Virginia's Commitment

Someday your refrigerator may talk to Dominion Virginia Power. It could happen under a technology-based plan revealed yesterday to help the utility meet a state goal for conserving electricity. The utility estimates that the plan, which requires approval by the State Corporation Commission, would provide customers more than $1 billion in net savings on their electric bills during the next 15 years.

Richmond, VA - Dominion Virginia Power on Thursday unveiled an energy conservation plan aimed at cutting emissions, reducing energy consumption and saving customers more than $1 billion over the next 15 years. The energy provider said the plan would avoid the need for two future power stations and delay the need for two others. Dominion hopes to implement the plan next year, pending approval from the Virginia State Corporation Commission.

Dominion Virginia Power unveiled a range of initiatives on Thursday to reduce electricity usage across its territory, including a plan to use new meter technology to better control the flow of power. Dominion, the dominant electricity provider in Hampton Roads, said it will submit a proposal for state regulators' approval that it estimates would save customers $1 billion over 15 years. However, the initiatives also would involve an increase in customer rates, though Dominion officials declined to discuss the specific rate changes they intend to propose.

You can add saving the planet to the list of reasons to eat fried chicken. Ukrop's Super Markets Inc. today will announce a program to turn used soy oil from its chicken frying operations at 11 Richmond-area stores into biodiesel for its fleet of delivery trucks. Employees will dump the used oil into 350-gallon plastic containers behind the stores. The oil then will be picked up by Richmond-based Reco Biodiesel, which will transform it into fuel. Ukrop's plans to expand the program to all 28 stores.

Virginia's U.S. Senate hopefuls presented their energy policies yesterday and criticized each others' chance of easing escalating energy costs. In Richmond, former Gov. Mark R. Warner outlined his approach, which includes clamping down on speculators driving up the price of oil for short-term relief, using trade power to pressure OPEC nations to increase oil production and boosting the tax credit to people who buy certain fuel-efficient cars.

ABINGDON, Va. – The coal-fired power plant proposed for Wise County would exacerbate damage to air and water quality in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, environmental advocates said Tuesday. “The air quality in the Smokies is already degraded considerably,” said Don Barger, senior regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association. “This would exacerbate the problem ... in a situation that is really overloaded and that we are trying to clean up.”

A DEMOCRATIC energy bill has died in the Senate -- and it's probably just as well. For the most part, it was election-year symbolism. Several provisions, such as a Justice Department investigation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, a windfall profits tax and an end to certain oil industry tax breaks, might have stuck it to alleged culprits, but they would have had little or no impact on prices at the gas pump.

We all know that gasoline is at $4 a gallon and that oil is at $135 a barrel. But if you think that's the end of the story, don't talk to economist Jeffrey Rubin of CIBC World Markets. By Rubin's reckoning, we've barely passed the halfway point on a steady march upward that will take gasoline to $7 a gallon and oil to $225 by 2012. Despite fluctuations, the underlying rise, he says, will have pervasive and surprising side effects. Among them:

"Today we witness a very great change for hydrocarbons," Alexei Miller, the head of the Russian oil and gas giant, Gazprom, said recently. "The [oil price is already] very high, and we think it will reach $250 a barrel." Line up legions of financial journalists fainting and writhing in coils at the news of impending economic Armageddon. So do you think that we'll see some attempt to move away from dependence on oil now?

Annapolis, MD -Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says the United States and China have a strong mutual interest in avoiding energy supply disruptions. Paulson said Tuesday at the start of two days of high-level discussions that the two nations need to intensify efforts to cooperate on a variety of energy and environmental issues.