Category: Environment
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Global Climate Catastrophe (in 1501?)
Once the Viking Cruise people have your mailing and email address the marketing is relentless, and the fog from 11 hours on two legs of Lufthansa had barely lifted before the email arrived with a fabulously attractive deal on a Rhine cruise in early 2019. Ah, but I know now why the price is so…
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Bacon Bits: Rails, Roads, Hurricanes and Rainbows
Still off the tracks. Despite promising efforts by top-level management, the Washington Metro corporate culture is still dysfunctional. An audit of $1.9 million in blanket purchase agreements found missing and incomplete documents, reports the Washington Times. “Auditors found that Metro employees failed to record $845,000 as BPAs in their accounting software, a problem the inspector general attributed…
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Coal Ash Lessons from Hurricane Florence
Last month pounding rains from Hurricane Florence eroded a Duke Energy landfill, releasing some 2,000 cubic yards of soil and coal ash. Although Duke declared that the majority of displaced ash was collected in a ditch and haul road surrounding the landfill, North Carolina news media reported the “possible release” of material into the L.V.…
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Shoreline Resiliency Funds for Hampton Roads?
In 2016 former Governor Terry McAuliffe signed a bill that set up a revolving loan fund to help homeowners and businesses elevate their properties to safeguard against sea level rise. Just one problem, says the Virginian-Pilot. The fund has no dedicated revenue source. Two years later, “the well is dry.” Now the Virginia Conservation Network…
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How Will the SCC Approach Energy-Efficiency Investments?
The 2018 Grid Transformation and Security Act requires Dominion Energy Virginia to propose at least $870 million in energy-efficiency investments over the next ten years. Yesterday Dominion submitted the first wave of proposals, eleven projects totaling $280 million. The company estimates that it would spend $215 million on new initiatives and $46.7 million on reconstituting…
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New Virginia Energy Plan Ramps Up Commitment to Carbon-Free Future
The Northam administration’s 2018 Virginia Energy Plan is the environmental movement’s dream come true. The administration is going “all in” for solar power, offshore wind energy, distributed energy resources, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles. Under the plan, Virginia won’t be as aggressive as California, which has set a goal of a 100% carbon-free electric grid…
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The Eagles Have Landed
In 1975 bald eagles were extinct on the James River. Today, after years of effort by naturalists and conservationists, 280 nesting couples have made the river their home. The revival of the James River eagles is one of Virginia’s great environmental success stories. I had the good fortune to be invited by my friends Linda…
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This Certainly Demonstrates Something (Don’t Ask)
Under normal circumstances, building two wind turbines 27 miles off the coast of Virginia at a cost of $300 million would be neither reasonable nor prudent. They may produce the most expensive 12 megawatts of electricity in Virginia history. The only rational reason to go forward is to test technology which is becoming more common…
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A Thumb On The Scale for ACP?
A witness to whom Dominion Energy Virginia had vehemently objected, Gregory Lander of a company called Skipping Stone, had his time on the stand anyway at the State Corporation Commission Tuesday. His testimony might still be stricken, but the two commissioners and everybody else in the room heard it and then a lengthy cross-examination underlined…
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BVG Makes Case for Virginia as Offshore Wind Supply-Chain Hub
Virginia is very well positioned to establish a supply-chain hub for an East Coast wind-power industry, says a report written by offshore-wind consulting firm BVG Associates and underwritten by the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club. Although Virginia will not participate in the “first wave” of East Coast offshore wind projects, which is ramping up…
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Bacon Bits: In with the New, Out with the Old
In with the new… Data Center Alley too hot to handle. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) has sold 424 acres west of Dulles International Airport to data-center developer Digital Realty Trust for an eye-popping $236.5 million — $558,000 per acre. MWAA will place $207 million in a segregated account used to reduce costs that…
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What Virginia’s Electric Grid Could Look Like
by Jane Twitmyer Virginia has all the tools it needs to build an inexpensive, reliable, clean energy future. We’re not talking about exotic technologies that might become available some day in the future. Solar power, wind power, battery storage, microgrids, energy-efficient buildings and other clean-power technologies are available right now at a cost competitive with…
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Northam To Ask Again To Spend Carbon Fees
Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Matthew Strickler told a legislative commission today the Governor will again ask the General Assembly to keep and spend the proceeds of a new electricity carbon tax, rather than find a way to return it to ratepayers. Strickler pointed to Senate Bill 696 and its companion House Bill 1273, defeated…
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Limousine liberalism in Alexandria, Va
Stinking to high heaven. The City of Alexandria spews an astonishing 11 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River every year. The overflows happen just about every time it rains. This is the result of a combined sewer system that is designed to collect sewage and runoff in a single system. When it…