The Hanover Progressive

Few details have emerged about the proposed Chickahominy Pipeline. Searching the web shines a bit of light on the subject, but not much.

Take the company’s own website. Not only is the information sparse, but false claims can be found under its FAQ section. One false claim suggests that natural gas based energy “will help prevent widespread blackouts as experienced by states like California and Texas.” If by Texan power blackouts they mean the 2021 Texas power crisis, I’d encourage them to do a bit of research. Early studies and reports indicate that the main culprit of those blackouts was a failure to winterize natural gas power infrastructure, in particular, natural gas pipelines. Hmm.

Shortly thereafter, the company doubles down, claiming that “In Texas, the cold and low winds caused citizens a blackout due to its reliance on wind turbine energy.” By most accounts, this is incorrect. It is generally accepted that roughly 7% of the Texan energy supply comes from wind energy, an unknown portion of that did fail in the 2021 crisis, however it is very unlikely to have been the primary culprit. On top of that, the grid relies less on wind energy during winters as wind turbines generally yield less energy during winter. Again, reports indicate the primary culprit was a failure to properly winterize the energy grid, in particular natural gas infrastructure.

If the pipeline is approved, how can the public trust Chickahominy Pipeline, LLC to take proper precautions while they actively promote falsehoods and misleading information on their own website?

Further misleading claims can be found in the next section. While the proposed pipeline is explicitly for transporting natural gas, the company claims a future intent to repurpose it for transporting “a 100% renewable source” sometime in the indefinite future. (The specific “renewable source” mentioned is Green Hydrogen, a mostly unproven technology that makes up less than 1% of the global hydrogen market) No plan is offered to back up this statement. No timeline, just an “intent.”

It is important to note that natural gas is neither a clean, nor renewable, energy source. It is not 100% carbon-free. Burning natural gas is a major contributor to US carbon emissions and Global Warming. Under the “About Us” website tab, one can find a series of mission statement-eque goals laid out by Chickahominy Pipeline, LLC. They cite a “Responsibility… to protecting the environment by using already available utility lines, air-cooled power generation turbines and plans to be 100% carbon-free.” Which is it? Do they feel a responsibility to protect the environment and be 100% carbon-free, or not? These goals are fundamentally incompatible with natural gas based energy.

One can argue the merits of using natural gas as a transitory energy source, a stop on the path to a carbon neutral energy grid, but this does not appear to be the goal of Chickahominy Pipeline, LLC. The goal, or at least the current plan in execution, is to misinform, mislead, and make empty promises to a public that may be negatively impacted by this pipeline. I’d encourage readers to see the website for themselves, reach out to the company, attend public hearings, and to demand some level of clarity from Chickahominy Pipeline, LLC.