This is a cool and worthwhile site that allows you to plug in your zipcode and see exactly where your power is generated, and to see if it is using coal from mountaintop removal coal mines.

Actually, there are three of these sites according to the Gazette-Mail, though I just checked the one)

Norfolk is, unsurprisingly, on the grid of Dominion Power, which uses mountaintop removal mined coal from a variety of places.



Here is a list of the plants Tidewater draws its power from:

THERE are 12 plants DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL ON YOUR GRID

Plants on the Dominion Virginia Power grid that purchase coal directly from mountaintop removal strip mines in Appalachia include:

• Bremo Bluff , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Fluvanna County, VA
• Chesterfield , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Chesterfield County, VA
• Chesapeake , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Chesapeake County, VA
• Clover , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Halifax County, VA
• Cogentrix Portsmouth , operated by Cogentrix -- located in Portsmouth City County, VA
• Cogentrix Hopewell , operated by James River Cogeneration Co -- located in Hopewell City County, VA
• Cogentrix Dwayne Collier Battle Cogen , operated by Cogentrix -- located in Edgecombe County, NC
• Altavista Power Station , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Campbell County, VA
• Southampton Power Station , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Southampton County, VA
• International Paper Franklin Mill , operated by International Paper Co -- located in Isle of Wight County, VA
• Cogentrix of Richmond , operated by Cogentrix -- located in Richmond City County, VA
• Birchwood Power , operated by Cogentrix -- located in King George County, VA

• THERE are 4 plants INDIRECTLY CONNECTED TO MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL ON YOUR GRID
  
  Plants on the Dominion Virginia Power grid that do not use mountaintop removal coal directly, but purchase coal from companies that operate mountaintop removal mines in Central Appalachia include:
  

• Yorktown , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in York County, VA
• Mt Storm , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Grant County, WV
• North Branch , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Grant County, WV
• Mecklenburg Power Station , operated by Dominion Virginia Power -- located in Mecklenburg County, VA

[the following is a bit preachy so please skip it if you prefer ]

Yes, each time I have written these 1700 posts on Undismayed or searched for news of cockfighting arrests around the US, I have contributed to the problem. That is one reason that I have been trying to do something about it.

We are all living in the energy wasting US of A, benefiting from the abuse of and irreversible destruction of the Appalachians since so much of the national electric grid is drawn from mountaintop removal coal mines. Perhaps you should check out if you are directly on such a grid to see if you should be giving more of a shit about things.

It is my personal feeling that mountain removal is the fundamental moral issue of our day. Once the mountains are destroyed, they are destroyed forever and can not be recreated or replaced or restored. We are living in a society that is torturing people as a matter of policy and that is a moral abomination. But we can stop torturing people, jail the offenders (or even shoot them as war criminals), and the embrace of torture will be a stain on us a people but will become a memory. Cutting down trees, killing animals, outsourcing to Red China, all of that stuff is bad but reversible. But destroying mountains just so we can have cheap energy to live our lavish lifestyles is a tragedy, simply put, and one that is entirely avoidable.

ok, I'll stop preaching.