If you like mercury in your fish, you’re going to hate today’s top story.

Windpower!!!

Ken Salazar, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, came to Norfolk yesterday to announce that the federal government has accelerated plans to offer leases to offshore sites for windpower installations, and that an area of 165 square miles, located approximately 20 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, would be one of the premier target sites up for lease. The government could begin leasing sites to developers by the end of the year.

A forest of windmills

This location makes sense. Various agencies have done extensive research into the potential for wind power across the country and off the coasts, and the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay was identified as a site with regular, powerful winds. The site also provides an extensive shallow seabed where turbine towers can be installed. (See this Virginia offshore wind speed map for more information).

Chu explained that there is a potential 94 gigawatts of wind energy off of Virginia’s coast, and that harnessing just 1/10th of that could power 3 million homes. In other words, the entire Hampton Roads region (population 1.7 million) could be powered by clean, renewable energy.

Also in wind energy news this week, on Thursday Governor McDonnell will cut the ribbon on a new facility in Chesapeake that is a joint venture between Northrop Grumman and Gamesa, a Spanish wind turbine manufacturer. The facility will design offshore wind turbines to be used around the world, and possibly just off our coast.

In case you’re thinking that a forest of wind turbines 20 miles off the coast of Virginia is too high a price to pay for our power, let’s take a moment to discuss coal-powered energy. Old Dominion Electric Cooperative has been pushing to begin construction on a new, massive coal-burning plant in Surry County, Virginia. This plant would dump an estimated 44 lbs of mercury into the region’s waters and lands per year. A study by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation concluded that the proposed plant in the town of Dendron, an hour west of Norfolk, would further damage the James River, the Pamunkey River, the Great Dismal Swamp, the Blackwater River, the Nottoway River and the Roanoke River. Parts of these waterways are currently under health advisories due to high samples of
mercury in some fish species that people eat.

I’m not even going to mention the issue of carbon pollution, except to say that we get a lot of it from coal already, and more would be worse.

We need power. All power sources have consequences. The minor visual annoyance that wind turbines, at the far far edge of the horizon, might cause, needs to be weighed against the very real dangers of the alternatives–continued poisoning of rivers and the Bay, continued warming of the planet.

There really is no case to be made that says we’d be better off with a new coal plant instead of this new source of clean power.

Southern Sudan

In non-local news, in case you missed it, there’s soon to be a new country in Africa. Southern Sudan, the region infamous for its Lost Boys, the more than 27,000 boys of the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups who were displaced and/or orphaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War, has finally, democratically, seceded from greater Sudan, after a vote for independence on January 9 passed with over 98% approval. It’s time to take a moment to be happy for the people of this new country. It’s not going to be easy for them to pull their country together, establish a working government, make some sort of economy, etc. But at least they can stop worrying that government-backed mobs from the north will come raiding and killing them. At least there’s that.

Patriot’s Crossing: we need it

I smile every time I read the name of the proposed third crossing of the Bay. Patriot’s Crossing conjures images of Washington swooping down on the British. It’s our passage to freedom, our region’s manifest destiny. It’s also number five on the list of projects that would do the most to support economic growth in the state of Virginia, according to TRIP, a national non-profit transportation group. There are other projects on the list as well, of course, but my favorite is the PC. This is probably because it’s the one transportation project most likely to result in passenger rail spanning the divide between Norfolk and Newport News. It’s not in the current plan, but my new hero, Thelma Drake, it pushing for it in her role as Director of Rail Transportation (she’s the state of Virginia’s train czar!). Her maps show an interconnected grid of rail that runs through all the major cities of Hampton Roads, and crosses the Bay at Craney Island. I mention this because it needs to be front and center in everyone’s discussion of this project. All of us who believe that rail represents a more efficient and enjoyable alternative to cars need to be beating the train drum all the time. It’s the patriotic thing to do.

Panel OKs Bicycle Safety Bill

This wasn’t in the Pilot today, but there’s big news for cyclists from the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate Transportation Committee unanimously passed the bill that would require cars to give a minimum of 3 feet of clearance to cyclists as they pass them on the road. The new law would bring Virginia up to the standard recommended by the League of American Bicyclists. The bill is now awaiting action by the full Senate.