By Rich Heidorn Jr.
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Dominion Resources CEO Tom Farrell spoke of the challenges of social media, the promise of utility-scale solar and the dangers of “magical thinking” in remarks to the 20th annual Education Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utility Commissioners last week.
“Transitioning from more than three decades of public policy centered on the notion of energy scarcity to energy abundance is a very good problem to have, but nevertheless it’s a problem,” Farrell said. Making the transition, he said, will require new gas and electric infrastructure and a rational response to environmental regulations.
“The combined effect of the proposed climate change, air quality, water quality, ash disposal and many other [energy-related] regulations on customer costs and reliability is a great cause for concern … But wishing away regulations we might differ with is not an option,” he said.
“We must avoid magical thinking in the public policy arena — the type of thinking that bypasses the laws of physics, the limits of technology and the realities of human nature in pursuit of ideological goals. Just as we have long recognized that hope is not a business plan, so we must accept that ideology is not an energy policy.”
Farrell said he expects utility-scale solar to be part of the response to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. “Although much of the public policy debate and all of the publicity tends to focus on distributed solar, the real story has been the explosive growth in utility–scale solar, by far the most cost-effective … and useful complement to traditional generation,” he said.
Farrell praised Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Norman Bay’s suggestion earlier in the conference that states create “energy corridors” for siting both electric and gas lines.
Meeting future environmental rules, Farrell said, will require utilities to overcome obstacles from both infrastructure opponents and federal agencies responsible for approving siting of new lines.
“Social media … accelerates the flow of information — and misinformation — on the Web. In the hands of those who oppose new energy infrastructure, social media gone viral can erode industry’s credibility and make our job of communicating facts much harder. But communicate we must. Our industry has not always been on the cutting edge in the use of social media tools. But we’re going to have to learn how to do it and we’re going to have to learn how to respond.”
Farrell said utilities are facing an unusual alliance of “environmental groups who don’t want any fossil fuels used at all” and Tea Party-type activists who “say I’m happy to use gas or electricity, but I don’t want you doing it on my property.”
“When you put those two together that’s a very interesting coalition,” he said. “I think you’re going to see … that grow exponentially over the next five years.”
He expressed frustration with what he said were seemingly contradictory directives from federal agencies, citing the difficulty Dominion has had in winning federal approval for a transmission line across Virginia’s James River. The line is needed because of the loss of coal-fired generation shuttered due to environmental rules. “We still don’t have all the permits and we’ve been working on it for six years,” he said.
“We would do well to acknowledge that energy issues are highly complex, that there are tradeoffs and opportunity costs embedded in every single policy decision made. There is no silver bullet solution that’s going to solve all the problems and do it reliably and inexpensively,” he said. “In essence this means more hard work on energy policy and less attention paid to energy soundbites coming from the fringes on either side.”
