For the future, coal is not the answer

Virginia needs power. Its businesses and its people, growing for decades and likely to grow more in coming years, need electricity to keep the lights on, the computers humming, the machinery working. But there simply isn't enough juice to go around.

In the Surry County town of Dendron, the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative would like to do something about that shortage. The nonprofit, which largely serves the state's growing rural areas, wants to invest as much as $6 billion in a 1,500-megawatt power plant fueled by coal. It would be among the state's largest and would dwarf Dominion Virginia Power's facility under construction in Southwest Virginia.

Despite the fact that the Dendron plant would do much to satisfy the state's need for electricity, despite the fact that coal is among the cheapest sources of power, and despite the fact that it would bring good jobs to a community that needs them, it is simply not a wise response to Virginia's power shortage.

Worse, it would deepen problems that the world and America are already struggling to solve.

There is no such thing as clean coal. Given ODEC's reputation, the Dendron plant would probably be as environmentally responsible as possible. But the result still would be nowhere near clean enough for the air and water in Hampton Roads or the world.

A coal plant of that size, along with the prevailing winds, would make smog worse here. It would release particulates that exacerbate respiratory ailments, particularly among the young and the elderly.

And, regardless of how advanced the technology might be at the Dendron plant, it would release mercury, which would land in Hampton Roads, among other places.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that can hinder the mental development of children and harm the nervous systems of adults. Power and industrial plants to our west have rained so much mercury on Hampton Roads that almost every body of water and the fish in them are already poisoned.

The plant also would release untold tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year, at a time when the world needs to reduce them. That's especially important to Hampton Roads, which is vulnerable to even minor changes in sea level, but it's important in every corner of the planet.

The Dendron plant would do all this for a very long time. With the kind of investment it is considering, ODEC would have no choice but to operate the plant as long as it runs. One day there may be new technology that permits the burning of coal without also poisoning the air and water and changing the climate, but it's nowhere on the horizon we can see.

Given all that, coal simply isn't the solution. It can't be, if we value our environment and our health - and when there are real alternatives.

Boosting conservation and efficiency is cheaper than building power plants and can free up tremendous amounts of energy, but it requires difficult human engineering, including in the General Assembly.

Natural gas is clean but hugely expensive. Renewable energy - from wind, sunlight, plants, garbage, even the tide - could help satisfy some of Virginia's needs. Unfortunately, all have problems of their own, including capacity and unreliability.

A nuclear plant is costly and carries its own environmental dangers, particularly when it comes to storage of radioactive waste.

Once built, however, a nuclear plant provides vast amounts of energy reliably and at low cost. It can do so without contributing to global climate change, to smog, or to mercury contamination in Hampton Roads.

ODEC owns part of the North Anna nuclear plant, where officials are hoping to build a third reactor. It should continue that pursuit, with all its energy. Concentrating efforts on conservation and on building more capacity at North Anna are, in the end, much better alternatives to a new, dirty facility in Dendron.

While nuclear power is hardly benign, it will have to do until the world finds a source that is.