Category: Infrastructure
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Virginia Procurement Process Needs Reform
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth of Virginia needs to reform its procedures for contracting and administering billions of dollars of contracts, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) has found in a new study. In 2015 Virginia spent more than $6 billion through contracts, including for transportation projects, information technology, and building construction,…
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Haymarket Project More than Amazon’s “Extension Cord,” Dominion Says
Dominion Virginia Power would have to upgrade its electricity distribution system to the Haymarket area of Prince William County sooner or later, even without the development of a data-center campus, testified Mark R. Gill, an electric transmission planning engineer with Dominion, in State Corporation Commission testimony filed yesterday. “Without the request for service to the Haymarket…
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Could Virginia Beach Become the Next Mecca for Data Centers?
by James A. Bacon Virginia Beach is finally getting its Tide — not the Tide light rail system, but MAREA, the Spanish word for tide, which happens to be the name of a transatlantic cable project recently announced by Facebook, Microsoft and Telefonica, the Spanish telecommunications giant, according to the Virginian-Pilot. The 4,000-mile cable will…
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Swapping Easements
by James A. Bacon Dominion Transmission, managing partner of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, has proposed to donate two parcels totaling nearly 1,200 acres to offset the intrusion of its proposed 600-mile pipeline onto lands protected by conservation easements. In a proposal made to the Virginia Outdoor Foundation (VOF), which holds the conservation easements, Dominion would…
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Justifiable Jitters or Unwarranted Worry?
Virginians living in the path of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline fret about the threat of explosions. Dominion Transmission says their fears are overblown. by James A. Bacon Irene Leech, a consumer studies professor at Virginia Tech, grew up on a farm in Buckingham County where her family has raised beef for more than a hundred years.…
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Virginia in No Rush to Address Impending Metro Meltdown
by James A. Bacon The McAuliffe administration seems to be in no hurry to bail out the ailing Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) commuter rail system crippled by declining ridership and an $18 billion capital spending shorttfall over the next ten years. Bolstering state support for the transit authority, which has been plagued for decades by union featherbedding and short-sighted, politically driven…
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Tech’s “Smart Infrastructure” Initiative Progresses
by James A. Bacon Virginia Tech has been re-thinking for a several years now how to invigorate traditional engineering disciplines by integrating civil engineering and computer engineering to create “smart infrastructure.” The $100 million initiative received a $5 million boost yesterday from the Hitt family, owners of Falls Church-based Hitt Contraction, a company that typically recruits eight to ten Virginia…
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Surry-Skiffes Transmission Line Inches Closer to Approval
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has not yet granted Dominion Virginia Power a permit to build a transmission line across a historic stretch of the James River, but it has rejected the argument advanced by foes who argued that electricity demand in the Virginia Peninsula could be met by other means. “Additional analysis further demonstrates…
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SCC Approves Greensville Gas Plant
by James A. Bacon The State Corporation Commission (SCC) approved yesterday Dominion Virginia Power’s filing to build a $1.3 billion natural gas-powered power station in Greensville County. The power station will generate 1,588 megawatts of electricity, upping Dominion’s reliance on natural gas to 39% of its energy mix by 2020. Construction, expected to begin later this…
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Turning Sea Level Rise into a Competitive Economic Advantage
by James A. Bacon To hear Henry R. “Speaker” Pollard describe all the economic risks associated with rising sea levels in Hampton Roads — soaring insurance rates, higher financing costs, declining property values, disruption to business — one might be forgiven for wondering why any business would ever want to consider investing there. “It’s easy…
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Making NIT More Productive, More Resilient
by James A. Bacon For the millions of Virginians living above the fall line, the struggle that Hampton Roads has with rising sea levels and increasing flooding may seem remote and far away. Why should we care? After all, does anybody in Hampton Roads give a hoot about our problems? Kit Chope, vice president of sustainability for…
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Why Is Virginia a “Dark State” for Solar Power?
by Erik Curren Around America, there’s a boom in solar energy. More solar power generation was installed in 2015 than ever before and 2016 could be even better, doubling in U.S. solar capacity. Although solar still provides less than one percent of America’s total electricity, it’s the fastest growing source of new energy since shale…
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Buena Vista: the Canary in Virginia’s Fiscal Coal Mine
by James A. Bacon The City of Buena Vista, which defaulted in 2014 on a $9.2 million bond issue to pay for a golf course that was supposed to spur growth in the city, has received some good news. It will be allowed to keep its city hall. For now. The office building, along with…
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Time for Richmond and Hampton Roads to Join Forces?
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s economic growth ground to a standstill in 2014 and lagged the nation in 2015. Recognizing that metropolitan regions are the growth engines of the early 21st century economy, civic boosters are looking to spur growth and development at the regional level — but that picture doesn’t look much prettier. The Brookings Institution’s Metro…
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Econometric Studies at Fifty Paces!
by James A. Bacon From the perspective of theoretical economics, the debate over the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) is getting quite interesting: To what extent do natural gas pipelines diminish the value of property they cross? A coalition of five community groups opposed to the pipeline contend that landowners along the proposed route will lose up…