Lawsuit seeks preliminary injunction to force comprehensive studies on the massive project’s effect on habitat of critically endangered North Atlantic right whale
Spike in whale deaths occurring at same time early stages of project got underway off Atlantic Coast
Judge’s ruling stops project that was slated to begin ‘pile driving’ this week; gives Dominion, Biden Administration May 6 deadline to respond to legal challenge
WASHINGTON, DC (May 1, 2024) — An order by a federal judge on Monday delayed the start of “pile driving” construction for a massive wind project off the Atlantic Coast by Dominion Energy. Judge Loren L. AliKhan convened an expedited status conference hearing in response to a coalition of three public interest groups—The Heartland Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC)—suing Dominion and the Biden administration, claiming they have not done the legally required research to determine the project won’t harm the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.
The coalition requested a preliminary injunction Monday to stop the project before pile driving began, allowing time to further study its environmental impact – specifically the cumulative risk this project and others along the Eastern Seaboard, pose to the North Atlantic right whale, of which only 350 remain, including an estimated 70 females capable of weaning a calf.
In Monday’s hearing, Judge AliKhan expressed concern that Dominion Energy did not yet gain approval by the federal government for its five mitigation plans, and she grilled the attorneys for Dominion Energy and the Justice Department (DOJ) about when they would gain approval. While Dominion and the DOJ were vague in their answers, the judge ordered them to file a status report on approval by this Friday, May 3. She also ordered Dominion and the Biden administration to file their response to the coalition’s lawsuit by May 6, and for the coalition to file its response by May 9. She is expected to rule on the preliminary injunction shortly thereafter.
See previous press releases about the efforts by the coalition of The Heartland Institute, CFACT, and NLPC at this link.
To speak to members of the coalition filing suit to protect the North Atlantic right whale, please contact Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org or text/call 312-731-9364.
Along with the preliminary injunction, the coalition on April 2 filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel Dominion Energy to reveal the methods it intends to use to protect the critically endangered Right Whale from extinction. Dominion has hidden its species protection plan from public view.
Dominion Energy stated in documents filed with the Bureau of Energy Management (BOEM) that it intended to begin offshore construction activities no later than May 1. The project plans to erect 176 giant wind turbines—with each tower taller than the Washington Monument, and turbine blades longer than a football field—to be constructed in the open ocean 25 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia. If completed, the project would be the largest of its kind in the world.
This Dominion Energy project is but one of many massive offshore wind projects mandated by an executive order issued by President Biden on January 27, 2021 declaring that a “climate crisis” exists which “threatens mankind’s existence.” The Biden administration has given fast-track approval to dozens of wind projects off the East Coast with the goal of producing 30 gigawatts of electricity by 2030.
The amount of federal waters leased for these projects constitutes an area larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. The North Atlantic right whales would be forced to navigate a gauntlet of 32 separate lease areas from Georgia to Maine twice each year.
In the midst of a spike in whales washing up on shore in East Coast states, a dead North Atlantic right whale was found near Virginia Beach on March 30. It was a female, named “Catalogue No. 1950” by the New England Aquarium. accompanied by a newborn calf. That marked the fourth documented North Atlantic Right Whale death in US waters this year. Experts do not expect the calf to survive without the support of its mother. According to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s aerial survey, the mother had successfully raised five prior calves.
The boat is the Orion, and it is BIG, about 710′ long, with a 5,000-ton crane capacity and 8 powerful Thrusters for dynamic positioning. Its coming job is to place and drive the 178 enormous monopiles in Dominion Energy’s huge offshore wind facility.
Turns out the Orion has a serious noise problem. Its thrusters are so loud they exceed the harassment threshold established by NOAA under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Harassment of marine mammals is illegal unless authorized by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and no such authorization exists.
Dominion applied for and received NMFS authorization to harass almost 80,000 marine mammals while constructing its facility. But that was for the noise of pile driving and sonar surveys. The noise from dynamic positioning was not included.
It, therefore, appears that the Orion cannot set and drive piles until the necessary authorization has been applied for and issued. This could take some time.
Dynamic positioning means the boat can be held motionless despite significant wind, waves, and current acting to move it. This is essential because if the boat moved while driving a pile, that pile would not be vertical, and a leaning pile is useless. The piles each weigh about 1,500 tons with a diameter of 28 feet, so holding them perfectly steady is a feat.
So the 8 thrusters work like tugboats as each is a separate, powerful propulsion device. Orion is a DP3 boat, meaning it has the most elaborate dynamic positioning system.
The harassment level noise from the Orion was measured by marine acoustics expert Robert Rand while the boat was working on the Vineyard Wind facility. His recently released report is here: https://randacoustics.com/papers
Rand’s key findings are potentially very important. This from his report:
“The continuous noise generated by vessel propulsion and dynamic positioning (DP) thrusters significantly surpassed the federal threshold for behavioral harassment, with noise levels exceeding 120 dB out to over 6 kilometers. Given federal agencies’ concerns over the compound effects of continuous and impulse noise, this frequently overlooked issue in regulatory assessments constitutes a definitive risk of behavioral harassment to marine mammals, underscoring the need to reevaluate current protective measures.”
Rand also found that the Orion’s pile driving was significantly louder than that assumed in NMFS authorizations. Here is his Conclusion, which may apply to all pile-driving boats:
“This investigation discovered a substantial underestimation of both impulsive and continuous noise levels by current regulatory standards, suggesting that the actual exposure to harmful noise levels from pile driving for marine mammals like the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale is substantially greater than NMFS acknowledges in its existing protective measures. This indicates an urgent need to review and possibly revise NMFS monitoring protocols and mitigation strategies for pile driving to ensure adequate protection for marine mammals against both impulse and continuous underwater noise pollution. The findings detailed in this report underscore the need for immediate actiondue to the substantial underestimations uncovered by this independent investigation.”
To make things even more complex, the Orion now has new vibratory pile driving technology onboard, which was not included in Dominion’s application for harassment authorization. The use of this technology may not be authorized.
All told, this is a regulatory mess. The harassment-level thruster noise has not been authorized. The pile-driving noise exceeds that assumed for authorization, and new pile-driving technology was not included in the authorization.
Surely, the Orion cannot be allowed to operate under these conditions, as they would violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Saving the whales was once a leading cause of left-wing environmental groups like Greenpeace. But offshore wind development has created an ironic twist in which conservative groups are now the loudest voices raising concerns about the North Atlantic right whale’s extinction.
Last month, a coalition of conservative groups filed a lawsuit against federal agencies, their top officials, and Dominion Energy, arguing the permits didn’t properly assess the danger the project presents to whales. The same groups Tuesday submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for Dominion’s species protection plan, which they said isn’t publicly available.
Greenpeace, whose first campaign in 1973 was aimed at stopping whaling, insists that concerns about the impacts to whales from extensive offshore wind developments spreading up the East and soon the West Coast are nothing more than “right-wing disinformation,” and media outlets like the Associated Press and The Guardianreport these concerns as “unfounded” and “false.”
Both the Associated Press and the Guardian have received funding from anti-fossil fuel groups in support of their reporting on climate and the environment.
Dominion spokesperson Jeremy Slayton told public broadcaster WHRO that the coalition’s lawsuit has no merits. He said that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has done a thorough review of the potential impacts to marine wildlife and the environment from the company’s project.
“The overwhelming consensus of federal agencies and scientific organizations is that offshore wind does not adversely impact marine life,” Slayton told WHRO.
Dr. David Wojick, policy advisor for CFACT, told Just The News he couldn’t believe the company’s statement. “I use the word ‘absurd,’ but ‘preposterous’ is probably the right word,” Wojick said.
Dominion received from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the authorization to “harass”– in limited terms — 80,000 animals over the next five years. Under federal law, offshore wind developers have to get permits, called incidental harassment authorization, to conduct activities that might threaten marine animals.
There are two types of harassment under federal law — Level A and Level B. Level A has the “potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild” and Level B has the same potential but could cause injury. Activities that cause these impacts are illegal, without the authorizations.
“If you chase a whale or a dolphin with your boat, they’ll take your boat,” Wojick said.
New research
Robert Rand, founder of the acoustics consultancy company Rand Acoustics, is trying to draw attention to what his research is showing — there is a lack of adequate protections for the whales that migrate along this corridor where all these projects are going up.
He told Just The News he gets little in the way of response from federal agencies that are overseeing the permitting for these projects.
Last year, after increases in the number of whale deaths threatened to drive the North Atlantic right whale into extinction, Rand produced an independent investigation of underwater noise levels from sonar survey vessels, which map the ocean floor for the planning of the projects.
Rand’s study found that the incidental harassment authorizations don’t impose sufficient mitigation requirements to protect marine animals. He sent the findings off to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). He said he never received any response.
His latest study surveyed the noise from pile driving, which is when developers drive a giant steel monopile into the seabed by pounding on it. He took sound measurements as the 5000-pound, 700-foot long pile-driving vessel Orion was driving monopiles into seabed off the coasts of Nantucket Island for the Vineyard Wind project.
Rand’s conclusions suggest federal agencies are underestimating the impact to whales from offshore wind development. “This investigation discovered a substantial underestimation of both impulsive and continuous noise levels by current regulatory standards, suggesting that the actual exposure to harmful noise levels from pile driving for marine mammals like the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale is substantially greater than NMFS [National Marine Fisheries Service] acknowledges in its existing protective measures,” Rand wrote in his report.
Wojick, who wasn’t involved in Rand’s research, said that the implication here is that the 80,000 estimation of “harassed” marine animals that Dominion is permitted for is likely a way too low.
Vessel collision
A humpback whale washed up dead Thursday on the shores of New Jersey’s Long Island Beach, Fox News reported. It was the first of 2024 in New Jersey, following 14 whale deaths in the state in 2023.
In a post on X, SaveLBI, a nonprofit coalition raising concerns about what they say are negative impacts of offshore wind development, reported a Dwarf Sperm found dead on April 4 on the beach of Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina. They estimate the tally of dead whales since December 2022 is approaching 100.
Bob Stern, president of SaveLBI, in a separate post on X, called for a moratorium on offshore wind development in order for more research into the impacts of the industry to be conducted.
“These continuing whale deaths unfortunately confirm our analysis of the significant expected impact on marine mammals from the noise from these projects, starting with the vessel surveys, through the pile driving of foundations and with the higher operational noise from these larger turbines,” Stern said.
Wojick said offshore wind proponents exploit the indirect way in which offshore wind development kills whales to say the two are unrelated.
In its environmental impact statement for a wind project off the shores of New Jersey, BOEM explained, “It is possible that pile driving could displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality or higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction. Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness…. The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.”
Wojick said that the projects are built, for obvious reasons, outside shipping lanes, which also happen to be the whales’ migration corridors. So, the whales impacted by pile-driving and other construction noise are going to swim to the east, where they encounter a busy shipping lane called the M-95, or they go to the west, where they encounter coastal barge traffic. He said both are deadly.
Demonstrating that a whale died when it was struck by a vessel as a result of avoiding sonar vessels or pile-driving activity is very difficult, Wojick said. As an analogy, he uses the example of a dog getting hit by a car after running into traffic to escape a firecracker thrown at it. The car killed the dog, but it was the firecracker that ultimately led to the animal’s death, and nothing about the animal’s injuries would point to the firecracker.
According to data from NOAA Fisheries in 2015, 33 whales were found dead on the beaches between North Carolina and Maine. The following year, the number jumped to 54, and in 2017, 89 whales were found dead. The numbers then began to decline, falling to a record low of 24 in 2022. Then, in the first six months of 2023, 48 whales were found dead along the Atlantic Coast. There are an estimated 360 right whales remaining.
Lisa Linowes, co-founder of the Save Right Whales Coalition, told Just The News in October that 2016 was when sonar vessels began mapping out the lease areas off the East Coast in preparation for the buildout of wind farms.
The conservative coalition’s lawsuit argues that the Biological Opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to adequately analyze the impacts of Dominion’s project on the endangered whales, and they are asking the court to set it aside and order a halt to work on the project.
With the media, the offshore wind industry and environmental groups denying any impacts to whales from offshore wind, it may be conservatives and independent researchers like Rand who end up saving the whales.
Right Whale Female Died Last Week 50 Miles Off Virginia Coast
Dominion Energy Claims Its Whale Protection Information is ‘Confidential and Proprietary’
Three Public Interest Groups File Request Under Freedom Of Information Act To Obtain Dominion Energy’s Plan To Protect Endangered Whales
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
A coalition of three public interest groups— CFACT (The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow), The Heartland Institute, and the National Legal and Policy Center filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel Dominion Energy to reveal the methods it intends to use to protect the critically endangered Right Whale from extinction. Dominion has hidden its species protection plan from public view.
The FOIA request, filed April 2, seeks to compel the Bureau of Energy Management (BOEM) to release two documents that Dominion Energy has filed with BOEM, which explain the procedures the energy giant will use to ensure that its construction of a wind facility off the coast of Virginia will not result in harm to whales and other protected marine species. Dominion has marked these documents as “Proprietary and Confidential Business Information Exempt from Public Disclosure.”
This request is after the reported death March 30 of a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale near Virginia Beach—a female that was accompanied by a newborn calf. This marks the fourth documented North Atlantic Right Whale death in US waters this year. Researchers say there are as few as 350 right whales left in the North Atlantic, with only 70 of those animals being females capable of weaning a calf.
This latest right whale fatality was named “Catalogue No. 1950” by the New England Aquarium. She was at least 35 years old and was last seen alive with her calf off Amelia Island, Florida, on February 16. Experts do not expect the calf to survive without the support of its mother. According to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s aerial survey, the mother had successfully raised five prior calves.
On March 24, Heartland, CFACT, and NLPC filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking a preliminary injunction to stop Dominion Energy’s massive wind turbine project off the shore of Virginia. Now, this coalition is asking BOEM for expedited treatment of this request for documents on the grounds that it is “a matter of urgent and compelling public interest.” The group has requested a response to their demand for information in 10 business days rather than the usual 20 business days for less urgent requests.
Dominion Energy has stated in documents filed with BOEM that it intends to begin offshore construction activities no later than May 1. The project, if completed, will consist of 176 turbines, each with blades longer than a football field. The turbines will be manufactured by the Siemens Co. Earlier this year, Siemens took a financial write-down of $4.7 billion due to warranty payments caused by faulty turbine components.
The following statements may be used with attribution. For more information or to speak to any of the principals of this effort, please contact Jim Lakely, Director of Communications at The Heartland Institute, at jlakely@heartland.org or call/text 312-731-9364.
Craig Rucker, President of CFACT, has criticized Dominion’s project as a “get rich quick boondoggle”. He adds: “This is just one more indication of Dominion’s bad faith and attempted cover-up by sidestepping regulations that would not only protect the right whale but also help save many other marine species whose lives will be put in jeopardy by this unwanted and unnecessary project.”
H. Sterling Burnett, Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute, said: “There is nothing commercially proprietary about the impact of Dominion’s offshore activities on the North Atlantic Right Whale or other protected marine mammals and sea life. And there is nothing proprietary about their efforts to mitigate any impact. Such information is critical to the public’s ability to critically assess the impacts and its ability to comment on them with full knowledge.
“On this issue of fundamental importance, transparency is critical, yet Dominion has made it opaque, and the government, outrageously, has allowed it. Dominion and the government’s position appears to be: ‘Trust us, we are doing nothing wrong.’ But that is simply not good enough. Unless and until Dominion or the government releases the information in Dominion’s Appendices R and FF, and the public is allowed time to digest and comment on it, this project should be stayed by the courts, and all permitting ceased”.
Paul Kamenar, lead counsel for NLPC, said: “Federal regulations prohibit even one human-caused death per year if the right whale is to survive as a species. Robust review of the means by which Dominion intends to achieve that goal is the only way the public will accept the claim by Dominion that their protection of the Right Whale is adequate.”
James Taylor, President of the Heartland Institute, said: “I am totally perplexed why Dominion Energy believes it can obtain public approval of its wind factory by concealing its plan for protection of the right whale. How can protection of the right whale qualify as ‘confidential business information’ when at the same time Dominion is granted monopoly protection and a guaranteed rate of return on its assets?”
Dominion Energy has issued a brief response to the whale protection lawsuit filed by CFACT et al. When I first saw it, I thought there must be some mistake, but it has appeared in a lot of press reports.
This central claim by Dominion is simply absurd: “The overwhelming consensus of federal agencies and scientific organizations is that offshore wind does not adversely impact marine life.” No adverse impact? Seriously?
In reality, the responsible federal agency predicts an enormous adverse impact.
NOAA‘s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has authorized Dominion to acoustically harass almost 80,000 marine mammals and these noise harassments are certainly adverse impacts. They even include temporary deafness, which can easily be deadly.
First, some legal Definitions from the Marine Mammal Protection Act that NMFS is supposed to enforce:
“Level A harassment means any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance that has the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild.”
“Level B harassment refers to acts that have the potential to disturb (but not injure) a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by disrupting behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.”
Note that while level B harassment is not itself injurious, it may lead to injury or death. For example, if the animal flees the noise harassment into heavy ship traffic and is struck and killed.
Analog: a firecracker thrown at a dog causes it to run into a busy street, where it is struck and killed. The car killed the dog, but the firecracker caused the death.
A year and a half ago, I wrote an article about this risk: “How to kill whales with offshore wind.”
Most of the Dominion noise harassment is from pile driving (plus some sonar). Here is a good example of the Feds describing how pile driving noise harassment can cause harm. I could not have said it better.
“It is possible that pile driving could displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality or higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction. Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness. The magnitude of impacts would depend upon the locations, duration, and timing of concurrent construction. Such impacts could be long term, of high intensity, and of high exposure level. Generally, the more frequently an individual’s normal behaviors are disrupted or the longer the duration of the disruption, the greater the potential for biologically significant consequences to individual fitness. The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.”
I cannot imagine why Dominion would put out such an absurd claim. Is it ignorance, deception, or something else? In any case, I would love to see them try to use this nutty argument in Court.
Lawsuit filed by The Heartland Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the National Legal and Policy Center
Construction of Dominion Energy’s offshore wind project comes as more and more dead whales are washing up on the Atlantic Coast
The North Atlantic right whale is so critically endangered that federal agency says it can endure not even one human-caused death a year
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 18, 2024) – A coalition of public interest groups today is filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Biden administration officials and agencies seeking to overturn their approval of a massive wind turbine project off the shore of Virginia. The intent of the litigation is to stop Dominion Energy’s plans to start construction on May 1 in order to protect the North Atlantic right whales.
The lawsuit – which names the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and others – claims the agencies illegally approved Dominion Energy’s offshore wind project by ignoring glaring and obvious procedural errors that subjects the endangered North Atlantic right whale to further grave harm.
At a time when incidents of dead whales washing ashore on the Atlantic coast are spiking, the lawsuit would force Dominion to cease construction of massive wind turbines for its Virginia Offshore Wind (VOW) project in the migratory and feeding waters of the North Atlantic right whale – of which experts say only about 350 individuals remain. The suit claims BOEM’s “biological opinion” issued in September 2023 wrongly determined the project would not produce any irreparable harm for the whale as a species during either the construction, operation, or decommissioning phase of the project.
The VOW project consists of the 176 giant wind turbines – each tower taller than the Washington Monument, with turbine blades longer than a football field – to be constructed in the open ocean 25 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia. If completed, the project would be the largest of its kind in the world.
This Dominion Energy project is but one of many massive offshore wind projects mandated by an executive order issued by President Biden on January 27, 2021, declaring that a “climate crisis” exists that “threatens mankind’s existence. The Biden administration has given fast-track approval to dozens of wind projects off the East Coast, with the goal of producing 30 gigawatts of electricity by 2030.
In issuing its “biological opinion” in September, NMFS only examined the impact that each of these projects, individually and in isolation, would have on the North Atlantic right whale. The agency did not, as it should have, issue a comprehensive and cumulative analysis examining the combined harm that all of the projects, together, would inflict on the whales during their annual migration path.
The courts, including the federal courts of the District of Columbia, have uniformly ruled that this approach is illegal in other endangered species cases because it misconstrues the language of the Endangered Species Act and creates, in the words of one court, “a type of slow slide into oblivion that is one of the very ills the Endangered Species Act was designed to prevent.”
The amount of federal waters leased for these projects constitutes an area larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. The North Atlantic right whales would be forced to navigate a gauntlet of 32 separate lease areas from Georgia to Maine twice each year.
This lawsuit would cause Dominion to halt construction on the project until BOEM has developed a new “biological opinion”, providing verifiable protection against potential harm to the North Atlantic right whale caused by these projects.
A total of 55 dead right whales have washed up on the beaches of the East Coast since 2017, causing the federal authorities to declare an “unusual mortality event” and create two areas of “critical habitat” for the whale – one off the coast of Maine and one off the coast Georgia. The North Atlantic right whale is a critically endangered species with only about 70 females capable of producing newborn calves.
The North Atlantic right whale is so critically endangered that NMFS has issued a determination for the chances of survival for the species called the Potential Biological Removal Rate (PBR). The PBR for the NARW is 0.7, which means that if the species is to survive, there must be zero human-caused mortalities of the NARW on an annual basis.
The following statements may be used with attribution. For more comments, to schedule an interview, or to speak to the attorneys handling this case, please contact VP and Director of Communications Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org or call/text 312-731-9364.
Craig Rucker, president of CFACT and also one of the individual litigants, said, “This piecemeal, incremental step analysis by BOEM is a textbook violation of the Endangered Species Act. Every court, including the District of Columbia, has held this individual approach to be illegal. Dominion Energy must be prevented from engaging in any offshore construction until the NMFS issues a properly determined Biological Opinion.”
Heartland Institute President James Taylor said: “This erroneous biological opinion issued by NMFS is a classic example of abdication of its duty to provide meaningful protection for an endangered species. Playing politics with such an iconic species as the right whale is an unfortunate example of the Biden administration’s allegiance to climate alarmism.”
Peter Flaherty, Chairman of NLPC, said: “This project is not in the interests of Dominion Energy shareholders or customers. It was only approved because Dominion Energy has undue influence on Virginia politics through outsized contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. Because the political process is so tainted, we are pleased to join with CFACT and Heartland to make Dominion accountable through the courts.”
Marc Morano, founder of Climate Depot, said: “I am grateful that CFACT has stepped forward and filed a suit with such an obvious likelihood for success to halt the construction of these offshore wind monstrosities. This is nothing less than the industrialization of the habitat of the right whale, and the claim that construction of these wind factories will positively impact the climate is ludicrous.”
The plaintiffs are represented by David P. Holland, an experienced environmental lawyer with the law firm of Gatzke Dillon & Ballance LLP in Carlsbad, CA, and Paul D. Kamenar, Washington, D.C, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center.
Governor Glenn Youngkin and the Virginia Air Pollution Board have wisely taken steps to protect Virginia’s future energy needs by withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The usual suspects have brought a lawsuit in an attempt to stop them.
There is more to it than that.
Dominion Energy has acknowledged that wind and solar projects are insufficient to keep Virginia’s lights on and has requested that natural gas plants and modular nuclear reactors be built as backup. CFACT delivered written testimony to the State Corporation Commission in support of Dominion’s plan, urging them to go further still by making natural gas the primary instead of the backup power source of electricity generation.
A Dominion spokesman conceded in an email that “renewables alone cannot reliably serve the unprecedented growth in customer demand expected over the next 15 years.”
If cutting greenhouse gas emissions is your thing, natural gas should be your hero. America’s ample supply of low-emissions, domestically produced natural gas permitted the U.S. to dramatically reduce its emissions as the rest of the world, including Europe, flatlined or increased.
Mathematician David Wojick did a brilliant job in CFACT’s submission of crunching the numbers that prove how crucial it is to Virginia to secure reliable power.
Central to Wojick’s thesis is that wind and solar are intermittent sources of power, and the infrastructure to store the energy they produce is prohibitively expensive, does not exist, and is not about to.
“Consider the simple case of a 12-hour night with low wind fulfilling that load.” CFACT’s submission explains, “The storage requirement is 60,000 MWh, over six times the proposed storage capacity. Even if the batteries had a 10-hour capacity, they would not come close to meeting the need… Even worse, this simple case is far from the worst likely to occur. Multiple cloudy, hot and cold days with low wind are common in Virginia. Detailed historical analysis will be needed to estimate the likely maximum required storage capacity correctly, and it will certainly be in the hundreds of thousands of MWh. Even assuming huge battery price reductions, this much storage would be prohibitively expensive. Gas-fired backup power is a better option.”
Wojick then leads CFACT’s submission to a more powerful conclusion, “Instead of building new gas-fired generating capacity to backup renewables, it will be far more cost-effective to use gas as a primary energy source. Having gas capacity sit idle simply because the wind is blowing or the sun is shining for part of the day is redundant and expensive.”
Natural gas and nuclear power plants cannot be quickly turned off and on like a light switch. The power grid is undependable without them. The generating plants must, therefore, operate continually.
The smartest move is to cut the redundant and unreliable wind and solar out of the picture and use what works.
Dominion Energy, Virginia’s big electric utility, is telling the State it does not foresee complying with the 2045 net zero power target in the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The preferred option in Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) retires no fossil-fueled power generators, other than the few old ones that are already in the process of retirement. In fact, it adds a lot more fossil juice.
Up front in the IRP, Dominion puts it this way: “Due to an increasing load forecast, and the need for dispatchable generation, the Alternative Plans show additional natural gas-fired resources and preserve existing carbon-emitting units beyond statutory retirement deadlines established in the VCEA. The law explicitly authorizes the Company to petition the SCC for relief from these requirements on the basis that the unit retirements would threaten the reliability or security of electric service to customers.”
So, in effect, this is a notice to Virginia’s utility regulator, the State Corporation Commission (SCC), that Dominion is prepared to petition for permission to not comply with the net zero power generation mandate in the VCEA.
In fact, this IRP may constitute such a petition. The anti-fossil forces apparently think so because they have petitioned the SCC to reject the IRP because it includes more gas-fired generation. In response, the SCC has initiated a formal legal proceeding to consider this request. A number of green groups have joined the proceeding; there has been a hearing, public comments have been taken, etc. The whole rulemaking deal.
The impetus for this unexpected bout of rationality from Dominion is, as the quote says, an increased load forecast. Specifically, the SCC requires Dominion to use the load forecast from the regional grid operator, which is PJM. They issued a whopping new forecast that is roughly double their earlier ones going back years.
So Dominion is saying they don’t think we can service this enormous new load and comply with the VCEA net zero mandate. They specifically propose not to retire most of their fossil fleet, plus adding almost 3,000 MW of gas-fired generation over the next 15 years. No wonder the anti-fossils are apoplectic.
Unfortunately, they also add a ridiculous amount of renewables. This is about 11,000 Megawatts (MW) of solar and 3,000 MW of mostly offshore wind, on top of the 2,600 MW of offshore already in process. With their usual smoke and mirrors, there is virtually no storage to make this intermittent junk reliable despite costing tens of billions of dollars. If the gas-fired power does that, why not just use it instead of the renewables? Plus, offshore wind is hell on whales. But I digress.
Dominion has 7 million customers in 16 States, so its Virginia no net zero action has much wider implications. Beyond that, it could be a national precedent, so other utilities, States, and interest groups should be watching closely.
What the SCC decides could be very important. Ironically, in a ridiculous sense, the SCC does not exist at this time. Due to a political stalemate, there is only one Commissioner, out of the called-for three, and it takes a quorum of two to issue a formal order. It looks like the most that can happen is that an administrative law judge can render an opinion on the anti-fossil petition.
The SCC legal mess is beyond my knowledge or understanding. Rejecting an IRP seems odd to begin with. Then, too, the VCEA seems to allow what Dominion is describing specifically. Nor is it at all clear that an IRP is a petition when the matter is just presented as an option. Perhaps it is a petition to be allowed to suggest it. The whole fight strikes me as an absurd confusion, but alarmism is like that. Maybe that is the message. Anti-fossil alarmism is an absurd confusion.
This confused action should be fun to watch. Stay tuned to CFACT as the no net zero drama unfolds.
Dominion Energy, Virginia’s big electric utility, is telling the State it does not foresee complying with the 2045 net zero power target in the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The preferred option in Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) retires no fossil-fueled power generators, other than the few old ones that are already in the process of retirement. In fact, it adds a lot more fossil juice.
Up front in the IRP, Dominion puts it this way: “Due to an increasing load forecast, and the need for dispatchable generation, the Alternative Plans show additional natural gas-fired resources and preserve existing carbon-emitting units beyond statutory retirement deadlines established in the VCEA. The law explicitly authorizes the Company to petition the SCC for relief from these requirements on the basis that the unit retirements would threaten the reliability or security of electric service to customers.”
So, in effect, this is a notice to Virginia’s utility regulator, the State Corporation Commission (SCC), that Dominion is prepared to petition for permission to not comply with the net zero power generation mandate in the VCEA.
In fact, this IRP may constitute such a petition. The anti-fossil forces apparently think so because they have petitioned the SCC to reject the IRP because it includes more gas-fired generation. In response, the SCC has initiated a formal legal proceeding to consider this request. A number of green groups have joined the proceeding; there has been a hearing, public comments have been taken, etc. The whole rulemaking deal.
The impetus for this unexpected bout of rationality from Dominion is, as the quote says, an increased load forecast. Specifically, the SCC requires Dominion to use the load forecast from the regional grid operator, which is PJM. They issued a whopping new forecast that is roughly double their earlier ones going back years.
So Dominion is saying they don’t think we can service this enormous new load and comply with the VCEA net zero mandate. They specifically propose not to retire most of their fossil fleet, plus adding almost 3,000 MW of gas-fired generation over the next 15 years. No wonder the anti-fossils are apoplectic.
Unfortunately, they also add a ridiculous amount of renewables. This is about 11,000 Megawatts (MW) of solar and 3,000 MW of mostly offshore wind, on top of the 2,600 MW of offshore already in process. With their usual smoke and mirrors, there is virtually no storage to make this intermittent junk reliable despite costing tens of billions of dollars. If the gas-fired power does that, why not just use it instead of the renewables? Plus, offshore wind is hell on whales. But I digress.
Dominion has 7 million customers in 16 States, so its Virginia no net zero action has much wider implications. Beyond that, it could be a national precedent, so other utilities, States, and interest groups should be watching closely.
What the SCC decides could be very important. Ironically, in a ridiculous sense, the SCC does not exist at this time. Due to a political stalemate, there is only one Commissioner, out of the called-for three, and it takes a quorum of two to issue a formal order. It looks like the most that can happen is that an administrative law judge can render an opinion on the anti-fossil petition.
The SCC legal mess is beyond my knowledge or understanding. Rejecting an IRP seems odd to begin with. Then, too, the VCEA seems to allow what Dominion is describing specifically. Nor is it at all clear that an IRP is a petition when the matter is just presented as an option. Perhaps it is a petition to be allowed to suggest it. The whole fight strikes me as an absurd confusion, but alarmism is like that. Maybe that is the message. Anti-fossil alarmism is an absurd confusion.
This confused action should be fun to watch. Stay tuned to CFACT as the no net zero drama unfolds.
The offshore wind industry is suffering a runaway cost crisis, but Dominion Energy says the cost of its monster project will not go up. Apparently, there is not even a risk of it going up. This preposterous claim is worth exploring.
On the crisis side, I recently wrote about it in general terms.
The financial magazine “Barrons” has done some work on this crisis situation. Here is a telling quote from a recent article:
“But behind the scenes, the news about wind power is more sobering. Financially, the industry is teetering, with a parade of companies planning to renegotiate or pull out of contracts, jeopardizing plans for projects that were expected to provide electricity for millions of homes. Inflation is erasing profits, causing some of the largest energy firms in the world to back away. “Returns on offshore wind are becoming more and more challenged,” Shell CEO Wael Sawan told Barron’s last month, just days after a Shell joint venture said it would pull out of a power contract in Massachusetts. Shell won’t build renewable projects that can’t earn initial returns of 6% to 8%, he said.
At least eight multinational companies in three states have quietly started to back out of wind contracts or ask to renegotiate deals in ways that will pass more costs to consumers. Beyond Shell (ticker: SHEL), they include BP (BP), Denmark’s Orsted(DNNGY), Norway’s Equinor (EQNR), Spain’s Iberdrola (IBDRY), Portugal’s Energias de Portugal (EDPFY), and France’s Engie (ENGIY) and state-owned Electricite de France. The projects those companies are building will collectively cost tens of billions of dollars to construct and connect to the grid. The cost problems they’re facing make offshore wind a dicey investment proposition today, with the potential for substantial write-downs ahead.”
“Financially, the industry is teetering” has an ominous ring to it. This is truly serious for the companies involved in offshore wind, especially the developers.
Dominion Energy is developing one of the biggest American offshore wind projects, a 2,600 MW monster. It will lie out from Norfolk Naval Base (the world’s largest), and Virginia Beach, the state’s biggest city.
Dominion has estimated the project cost at just under $10 billion. One would expect the cost crisis to increase substantially. In fact, the cost increase typically cited by other industry players is a whopping 40%.
But in Dominion’s latest 6-month status report, submitted just this May, they amazingly predict no cost increase at all. This astounding prediction is then repeated in a July submission (or basically right now), which incorporates the May report by reference.
There is no public discussion of risk in the May status submission. There may be some admission of risk, but most of that submission is kept secret.
Here is how veteran Dominion watcher Steve Haner reported this strange secrecy in the great Virginia-focused blog called “Bacon’s Rebellion”:
“Dominion Energy Virginia’s first wave of offshore wind remains on schedule, and within the announced capital cost of $9.8 billion; and the cost per unit of the energy from the turbines will be lower than initially projected, the utility reported last week.”
“Details? Well, many of those are secrets. Much of the brief report the utility filed with State Corporation Commission remains redacted, with large blocks covered by black ink. The redacted data involves reports from an affiliate corporation, Blue Ocean Energy Marine LLC. There apparently is also another document ‘filed under seal under separate cover.’
“Finally, Dominion refers to an Excel file that includes all the data on the new levelized cost of energy (LCOE) calculations which was posted to a shared eRoom. The password is available only to the SCC and case parties who signed non-disclosure agreements, reports the SCC’s communications director in response to a query about access for Bacon’s Rebellion.”
Potential cost overruns are a sensitive topic for this monster project because there are rules over who will pay for them. Any increase taking the cost up to $10.3 billion is split 50-50 between Dominion and their customers. But beyond and up to $13.7 billion, Dominion pays it all. Beyond that, who pays what will be up to the SCC.
By an amazing coincidence, $13.7 billion is a 40% increase in cost, which now looks entirely possible. If that happened, Dominion would be on the hook for almost $4 billion, a big risk indeed.
I can find no public disclosure of this risk to the public, to investors, or to the Virginia or Federal Authorities that oversee this monster project.
Even if Dominion already has fixed-price future contracts for all the construction and equipment, the risk is still there. As Barrons says: “Financially, the industry is teetering, with a parade of companies planning to renegotiate or pull out of contracts, jeopardizing plans for projects…”
Under these dire circumstances, all long-term, big-dollar contracts are risky. Companies go bankrupt or renege to keep from going bankrupt. Contracts rendered ruinous by cost increases will simply not be met.
I understand this kind of big-dollar risk must be publicly disclosed to stockholders and potential investors. Maybe the SEC should be looking at Dominion’s handling of this huge risk. So should Virginia.
Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. View more
Cookies settings
Accept
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookies list
Cookie name
Active
Wer wir sind
Textvorschlag: Die Adresse unserer Website ist: https://climate-science.press.
Kommentare
Textvorschlag: Wenn Besucher Kommentare auf der Website schreiben, sammeln wir die Daten, die im Kommentar-Formular angezeigt werden, außerdem die IP-Adresse des Besuchers und den User-Agent-String (damit wird der Browser identifiziert), um die Erkennung von Spam zu unterstützen.
Aus deiner E-Mail-Adresse kann eine anonymisierte Zeichenfolge erstellt (auch Hash genannt) und dem Gravatar-Dienst übergeben werden, um zu prüfen, ob du diesen benutzt. Die Datenschutzerklärung des Gravatar-Dienstes findest du hier: https://automattic.com/privacy/. Nachdem dein Kommentar freigegeben wurde, ist dein Profilbild öffentlich im Kontext deines Kommentars sichtbar.
Medien
Textvorschlag: Wenn du ein registrierter Benutzer bist und Fotos auf diese Website lädst, solltest du vermeiden, Fotos mit einem EXIF-GPS-Standort hochzuladen. Besucher dieser Website könnten Fotos, die auf dieser Website gespeichert sind, herunterladen und deren Standort-Informationen extrahieren.
Cookies
Textvorschlag: Wenn du einen Kommentar auf unserer Website schreibst, kann das eine Einwilligung sein, deinen Namen, E-Mail-Adresse und Website in Cookies zu speichern. Dies ist eine Komfortfunktion, damit du nicht, wenn du einen weiteren Kommentar schreibst, all diese Daten erneut eingeben musst. Diese Cookies werden ein Jahr lang gespeichert.
Falls du ein Konto hast und dich auf dieser Website anmeldest, werden wir ein temporäres Cookie setzen, um festzustellen, ob dein Browser Cookies akzeptiert. Dieses Cookie enthält keine personenbezogenen Daten und wird verworfen, wenn du deinen Browser schließt.
Wenn du dich anmeldest, werden wir einige Cookies einrichten, um deine Anmeldeinformationen und Anzeigeoptionen zu speichern. Anmelde-Cookies verfallen nach zwei Tagen und Cookies für die Anzeigeoptionen nach einem Jahr. Falls du bei der Anmeldung „Angemeldet bleiben“ auswählst, wird deine Anmeldung zwei Wochen lang aufrechterhalten. Mit der Abmeldung aus deinem Konto werden die Anmelde-Cookies gelöscht.
Wenn du einen Artikel bearbeitest oder veröffentlichst, wird ein zusätzlicher Cookie in deinem Browser gespeichert. Dieser Cookie enthält keine personenbezogenen Daten und verweist nur auf die Beitrags-ID des Artikels, den du gerade bearbeitet hast. Der Cookie verfällt nach einem Tag.
Eingebettete Inhalte von anderen Websites
Textvorschlag: Beiträge auf dieser Website können eingebettete Inhalte beinhalten (z. B. Videos, Bilder, Beiträge etc.). Eingebettete Inhalte von anderen Websites verhalten sich exakt so, als ob der Besucher die andere Website besucht hätte.
Diese Websites können Daten über dich sammeln, Cookies benutzen, zusätzliche Tracking-Dienste von Dritten einbetten und deine Interaktion mit diesem eingebetteten Inhalt aufzeichnen, inklusive deiner Interaktion mit dem eingebetteten Inhalt, falls du ein Konto hast und auf dieser Website angemeldet bist.
Mit wem wir deine Daten teilen
Textvorschlag: Wenn du eine Zurücksetzung des Passworts beantragst, wird deine IP-Adresse in der E-Mail zur Zurücksetzung enthalten sein.
Wie lange wir deine Daten speichern
Textvorschlag: Wenn du einen Kommentar schreibst, wird dieser inklusive Metadaten zeitlich unbegrenzt gespeichert. Auf diese Art können wir Folgekommentare automatisch erkennen und freigeben, anstatt sie in einer Moderations-Warteschlange festzuhalten.
Für Benutzer, die sich auf unserer Website registrieren, speichern wir zusätzlich die persönlichen Informationen, die sie in ihren Benutzerprofilen angeben. Alle Benutzer können jederzeit ihre persönlichen Informationen einsehen, verändern oder löschen (der Benutzername kann nicht verändert werden). Administratoren der Website können diese Informationen ebenfalls einsehen und verändern.
Welche Rechte du an deinen Daten hast
Textvorschlag: Wenn du ein Konto auf dieser Website besitzt oder Kommentare geschrieben hast, kannst du einen Export deiner personenbezogenen Daten bei uns anfordern, inklusive aller Daten, die du uns mitgeteilt hast. Darüber hinaus kannst du die Löschung aller personenbezogenen Daten, die wir von dir gespeichert haben, anfordern. Dies umfasst nicht die Daten, die wir aufgrund administrativer, rechtlicher oder sicherheitsrelevanter Notwendigkeiten aufbewahren müssen.
Wohin deine Daten gesendet werden
Textvorschlag: Besucher-Kommentare könnten von einem automatisierten Dienst zur Spam-Erkennung untersucht werden.
