The coal question

As government takes aim at the pollution produced by coal-fired power plants, many more plants remain under construction and in the permitting pipeline

Date published: 7/3/2009

COAL IS AT the epicenter of America's tug-of-war between pollution and affordable energy, and nowhere does the conflict play out better than in Virginia. Coal forms the economic backbone of Southwest Virginia, and produces 44 percent of the electricity consumed in Virginia.

But it is a dirty fuel, and even the nation's most advanced coal-fired power plants still contribute mightily to greenhouse gases. Disposing of the resulting coal ash presents a soil and water pollution nightmare.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, more than 80 new coal-fired plants are approved or planned. One is in Wise County. The Dominion Virginia Power project is about 20 percent complete, but there is pending litigation that could stop it in its tracks. It is billed as being a "state of the art" operation using the latest in "clean coal" technology. But the new plant would emit 5 million tons of carbon dioxide a year along with significant amounts of sulfur, mercury, arsenic, and other pollutants.

Virginia has nine existing Dominion coal-fired power plants, several of which were built prior to implementation of the Clean Air Act in 1970 and have not been subject to regulation. But Gov. Tim Kaine announced last week that the state Department of Environmental Quality has begun a survey of the older plants to determine how much pollution they contribute.

With more stringent federal ozone limits in place, clean air non-attainment areas in Virginia are widening and could include the entire Fredericksburg region. Court rulings now allow state officials to require that Dominion retrofit the older plants with modern pollution-control technology--if they are indeed the polluters officials think they are. To its credit, Dominion says it's willing to cooperate.

With coal destined to do its dirty work for years to come and the nation wary of nuclear power, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar must be put to greater use. But with figures showing wind at about 1 percent of the nation's power-generation pie chart and solar at less than half of that, dethroning King Coal is still a long way off.

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Date published: 7/3/2009