Ironically, it sounds like the money is coming out of the$369 billion that was voted to reduce emissions. The pipeline is expected to deliver
more than two billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
What a waste. Considering how long it will take to build and how soon before we're supposed to stop burning fossil fuels I wonder if the money could have been better spent.
I wonder how that will play out with
Virginia's energy plan and VECA:
Math Quiz: Just how much Natural Gas does Virginia need?
Natural gas–0.14 kWh/cubic foot and in January this year was $7.40/thousand cubic feet.
Currently,
Virginia consumes 7.2 GWh/d of electricity (
ref) for a retail price of $0.0914, there are no daily news articles about them running out of power, so not sure what the crisis is. Possibly the offset needed is something like 10% that they're importing from other states? (And if they're successfully importing it already, why do they need more?)
At full capacity of 2 billion cuft/d, the pipeline can provide 2,000,000,000 x 0.14 kWh = 280,000,000 KWh, or 280 GWh/d.
Obviously,
at 38x the current consumption, the pipeline seems a tad oversized. I know you all like conspiracy theories, so here's one....Want to bet the pipeline terminates at the seaports so natural gas can be shipped and sold to foreign countries? That is, it really is a plan for companies to make money rather than help the power-starved Virginians at the taxpayer's expense?
Math Quiz: Would solar & ESS have been better?
Let's say the number is 10% for the sake of the math, since we'll cost out gas and solar the ratio difference would be the same and so ultimately the exact amount doesn't matter.
Solar w/50% ESS
At 10%, Virginia would need an additional 720 MWh/d. The average insolation of Virginia is 4.5, so 720MWh / 4.5 = ~160MW of panels.
Let's assume commercial solar installed goes at the national rate of $1/W, so $160M, or with a 25-year life a cost of ~$17,500k/d.
Let's assume 50% of the power needs battery backup, at $300/kWh, that's 360,000,000Wh x $.3/Wh = $108,000,000, and if it lasts a decade teh daily cost is $29,589/d. Combine with solar for a daily cost of
$47,089/d. Yes, CAES is viable in Virginia and if sodium batteries turn out to be real, or a dozen other things the price could be less per day, a lot less.
Gas
Now let's look at the cost of the gas... 720 MWh is 720,000,000Wh / 140w/cuft = 5.14 million cuft, or at $7.40/1000 cuft = $38,057/d
Pipelines have an expected lifespan of 50 years but also require a lot of maintenance. Let's ignore the maintenance costs and assume we'll be carbon neutral by 2050, giving the pipeline a 26 yr life. Then $6,600,000,000 / 365 / 26 = $700,000/d cost. A combined cost of
$747,089/d.