I was paying the electricity bill and looking at the little public relations flyer that comes in the mail with it, when there it was some real news:
Emissions data for 2006
Last year, Dominion Virginia Power generated 66,723,825 megawatt-hours of electricity. …serves more than 2 million customers…sulphur dioxide [emissions] … were about 0.0021 tons per megawatt-hour…nitrogen oxide [emissions] … were about 0.0009 tons per megawatt-hour.
No one looking at these at these numbers would know if they are good or bad.
A little spreadsheet magic and I have 4.2 lbs. of SO2 and 1.8 lbs of NO2 per megawatt-hour (MWh) or 140,120 tons of SO2 and 60,051 tons of NO2 for all of Dominion Virginia Power.
That seems like a lot of emissions. If I actually break it down by customer (which includes both residential and business), we get 140 lbs. of SO2 and 60 lbs. of NO2 per customer. And most of that is business and industrial customers since the average family uses about 1 MWh per month or 12 MWh per year. Yep, a total of 72 lbs. for each residental customer in a year of emissions.
The rest is business use. A small industrial customer uses about 385 times more energy than a household and a large industrial customer uses about 26,000 time more energy than the average household. Even a small commercial business uses 10 times more energy than a residential home.
Therefore, all of the savings we do as families will not come close to having the impact an industrial customer has on energy use, on pollution, on energy prices. Environmental engineers: start your electric motors and reduce industry’s energy foot print. That is where the savings are.
I am glad you did the math on this. It shows a stark reality: it is the businesses of this country that need to reduce their impact! I drive past a row of factories to get to school in the morning. I paid more than I could easily afford to get a hybrid and yet these factories spew garbage into the atmosphere to make as much money as they can. Such a sad reality, but it needs to be pointed out nonetheless. Thank you for that. I wonder if BG&E has those type of figures on its bills? Anybody know?
You might have noted that Dominion Power is in the process of building a couple of additional power generation plants–both to be coal-fired.
This monopoly outfit wrote its own re-regulation legislation in 2007, which passed both houses of the Virginia General Assembly in about three weeks by overwhelming margins. The secret to their success in getting this very generous legislation which they drafted?? They gave nearly a million dollars, some for each one, to the Virginia delegates and senators who dutifully voted for it.
Environmentalists will tell you its a terrible law in terms of moving us in the direction of clean, renewable energy. The best legislation money can buy!! Ask Senator Saslaw or then-Attorney General Bob McDonnell!