I'm a volunteer VA General Assembly bill reader for a grass roots organization focusing on identifying both good and bad proposed legislation with respect to individual freedom, sound science, property rights, and pushing back on government overreach that has little to no beneficial impact on the Commonwealth and her citizens.  dozaens of bills were introduced during the 2019 GA session that just ended that proposed moratoria on Virginia's current fleet of electric generation plants (nuclear, natural gas, coal and Fuel oil) and mandating replacements by new renewables (wind and solar).  Most in the General Assembly obviously have no backfground in power generation and no concept of energy density, intermitancy, the fact that every new renewable source requires either a huge battery system (systems that are experimental only, hugely expensive, and have failed in actual use after only 3 hours per the $150M Tesla battery storage system put in place to back up the grid in South Australia last year that left over 200,000 homes and businesses without power for almost 3 days last month during hte peak of Australia's summer!

Companies in Australia, Germany and elsewhere in the EU are pulling up stakes and moving thousands of jobs and taxible businesses to US states--Alabama (BMW), Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina--STATES THAT HAVE NOT YET DECLARED WAR ON FOSSIL FUEL AND NUCLEAR ENERGY! Why?  Becasue they can no longer compete in world markets while paying 4X the rate for electricity in their home countries because of the renewables mandates.  If renewables were such a great economic boon, why do the require such massive government subsidies.  In fact, Warren Buffet flat out told his stockholders that the only reason his companies build renewables (solar and wind) is because of the massive subsidies and ten years of tax credits and that, otherwise, renewables make no economic or technical sense!  Remove the subsidies and see what happens!  The Green rentseaker claims that wind turbines will pay for them selves within 6 months will evaporate overnight!

Renewables will directly increase energy poverty throughout the Commonwealth.  Net metering is only throwing a large portion of the costs of installing frivolous solar panels on rooftops onto the backs of Virginia citizens who will neither enjoy any of the power or the subsidies the richer homeowners who agree to install such systems may enjoy.  At the seme time, the mandates to utilities thaty they must accept and use any energy generated by newnewables ahead of conventional power systems will only mandate taht the base load sources will be used as uneconomically and under the most damaging environmental operatinmg rules as feasible!  Fossile fuel generators expell the highest levels of emissions during start up and shutdown and the politicians of Virginia will effectively mandate that these conditions will be the new normal.  How has it worked out for germany?  Renewables absolutely rely on fossil fuel back ups to meet regular demand as the wind and sun fluctuate.  So now not a single fossil fuel plant in Germany can operate economically.  So the largest German utility has shut down all fossile fuel sources that can't even be sold because of the Government mandates that they can ONLY be operated in the most uneconomic conditions possible. So the country's 2nd largest utility is proposing to do the same.  Germany's only remaining alternatives remain: 1) nationalize all fossile fule plants to ensure the continued existance of back up base load generation.  Or 2) massively subsidize the fossil fuel plants that aren't allowed to operated cleanly or economically, while continuing to massively subsidize the worthless renewables that have already proven for over a decade that they can't meet normal or peak demands for 2 days out of 3 over most months of the year!  Waste, stupidity, irresponsibility!  And all based on a false --and so far totally unproven claim--that somehow CO2 is the thermostat for the world that also controls climate!  

the UN IPCC and other federal agencies have wasted trillions trying to prove this hypothesis for over two decades and have yet to come up with demonstrable and repeatable evidence that this is the case!   They assert it on a daily basis but only have the bogus outputs of some 102 unvalidated general climate models to support their assertion--none of which were able to project the current 18 year haitus in global warming (in spite of NOAA and NASA GISS constant claims to the contrary --while also failing to disclose that the actual termperature data --even after routine upwards adjustments without requisite justification and in total violation of Federal Data Quality Standards--that the margin of error is far wider than the claimed record hot temperature happens to fall.  I've prepared several numerical models to research environmental problems whre the necessary data doesn't exist in the field.  It's obvious to me that the academic, IPCC, and federal GCMs are not following accepted validation protocols.  The are all exaggerating the sensitivity of CO2 because the only proof that the IPCC and Federal agencies are willing to pay for is proff of mankind's adverse impact on temperature and climate.  And CO2 is all they have that can conceivably be blamed on man.

Virginia needs to get out of the Climate Political Science business and let the free market respond to electrical generation needs. BTW, Virginia is already experiencing a brain drain to other states where energy development, exploration and use is not demonized by politicians and State agencies with little understanding of energy, geology, climate, and basic science such as Henry's Law which explains how temperature increases before CO2 starts coming out of solution in the oceans that currently contain over 90% of the CO2 in the the entire global mass CO2 budget.