Dominion CEO Touts Using All Available Energy Options

The nation is facing an “energy train wreck” unless it uses every energy option available, including  construction of new coal-fired power plants, Dominion Resources Chief Executive Officer Thomas F. Farrell II said on Monday.

“We do not have the luxury of limiting ourselves to a few sources of energy and excluding others,” Farrell said. “We need to draw on every resource at our disposal – coal, nuclear, oil, natural gas, renewable power and aggressive and smarter conservation and efficiency programs.”

Farrell spoke during the Energy Technology Summit at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, a conference that focused on alternative energy sources.

Dominion Resources is the Richmond-based parent company of Dominion Virginia Power, which wants to build a controversial $1.8 billion coal-fired power plant in Wise County.

Aside from climate change, other energy issues that should not be overlooked are tightening supplies, skyrocketing demand, volatile and escalating fuel costs, aging infrastructure and a shortage of scientists and engineers, Farrell said.

Dominion is promoting conservation and energy-efficient light bulbs, he said, but “even with effective customer conservation, we still are going to have to build new power plants ... to produce the amount of electricity our customers will need.”

He said Dominion will spend more than $2.5 billion to reduce emissions at existing plants and will expand investment in renewable energy.  In addition to the plant in Wise County, the company plans to build a nuclear power plant in Central Virginia.

“Those who seek to demonize coal or eliminate its use are, quite honestly, disconnected from reality,” Farrell said. “They are placing ‘pie in the sky’ above practicality.”

He said the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, which is moving through the permitting process as crews move dirt in preparation for construction, will exceed federal standards and use clean-coal technology.

Farrell said the plant will create 800 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs, plus 350 mining jobs and $6 million per year in local tax revenue.

Some opponents of the plant are concerned about the environmental impact the plant would have.

While he said he supports federal legislation regulating carbon emissions, he also said new technology like carbon capture and sequestration will be needed. But he warned that “decarbonizing the U.S. economy will cost Americans a huge amount of money.”

Michael Quillen, chief executive officer of Alpha Natural Resources, based in Abingdon, talked about the importance of coal in meeting energy needs.

When he began mining operations in the area, Quillen said he saw a banner on the UVa-Wise campus that read “welcome strip miners and other lower forms of life.”

“We grow up,” he said. “In each generation, in each decade, we look at things a little bit differently ... so there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the dialogue and the different ways of thinking that come out of it, but we also see that things change.”

Michael Karmis, director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech, said testing is moving forward on carbon capture and sequestration technology. It should be ready for a large-scale demonstration by 2011.

By 2020, he said, it will be ready for commercial deployment, and it will be standard practice by 2028.

Lt. Col. Paul Damphousse, of the National Security Space Office, spoke about a solution he thinks can replace fossil fuels – including coal – within the next four decades: space-based solar power.

He said it’s an important technology to maintain U.S. leadership in the world while eliminating international conflicts that arise over energy resources.

“We consider that the fourth generation after wood, coal and oil,” Damphousse said, adding that the technology is bringing the concept closer to reality.

Ultimately, it will be up to the private sector to develop the space technology, but government can do a lot to help by demonstrating that it can work, he added.

Also during the conference, Wise County Administrator “Skip” Skinner announced plans for a “research and development center” adjacent to UVA-Wise in the Lonesome Pine Regional Business and Technology Park.

“We think that this is a perfect location in the heart of the coalfields just to be able to prove and do research on some of these technologies,” Skinner said.

He said cost estimates and job creation numbers are still being developed, but with the help of a $1 million grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, he expects to break ground in 18 months on the Appalachia America Energy Research Center.

J. Glynn Loope, speaking for NanoChemonics Corp., said the company plans to occupy a 15,000-square-foot building that will initially have six employees.

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