So let’s bang on the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) drum a bit more, hmm? This is a project that is the center of attention for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. The construction is now near the end of its 300 mile plan to cross into North Carolina, but legal hurtles have halted progress just shy of the border. This pipeline is the singular reason Manchin held up legislation in his own party throughout 2022, and he relented only when promised legal barriers to its completion would be removed.
West Virginia is deeply rooted in coal history and currently operates 23 coal-fired plants, which was a staggering 91% of the state’s energy fuel source in 2021. The state is outdone only by the much larger state of Texas that still operates 24 coal plants. But the economics of coal is rapidly changing. The price has soared due to the increasing costs of mining, transporting, and pulverizing it. Additionally, most coal plants nationwide are nearing their 50 year lifespan’s end, and a majority are simply being decommissioned, torn down, and replaced with renewable sources such as wind and solar. In the midst of this energy transition though, West Virginia sees a potential economic lifeline in its abundance of shale gas.
The MVP project represents a strategic shift towards this resource, to extract and distribute the natural gas for as long as possible. The pipeline is intended to deliver the gas to central North Carolina, targeting Duke Energy — to, among other things, encourage the utility to switch their last coal plants (all located in the central/north of the state) to natural gas. However, this is not a simple “conversion” to gas as it is usually expressed because it’s economically unfeasible to repower old coal plants with gas fuel. Instead, the old plants are torn down and an entirely new gas-fired plant is built, an investment that secures gas-fired energy for another forty or more years.
But the elephant in the room is of course global warming. The move from coal to natural gas — while beneficial in terms of reducing carbon emissions, is still far from sustainable energy. There is admittedly a large benefit to stopping the release of many toxins including mercury into the air (producing acid rain), and the toxic sludge that is created in the coal burners that eventually enters the water system. But natural gas is “cleaner” than coal only by about half of greenhouse emissions and still contributes significantly to global warming. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2019, natural gas accounted for 36% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
From its inception, the MVP project has been met with strong opposition from environmental activists who argue that building new fossil fuel infrastructure is inconsistent with global efforts to slow climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made it clear that in order to avoid the worst impacts of global warming we need to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
And that is the trend in the U.S. towards coal it turns out, to replace it with renewable energy sources that are now so much more cost effective it’s difficult for energy companies to ignore. Utilities transitioning to renewables are lowering rates, while coal has only become more expensive. As of 2021, renewable energy provided more power to the U.S. grid than coal, and Texas is now the national leader in wind power, second only to the entire country of China.
The MVP project thus stands at a crossroads, reflecting a broader debate about our energy future. Is it enough to replace coal with cleaner-burning natural gas, or should we make a more aggressive shift towards renewable energy sources? Will the short-term economic benefits of a gas-fired future be shoe-horned into legislation despite the long-term climate costs? To be fair, there is much improvement recently in carbon capture technology to reduce emissions from the petroleum energy, but it’s still a lot of effort and additional cost to operate a polluting power source when sustainable and less expensive clean power sources are readily available.
By entrenching a gas supply to neighboring states, West Virginia is doubling down on its extractive economy, which research shows leads to high levels of inequality, environmental degradation, and a dependance on a single natural resource which leaves them vulnerable to shocks, such as the dwindling economic logic of coal. The detrimental effect on the state’s population and economy is therefore predictable. The state has a high poverty rate, an old, crumbling infrastructure, and a low population density trained mostly to dig coal. They are unprepared for the 21st century.
These are the major reasons business investment in the state is low and its population struggles. Economic diversification away from petroleum extraction while investing in education and social programs is critical to raise W. Virgina up to the standards enjoyed by neighboring states. A gas pipeline was never a solution to anything but continued income to a small number of petroleum executives and Joe Manchin.