New Energy Pollutes

By Broadside Staff Reporter Christine Blake

In Wise County, Va., Dominion Energy has proposed a coal-fired plant. In doing so, 5.3 million tons of carbon dioxide would be released per year, which would greatly increase global warming and contribute to the destruction of the environment.

These issues, along with other important topics, were discussed at the sustainability film series last Tuesday. As part of Earth Week this year, the film series served as one of the major educational events during the week. With four riveting documentaries shown to a captivated audience in the Johnson Center Cinema, the event was a success. After each film, experts in the field were invited to discuss the topics with the audience.

The film series aimed to educate people on how to live in a more energy efficient way. While entering the event, there was a table set up in the lobby with Kayti Wingfield, a spokesperson for the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club is the oldest conservation organization in the United States.
The Sierra Club was recruiting people to sign their petition against the proposed coal-fired power plant near the town of St. Paul in Wise County. Virginia’s largest energy company, Dominion, wants to construct a 585-megawatt, $1.8 billion coal-fired plant. In doing this many of Virginia’s southwestern mountains will be destroyed and air pollution will become extremely detrimental.

So far, 30 of Virginia’s mountains have already been destroyed and streams and forests have completely disappeared due to coal mining. Any conservation work completed so far in the northern Virginia, or D.C. area will be negated by the pollution from the coal plant.

Many of these facts were brought to attention in the films shown, along with many other sustainability issues facing our society today. The first film shown was titled Radiant City, an interesting documentary on suburban development and potentially over-development.

The second film in the series, Kilowatt Ours, examined the dangers of a coal powered economy and looked at many issues learned about from the Sierra Club. Additionally, it focused on how changing traditional light bulbs into more energy efficient bulbs can make a significant difference.

The third documentary shown was titled Fighting Goliath. It examined the lives of Texas residents negatively affected by the mass amount of coal plants in their state. This definitely exemplified the problematic effects of how we as humans can be greatly affected by this pollution.

Following this film, a discussion featured Wingfield, Allison MacFarlane, a Mason associate professor of environmental science and policy, and many other environmental scholars who made up the audience.

“It’s a world-wide problem,” MacFarlane said. “China alone builds two power plants a week which puts way too much carbon-dioxide into the air.”

The discussion involved many different alternative solutions to the problems of coal-fired plants including improving technology. They also asked for help from every individual present to make changes in our daily lives to conserve energy.

“We can all make changes on a personal level and it’s important we know how each person can make an impact for the better,” Wingfield said.

The last film, Mountain Mourning, gave a captivating close-up look into West Virginia and how the mountains are affected by the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.
For more information on signing the petition against the Wise County coal-fired plant, or becoming more involved in actively preventing it, go to Virginia.SierraClub.org.