Environmentalists are vowing to block a proposed $6 billion coal-fired power plant in Surry County, saying it would increase air pollution, would contribute to global warming and is not needed.
Advocacy groups including the Sierra Club, Southern Environmental Law Center and Chesapeake Climate Action Network are gearing up for what one activist called "all-out war" in response to plans announced this week by the project sponsor, Old Dominion Electric Cooperative.
ODEC, a nonprofit utility based in Richmond, said it wants to build the plant on about 1,600 acres in the town of Dendron, about 40 miles west of Norfolk, in order to meet anticipated demand for electricity in the near future in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
The utility has given the plant a name - Cypress Creek Power Station - and said it would burn mostly Appalachian coal to produce 750 megawatts to 1,500 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 400,000 homes. Woody timber wastes, known as biomass, would fuel about 3 percent of the plant.
In comparison, the coal-fired plant under construction in Wise County in Southwest Virginia is expected to produce 585 megawatts and cost about $1.8 billion. That project, led by Dominion Virginia Power, is being challenged in court by environmentalists.
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