Dominion Virginia Has Inflated Power Needs, Some Experts Say (Washington Post)
The Washington Post reported today (January 28, 2007):
Dominion Virginia Power, which is planning to build a high-voltage power line through scenic parts of Northern Virginia, is exaggerating the state’s electricity problems to justify a project that benefits other areas, according to several industry specialists studying the issue.
The relatively modest problem for Virginia, they say, has better solutions than an unsightly cluster of cables atop a series of 125-foot steel towers, strung through some of the state’s most beautiful and fiercely guarded open spaces.
“The proposed line is really intended to address mid-Atlantic transmission needs. I’m convinced it is a high-cost, high-risk, high-impact and sub-optimal solution,” Hyde Merrill, a respected industry specialist hired by the slow-growth Piedmont Environmental Council of Warrenton to analyze the project, wrote in an e-mail. “I think that there are other solutions that are better and that deserve a harder look.”
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