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Forum on Coal Plant Today at WRLBy WYDaily Staff Tuesday, April 06, 2010 Historic Triangle citizens will have a local opportunity today to hear what supporters and detractors of the proposed Surry Coal Plant have to say about the project.David Hudgins, of the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative whose plans to build the plant are under scrutiny, will speak in favor of the plant. Physician Christine Llewellyn, representing the Williamsburg Climate Action Network, will speak against it. The forum begins at 10 a.m. at the Williamsburg Regional Library Theatre, 515 Scotland St., in Williamsburg. It's sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Williamsburg Area. Supporters of the plant, called the Cypress Creek Coal-Fired Plant, say the state's energy needs cannot be met without it. They argue that the method for producing energy is the cleanest available, and environmental tradeoffs are minimal. Detractors, including Llewellyn and her group, say illegal amounts of mercury and other toxins will be released into the air and, while the plant is located across the James River in tiny Dendron, its effects will be widespread. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation issued a report in October claiming the plant would add "significant, illegal amounts of toxic mercury and nitrogen" into the bay. ODEC has refuted those claims, which are based on the CBF's assertion that the Clean Water Act can be used to govern air emissions. |
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Comments
Q: So why does Old Dominion Electric Corporation want to build a huge Coal Power Plant in Surry?
A: Because we need more electrical power and coal is the least expensive alternative.
To that I would ask:
1) What about the "hidden" health and environmental costs of coal harvest and use?
2) What about the many alternatives that have few or none of these hidden costs?
3) Why in Surry when demand is elsewhere and transmission can result in up to 50% loss of the electricity produced? Clean energy solutions do not have to be placed in remote locations.
4) What about Thorium nuclear fission?
5) What about distributed wind and solar farms connected by an intelligent grid that will iron out individual site variability?
6) What about new battery and fuel cell technology to store surplus wind/solar power until off peak periods?
7) Why not promote research and development of fusion instead of carbon sequestration?
...
We should be talking about 21st century solutions to our 21st century power needs not continuing our 20th centuries sins.