tree-cutting. Multiple protesters have rotated through the two tree-sits during that time.

Crystal Mello took her turn this past weekend, taking the position for about 48 hours. “I can’t picture [the pipeline] coming through here,” she said. “Somebody’s pockets are getting fat off of putting all of us in danger, even their own workers.”

A grandmother who cleans houses, she said it was emotional being up in the trees, supporting the anti-pipeline cause. “We all drink water. We all love these mountains. We all love our neighbors.”

She said hearing stories from landowners who’ve reported damage to their property and hearing of explosions along other pipeline routes motivated her to take action. Her biggest worry is that a pipeline would cause an explosion.

“This is definitely not a Democratic thing. This is definitely not a Republican thing. This should be the most bipartisan thing ever,” Mello said.

WSLS News 10 has told the stories of “Red,” “Nutty” and demonstrators on a Franklin County farm, among others. Now, Yellow Finch is the last tree-sit left on the MVP path.

The protesters can hike up an adjacent mountain to get a birds-eye view of the tree-sit. There, they can see a path of downed trees miles long — trees, which still remain on the ground.

People who live close to the path, like Penny Artis, remain concerned about the project’s effects. “The environment means nothing. Money means everything,” she said.

The pipeline opponents hope to keep their protest going. “The trees that are still standing are being held the best we can, to keep them from coming in,” Artis said. “We’re not eco-terrorists. We just want to live to see tomorrow.”

The MVP remains neither finished nor dead. A company spokesperson said Monday that it’s more than 80% complete and is still on track to be done by the end of the year.

“We respect the opinions of those who are opposed to the MVP project and, more importantly, we want to ensure everyone’s safety throughout the various phases of the construction process,” spokesperson Natalie Cox said in a statement sent to 10 News.

BACKGROUND:
The Mountain Valley Pipeline planned path runs from West Virginia into North Carolina, crossing through Giles, Montgomery, Roanoke, Franklin and Pittsylvania counties in the commonwealth. The natural gas pipeline would travel 303 miles and is estimated to cost $4.6 billion.

Opponents have documented hundreds of alleged examples of environmental harm the project has caused, including water quality effects from storm runoff and erosion.

The project has been met with opposition since the planning stage. Opponents have voiced concerns in local meetings and federal court proceedings, and staged sit-in style protests that have ranged from so-called tree-sits — in which some protesters have positioned themselves in the path of construction workers for more than a month at a time — to protests in which opponents have chained themselves to construction equipment in order to delay work.

A federal agency issued a stop-work order in August for the project, citing environmental concerns. The order was lifted later that month for all sections except two stretches that cross federal land.

In October, a federal court pulled a federal stream-crossing permit, which was a major setback for the project.

In December, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring and the Department of Environmental Quality filed a lawsuit against the MVP, citing environmental violations.

The company behind the MVP said it received a letter in January from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia stating that it and the EPA are investigating potential criminal and civil violations of the Clean Water Act and other federal statutes related to the pipeline’s construction.

The MVP cleared a hurdle in March when the State Water Control Board decided it will not consider revoking a key permit. The news came after many pipeline opponents called on the board to take action against the project.

Union Hill deserves protection from noise & air pollution

Press Release of Southern Environmental Law Center, Charlottesville, VA, February 8, 2019

Richmond, VA — Today the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of its client the Friends of Buckingham, challenged the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board’s decision to approve Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline Buckingham County compressor station.

“The Air Board has refused to address the disproportionate harm that our community will have to bear as a result of the construction of this polluting compressor station,” said John W. Laury of Friends of Buckingham. “The members of our community should not have our health put at risk for a project that wasn’t properly vetted for environmental justice or air quality concerns.”

The Air Board and the Department of Environmental Quality did not meet their obligations under state and federal laws to consider less polluting alternatives and the best available pollution controls for minimizing pollution from the proposed compressor station.

“The backdrop to the board’s decision about the compressor station is the mounting evidence that customers in Virginia do not need the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to meet their energy needs,” said Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Greg Buppert. “When a project like this pipeline goes forward without a full and transparent evaluation of its public necessity, it unfairly puts communities like Union Hill in harm’s way.”

Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline project is already stymied because a federal court has vacated or put on hold multiple required permits for failing to comply with applicable law and federal agencies have themselves revoked other permits.

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For more than 30 years, the Southern Environmental Law Center has used the power of the law to champion the environment of the Southeast. With more than 80 attorneys and nine offices across the region, SELC is widely recognized as the Southeast’s foremost environmental organization and regional leader. SELC works on a full range of environmental issues to protect our natural resources and the health and well-being of all the people in our region. www.SouthernEnvironment.org

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The Moral Call for Ecological Justice in Buckingham, Feb. 19th, 6 to 8 PM.

Join Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II and former Vice President Al Gore for a program on “The Moral Call for Ecological Justice in Buckingham.” The public is invited to this free, educational event, where Buckingham residents and other Virginians will share stories of the impacts of environmental injustice, and scientific experts will discuss the health threats and ecological devastation of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline and compressor station. As we celebrate Black History Month, we recognize how poverty, racism and ecological concerns are connected, and that we cannot address just one without addressing the others.

Rev. Dr. Barber is President of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Former Vice President Gore is the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a non-profit devoted to solving the climate crisis.

Please note: We encourage you to RSVP for this event, but you will not need your ticket to get in. Please share and bring others!

Date And Time: Tue, February 19, 2019, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST

Location: Buckingham Middle School, 1184 High School Road, Buckingham, VA 23921