When a record-setting heat wave blasted the Washington region last week, the power grid struggled, but nonetheless managed to keep up with the unprecedented demand for electricity that kept our air conditioners, fans, swimming pools, refrigerators and freezers running. What might have happened if that were not the case, and local utilities were forced to institute California-style rolling blackouts, is too awful to contemplate.
The Achilles heel of the American economy’s use of highly efficient, computer-driven technology is the need for power to run it. The demand increases every year, but unfortunately the supply does not. The difficulties or raising vast amounts of capital, finding appropriate sites, fighting rampant NIMBYism and other problems have prevented the power industry from building more plants and adding more capacity.
The good news is that the industry is finally addressing its serious environmental issues.
Last week, Mirant announced a $900 million contract with the Louisiana-based Shaw Group to install cutting-edge “scrubbers” at its three power generating facilities in Maryland: Chalk Point, Dickerson and Morgantown. The units are expected to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 95 percent, nitrogen oxide by 92 percent and mercury emissions by 90 percent. Even if they fall short, this new equipment will improve air quality in the state.
But before spending any money elsewhere, shouldn’t Mirant first retrofit its Potomac River Generating Station in Old Town Alexandria, which already exceeds air quality standards? The Department of Justice rightly stepped in to prevent the city from completely shutting down the plant — a critical energy supplier to Maryland and downtown D.C. Under a compliance order, the Potomac plant now uses day-ahead weather forecasting and trona, a mineral similar to baking soda, to cut sulfur emissions. But Alexandria residents who don’t directly benefit from the power generated at the plant deserve to be first on the upgrade list.
Meanwhile, the nuclear energy industry, which now provides 20 percent of all electrical power in the nation, wants to add 50,000 additional megawatts of nuclear capacity by 2020 — including a new reactor at Dominion Power’s Lake Anna plant in Virginia. In Maryland, Constellation Energy plans to submit an early site permit next year for new nuclear facilities at its Calvert Cliffs or Nine Mile Point sites, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
The United States hasn’t built a new nuclear facility anywhere in the nation since Three Mile Island in the ’70s, even though experts warn that the United States will need to build at least 30 within the next two decades to maintain the power supply we already have, let alone allow for the increase in demand as technology transforms the American home and workplace. Renewable energy sources to run conventional power plants should also be aggressively pursued.
We should, of course, insist on the cleanest, safest, most-efficient power plants that are humanly possible to build. But build them we must.
