Virginia Biomass Energy Atlas

As Virginia struggles to deal with a growing population and individual energy consumption rises at the national level, the Commonwealth’s energy generators are pressuring the State Corporation Commission to approve new coal-fired power plants. Seeing no economically feasible substitute for coal power, the SCC approved a 585-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Wise County on March 30, 2008. The opposition to the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center lacked the data to argue effectively that this plant was unnecessary or that there were less environmentally damaging alternatives.

Public Policy Virginia is currently seeking project funding to produce the Virginia Renewables: A Policy Framework for Our Bioenergy Future. The Policy Framework will provide non-partisan public policy recommendations on renewable energy resources and projects. To support policy recommendations, the Framework will include: (1) biomass feedstock data, (2) an economic analysis of biomass energy feedstocks, (3) an assessment of biomass energy generating technologies, and (4) maps of existing feedstocks and infrastructure. In order to inform legislators and the public of our policy recommendations, PPV will compile, publish and distribute our final report.

Several influential sources, including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Chesapeake Bay Program, have identified Virginia as uniquely well suited to bioenergy production. As a proven leader in the promotion of biofuels, PPV is one of the leading non-governmental organizations promoting bioenergy and has become an authority on the public policy related to it.

Presently, the Commonwealth generates approximately 50% of its electricity from coal and 33% from nuclear fission; both uranium and coal are finite resources. Coal combustion contributes largely to atmospheric carbon dioxide and other airborne pollutants, while biomass is a carbon-neutral, renewable energy resource and, by current estimates, Virginia’s biomass feedstock supply has the potential to produce 9% to 15% of our projected 2010 energy and fuel needs. (If we consider that coal fired generators could co-fire up to 15% biomass, these renewable resources could represent considerably more than 15% of Virginia’s total energy production.) The creation and promotion of a biomass energy industry in Virginia is vital to maintaining the health of our environment, reducing green house gas emissions that lead to global climate change, reducing the demand for land spoiling coal extraction and benefiting air quality.

Public Policy Virginia is a unique position to assess the policy implications of a new biomass energy industry in Virginia; therefore, PPV seeks project funding to produce Virginia Renewables: A Policy Framework for Our Bioenergy Future. To create, promote and regulate a biomass energy industry effectively, business leaders and policymakers need data upon which to base their decisions. They need to know which biomass feedstocks are available, where biomass industry can be located for appropriate scale production and how changes in land-use and resource management will affect competing uses of the biomass feedstock supply.

Other Subsections in Biomass Energy

• Issue Summary
• Biofuels
• Biomass Power
• Virginia Biomass Energy Group
• Resources Online