The Verdict Is in: Pipelines Have No Future in Virginia

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), the long-contested, 600-mile project that would’ve snaked through West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina piping natural gas, has been cancelled. Dominion Energy and Duke Energy, the two utilities backing the project, cited ongoing delays and increasing financial uncertainty - the project was $3 billion over budget - as the last nails in the coffin. Announced in 2014 with the backing of former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe, the project was plagued from its inception by environmental concerns, litigation, and inflated claims of demand, an assertion further challenged by the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This development is not only a win for the broad coalition of environmental and consumer activists that have fought the project, but a confirmation of what Powered by Facts has stood for since its inception: renewable sources of energy are capable of fulfilling Virginia’s energy demands, stimulating the economy, and mitigating the climate crisis. Reliable sources of energy don’t need to be piped in from out of state - affordable, decentralized, and clean energy can be sustained in the very communities that need them.

The story of the ACP offers insights into another controversial source of energy: nuclear power. Much like pipelines, building new current generation nuclear plants are more often than not expensive disasters (read: Plant Vogtle in Georgia), and finding someone to finance a new project is becoming virtually impossible. Notwithstanding the cost of new infrastructure, however, pre-existing nuclear power is increasingly viewed as a valuable source of carbon-free energy, and keeping Virginia’s two operating nuclear power plants running, which churn out 31 percent of the Commonwealth’s electricity, is prudent, until they can be replaced by true renewable energy.

In addition to Dominion and Duke Energy’s announcement, recent federal court rulings halting operations of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL pipeline impart the feeling that the country is the midst of a sea change in the energy industry. There is good reason, however, to remain guarded in Virginia. The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), another natural gas infrastructure project slicing through Virginia, already has 92 percent of its pipe in the ground (at the time of Monday’s announcement, only six percent of the ACP’s infrastructure was complete). Even though the MVP faces similar regulatory hurdles that subverted the ACP, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent stay of a Montana judge’s decision to ban a fast-track permitting process removed a critical barrier for the MVP. Though debate exists over the implications of the ruling in respect to the project’s viability, the decision underscores the battles that remain.

Moreover, Dominion Energy, who controls the majority share of the ACP project, struck a $9.7 billion deal with Berkshire Hathaway to sell nearly all of its natural gas transmission and storage assets, which Dominion branded as a “narrowing of focus” on “fulfilling utility customer needs” and positioning the utility for “a bright and increasingly sustainable future.” While this may sound promising, clean energy advocates point to the structural problems of Virginia’s utility system, highlighting the fact that as long as Dominion Energy remains an inflexible, regulated, private monopoly, the incentive to prioritize profits over public interest remains, and the same logic that precipitated the ill-fated ACP proposal will persist.

The world is in the throes of a climate emergency, and pipelines have no business in mitigating it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in 2018 that the entire world must reach net-zero carbon emissions by midcentury to limit a rise in global temperatures 1.5ºC and evade disastrous consequences. The completion of the ACP would’ve locked in decades more of fossil fuel infrastructure. What’s more, pipelines are a bad investment - they are increasingly the focus of litigation, costly, and environmentally precarious. On the heels of new laws aimed to reign in the Commonwealth’s carbon footprint and achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2045, the demise of the ACP is a victory for the collective future of Virginians. As the future of fossil fuels hangs in the balance, the lessons of last week’s news reaffirms Powered by Facts commitment to advocating for reliable, job-creating, localized, renewable sources of energy that can power and employ Virginians from the Eastern Shore to the Shenandoah Valley.