Category: Science & Technology
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McAuliffe Pitches Jobs vs. Ideology
By Peter Galuszka “Fantastic,” says Terry McAuliffe as he listens to officials at the Culpeper, Va., campus of Germanna Community College talk about projects ranging from designing machine controls to a weight-loss competition. The tall, curly-haired McLean businessman — a Democrat who wants to be Virginia’s next governor — walks through a campus building while…
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The Dragas-Sullivan Battle at UVa Blazes On
By Peter Galuszka It appears that the conflicts between Helen Dragas and Teresa Sullivan are far from over. After all the brouhaha last summer between the head of the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors and its president – a battle that got national attention and sparked lots of questions at universities around the country…
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Sequestration and Resilience in Washington Region
Of the 3.1 million people employed in the Washington metropolitan area, 450,00 work for the federal government or military. No question, Washington stands to get hammered by sequestration and other budget cuts. But Mark Muro and Jessica Lee with the Brookings Institution argue in “Sequestration Shock: Smart D.C. Metro Will Figure It Out,” that the…
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Dissecting Obama’s “War on Coal”
By Peter Galuszka During elections a few months ago, headlines, blog sites and televisions screens were crowded with news about the “War on Coal” being waged by President Barack Obama and his EPA chief. Coal firms were laying off thousands of miners as their bottom lines took big hits. Virginia politicians including Kenneth Cuccinelli and…
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Automobility’s AI Revolution
Automobiles have been around for more than years. Styles have changed, safety has improved and the rides are more comfortable, but functionally the vehicles are still the same as they were in Henry Ford’s time — horseless carriages. But automobiles are undergoing a metamorphosis that will make them something quite different — not just a…
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Another Step toward Smarter Highways
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has issued a $34 million contract to Pennsylvania-based TransCore to design and build an active traffic management system for Interstate 66. The contract will cover 34 miles of highway from Washington, D.C., to Gainesville, at the intersection of U.S. 29. Reports ITS International: The active traffic management system will…
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Reports of King Coal’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
By Peter Galuszka It seems such a short time ago. In the gnarled hills of Southwest Virginia’s coalfields, prominent Republicans Ken Cuccinelli, Robert F. McDonnell and others were on the stump for Mitt Romney. The key theme was how Barack Obama’s environmental rules were putting a stranglehold over the coal industry. A little farther north…
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Back on Front Burner: Controlling Carbon
By Peter Galuszka On frosty mornings, Virginia’s single largest-contribution to global warming can be seen belting out dense steam clouds from its three smokestacks near Interstate 95’s interchange with Route 288. The 1,600 megawatt Chesterfield Power Station provides owner Dominion Virginia Power with enough electricity for four million customers and represents 12 percent of all…
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“Jeopardy” for Budding World Statesmen
By Peter Galuszka At Richmond’s Hotel Jefferson, 10 teams of earnest-looking high school students, some in shirt sleeves, pore over notepads as they consider the questions put to them on a big screen, Jeopardy-style, in the Grand Ballroom. “What percentage of oil used by the United States actually comes from these Persian Gulf countries?” Other…
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Is Virginia Uranium Quickly Running Out of Money?
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in Agriculture & forestry, Business and Economy, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Science & TechnologyBy Peter Galuszka Just how financially viable is Virginia Uranium, which appears to be losing its battle to lift a 31-year-old ban on uranium mining in Virginia? Corporate documents filed with Canadian securities regulators state that as of last September, Virginia Energy Resources Inc., Vancouver, British Columbia-based parent of Virginia Uranium that wants to mine…
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Patents and Regional Prosperity
by James A. Bacon Here’s more evidence that economic growth in the innovation economy will gravitate toward existing centers of technology prowess: According to a Brookings Institution report, “Patenting Prosperity: Invention and Economic Performance in the United States and its Metropolitan Areas,” 63% of all U.S. patents are developed by people living in just 20…
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Virginia Uranium’s Strangely Short Half-Life
Peter Galuszka After years building up to a critical mass, Virginia’s uranium controversy never quite reached fission. State Sen. John Watkins, a Republican and uranium backer from Powhatan, pulled the plug on his pro-mining bill Thursday as it faced certain death at a Senate committee. There are a couple of other legislative efforts out there,…
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Your Health Care System on the Government Needle
From the power-corrupts-and-absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely department in today’s Wall Street Journal: An extraneous and last-minute provision inserted in the New Year’s Day fiscal-cliff legislation sharply cut Medicare payments for Elekta AB, a Swedish maker of radiation tools used to battle brain tumors. Turns out that Elekta competitor Varian Medical Systems, of Palo Alto, Calif., had persuaded Senate Majority…
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Swapping Smarts for Asphalt
Smart traffic lights are no cure-all for Virginia’s congested road network but VDOT increasingly regards them as part of the solution.
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The Wobbly World of Global Uranium Prices
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in Business and Economy, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka Highly controversial plans to mine and mill a rich tract of uranium in Pittsylvania County are before the General Assembly. Plenty of studies, lobbyists and scads of money are being thrown about on both sides of the argument. Yet a brief story on page B7 in today’s Wall Street Journal deals with…