Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Your Holiday Rebellion

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by

James A. Bacon
in

You’ve been eating too much, drinking too much, going to too many parties, staying up too late, and racking up too much debt on your credit cards. Thankfully, holiday season is in a lull right now until the final blast hits on New Year’s Day. It’s the perfect time to sit down in front of your PC and enjoy a little holiday Rebellion.

In an ideal world, you would subscribe to the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine, which you can do here, so the e-zine will be sent to your in-box and you won’t miss a single edition. In the imperfect plane of existence in which we dwell, you can always hope to catch the e-zine when it pops up on the blog. Here’s the Dec. 27, 2007, edition to nourish your brain back to health:

Education for the 21st Century
As Virginians embrace lifelong learning, children will no longer progress in chronological lockstep, study a mere nine months a year and confine their education to school buildings.
by James A. Bacon

The Rise and Fall of Journalism
The age of traditional journalism is ending as media Enterprises lose their grip on information markets and advertising revenues decline. The big question: Can citizen-generation information take its place?
by EM Risse

Why Metro-to-Tysons Is a Mess
The reason the Metro-to-Dulles project is in danger of collapsing can be traced to unbalanced development, conflicting interests among landowners and developers, and the politics of Business As Usual.
by EM Risse

Making Government Work
Innovation in state government is not an oxymoron. The Productivity Investment Fund acts like an in-house venture capitalist to underwrite projects that spur superior efficiency and service.
by Michael Thompson

The Rhetoric of the Tax Debate
Mark Warner knew how to beguile Republicans lawmakers who didn’t like to raise taxes. Tim Kaine doesn’t have the same knack: He’s just getting them mad.
by Norm Leahy

Rethinking North Anna
Sure, Dominion’s third nuclear unit would have a small carbon footprint and be politically correct. But there are plenty of unanswered questions, from safety, to unproven new technologies, to cost, to fuel.
by Peter Galuszka

Cleaner, Cheaper, Better
Simple changes in rate-making philosophy could encourage Virginia’s natural gas utilities to promote conservation of their clean, efficient fuel — helping consumers and the environment alike.
by Jim Kibler

Nice & Curious Questions
Timing Is Everything: Stoplights in Virginia
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

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Comments

8 responses to “Your Holiday Rebellion”

  1. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    good article on North Anna!

    … “The new 1,520-megwatt unit could electrify up to 350,000 more homes, helping meet burgeoning energy demand that Thomas F. Farrell II, the utility’s CEO, chairman and president, says could overwhelm the Virginia in coming years.”

    do the math.. and compare with your own usage…

    at 1500 KW average.. 1520 megawatts would appear to serve a million households… even if we don’t lift a finger to have more energy efficient homes/businesses and appliances, etc.

    You know what makes this “work”?

    a guaranteed return on investment.

    This would be an untenable prospect to investors if they had to risk market priced electricity for the next 50 years or more.

    Only the most risk tolerant would put their money to this if there were no government guarantees…

    the day that Green power comes of age is the day that these plants enter obsolescence …and the day that we get told that if Dominion has to power them down.. that it will cost ratepayers plenty….

    With that kind of dynamic.. the cards are not only stacked against Green power but ironically rate payers will be paying to keep it from coming online…

    I want to see what Virginia legislators signs on to this..

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    There is no shared vehicle system that promotes accessibility and access. It is impossible, and it has never been done, anywhere. New York and Tokyo have extensive shared vehicle systems, and they have the longest commute times anywhere. The idae is a joke.

    EMR comes close to admitting as much when he says:
    “A functional shared-vehicle system – and to a lesser extent a supportive, but not dominant private-vehicle system – is what creates the ability of “relative” Balance to be sufficient to achieve Alpha status.”

    If he had left out the part between the hyphens, he would have been on track. It is the total system that counts, and not which part is supportive or dominant.

    If we really want better transportation we should consider better connections between the edge cities, and concentrate less on still more radial arteries.

    If we really want rail to Dulles, we should buid that, and then worry about Tysons, Reston, the 28 Corridor, Manassas, and Leesburg.

    RH

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “the day that Green power comes of age is the day that these plants enter obsolescence “

    In 1908 the New York papers were extolling the virtues of wave and tide generated energy, saying that the day would come when energy was virtually free.

    Of course the Nuke Boys were saying the same thing, once.

    We are still waiting.

    RH

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “1520 megawatts would appear to serve a million households”

    Isn’t NOVA expected to have another 2 million residents?

    This plant might not be enough.

    RH

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    25% less pumps sounds like 25% less redundancy. I hope the pumps they have are 50% more leiable and they change them out twice as often.

    Let’s put the water tanks over the reactor, there’s a great idea. It’s like puttng solar panels on the roof. Ever see a steam explosion? A radioative steam explosion?

    How about if we just dig a giant deep hole under it? When it melts down we just let it fall in the hole and cover it over. It would save flying in a lot of helicopeters to bury it like they did in Chernobyl.

  6. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    ………How about if we just dig a giant deep hole under it?

    well..yes of course.. there’s no such thing as ground water.. much less that it be part of an aquifer or that it moves like a river..

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    ….Isn’t NOVA expected to have another 2 million residents?

    and of course.. that’s an average of one person per home – right?

    so.. the average 2.5 per home is not a relevant number.. right?

    how many KW a month do you use?

    Take that number and divide it into the Dominion MW estimate and tell me how many homes you get…

    then report back…

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I think the average is closer to 2 per home, like 2.2. Of the fifteen homes nearest me, the average is less than two. So 2million residents is close to a million homes which is close tot he proposed capacity, if you believe their figures.

    When I said a giant deep hole I meant really deep, like MOHO deep. That said, you are right, what ever you do, the results of it winds up in the environment, sooner or later.

    RH

    RH

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