Climate Change Group Launches Richmond, VA Chapter

Last night was the official kickoff of the Richmond, VA chapter of Chesapeake Climate Action Network,or CCAN. According to their website, CCAN is an organization that is “dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming” in the states bordering the Chesapeake Bay. As sensible environmentalists, we decided to attend this meeting ourselves to see how we could help.

The meeting was held in the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond. It attracted 21 attendees, including several Sierra Club members, members of the church, and five of us NA-YGN types – Joe Montague, Delbert Horn, Kelly Taylor, Chris Peterson, and Michael Stuart.

As CCAN rep Diana Dascalu explained, they have found much success in focusing a lot of effort on one or two goals, which she spoke of to the newly-forming chapter.

The first goal is to get Richmond’s mayor (and former Governor of Virginia) Doug Wilder to sign the Mayor’s Climate Protection agreement. This agreement is basically a pledge to address global warming concerns locally by reducing urban sprawl, improving public transportation, investing in renewable energy credits, improving energy efficiency standards in building codes, and enacting policies and programs to meet the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

The second goal is to influence the state legislature to adopt the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which calls for a 15 to 20 percent reliance on renewables by 2015.

The document promotes the use of renewable energy but virtually disregards any additional nuclear capacity. Because of this apparent oversight, even the most optimistic renewable portfolio standard of 20% renewable energy by 2015 calls for an increase in coal power (approx 500 MW of additional capacity) and a net increase of 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 2003 values. Their own documentation seems to expose a flaw in the logic of reducing carbon dioxide emissions while meeting increased energy demand. If CCAN is “dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming,” is acknowledging nuclear power’s potential contributions (over 70% of all US emission-free electricity) too much to ask?

One of the big advantages of renewables (as the RPS not-so-clearly indicates, and the CCAN representative tried to explain) is that everyone who has been forced to use renewables has actually *saved* money on their electric bills. The theory is that the more renewables are used, the less natural gas is needed for power generation, resulting in the market suddenly being flooded with cheap natural gas.

I had to ask, “If renewables are so cheap, and there are so many real-life examples to support it, why must states mandate their use? Shouldn’t the free market pressure be enough to bring about their use?”

My question generated some follow-up discussion and questions, but the given answer was essentially that renewables face large up-front capital costs that fossil stations do not. As the energy market moves to deregulate, those capital costs are viewed negatively by the utility conglomerates as a risk of stranded expenses that may not get recovered. The focus of the group was to bring about legislation forcing the up-front investment in renewables research, development and construction with the result of lower energy bills for everyone.

Before and after the meeting I was able to speak with several people. When I mentioned nuclear energy, the reaction was generally skepticism or shock, but when I explained how the RPS failed to adequately address their concerns, everyone seemed willing to listen. In fact, we were able to briefly address the concerns of several of the attendees about nuclear energy. (We even generated enough curiosity to be invited to meet with them this Saturday to talk about GAIA theory and nuclear energy!)

In conclusion, our goal was to contribute our expertise to help Richmond CCAN truly realize their goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One way to do this is to ensure that this group does not become another anti-nuclear organization with great intentions of addressing the need for clean energy, but with no clear plan of how to do it.

I’m pleased to report that this newly-formed group seems to be open-minded and supportive of making a real difference. I genuinely hope that this attitude endures.