Category: Infrastructure
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CIT Maps Highlight Gaps in Virginia Bandwidth
The Center for Innovative Technology has announced an upgrade to its Virginia Broadband Availability Map, which allows users to search by address or zip code where broadband services are available and to overlay the broadband data with other data such as population and vertical assets. I have given the map a quick spin and have…
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Rocky Forge Wind Turbines Not a Threat to Aviation
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ruled that 549-foot wind turbines, as tall as the Washington Monument, will not pose a danger to passing aircraft, thus putting Apex Clean Energy one step closer to building Virginia’s first commercial wind farm. As proposed, the Rocky Forge Wind project would string 25 turbines along a ridge line in Botetourt…
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A Sinking Feeling at Naval Station Norfolk
The concrete piers at the Naval Station Norfolk are a lot more complex than the rickety wooden structures lining the waterfront down at the Rivah. Electric lines and steam pipes on the underbelly of the piers conduct power to the giant warships at dock. When water levels rise high enough, propelled by tides, storm surges…
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The Peninsula’s Infrastructure Bottleneck
by James A. Bacon I don’t envy the poor blokes in charge of economic development for the Virginia Peninsula. The Newport News-Hampton-Williamsburg area has major infrastructure issues — constrained electricity, water and gas capacity — that are hindering economic growth. Any one of these deficiencies would put the 500,000-person sub-region of Hampton Roads at a competitive disadvantage…
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Storm Surge
by James A. Bacon Jeffrey A. Hutchinson, manager of Dominion Virginia Power’s central operations center, first took note of Hurricane Matthew a month ago when it was a storm forming off Africa. Keeping tabs through the company’s two meteorologists and subscription weather services, he tracked its progress across the Atlantic Ocean. He felt relieved when the…
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Amidst Abundant Rain, Eastern Virginia Still Faces Water Shortages
by James A. Bacon After getting soaked with rain over the past two weeks, most Virginians would find it difficult to imagine that the Old Dominion could ever face a water shortage. But the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) has been thinking beyond next week’s weather forecast, and while there are no immediate threats to…
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Gas Pipeline Approvals Out of His Hands, Guv Says
Governor Terry McAuliffe says he can’t stop the planned Atlantic Coast Pipeline even if he wanted to — and he really doesn’t want to. Responding to a question on WTOP’s “Ask the Governor,” McAuliffe said he supports the project as a boon to manufacturing jobs and as an alternative to transporting natural gas over roads…
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For All Its Problems, the State IT Contract Is Functioning Like It Should
by James A. Bacon The relationship between the Virginia Information Technologies Agency and Northrup Grumman is getting nasty as the two bang heads over the alleged breaches of the $1.3 billion, 13-year contract to provide IT services to Virginia state government. Del. John O’Bannon III, R-Henrico, called the relationship between the two “a whirlwind courtship, short…
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The Market-Driven Path to Renewables
by James A. Bacon Texas, one of the most conservative states in the country, is not exactly what you’d call a hotbed of environmental activism. Yet the Lone Star state has added more wind-based generating capacity than any other; wind turbines and other renewables account for 16% of electrical generating capacity — and as much as…
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Dominion to Recover $140 Million for Burying Electric Lines for Outage-Prone Customers
by James A. Bacon The State Corporation Commission ruled earlier this week that Dominion Virginia Power can recover up to $140 million on what it has spent to bury about 400 miles of electric distribution lines. By putting the overhead tap lines of the 6,000 most outage-prone customers underground, the electric company hopes to significantly reduce time spent…
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Spending Your Transportation Tax Dollars More Wisely
I had lunch the other day with Nick Donohue, Virginia’s deputy secretary of transportation, and he brought me up to speed on developments in state transportation policy that have occurred since the good ol’ days when I covered Commonwealth Transportation Board meetings. It was just a casual chat, and I wasn’t taking notes, but a couple…
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Want more Solar and Wind Power? Then You Need More Gas Backup.
by James A. Bacon Elona Verdolini, Francesca Vona and David Popp are deeply concerned about climate change and the need to deploy more renewable energy sources. “Decoupling economic activities from fossil-fuel use (and hence, from anthropogenic carbon emissions) is the only way to avoid severe and pervasive impacts from climate change while sustaining economic growth,” they…
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Guarding the Grid
by James A. Bacon It’s easy to spin nightmare scenarios leading to the collapse of the electric grid. North Korea detonates a nuclear weapon a mile overhead, sending out a super-charged electro-magnetic pulse that melts down transmission lines and blows out substations. The electricity overload races ahead of anyone’s ability to control it in a…
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In Hampton Roads, Life Is Not a Gas
Hampton Roads and other Tidewater communities see proposed natural gas pipelines in Virginia as a boon to economic development. by James A. Bacon While debate rages in western Virginia over the economic impact of natural gas pipelines on property values and local economies, we hardly hear a peep from the low country areas of Virginia and North…
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Metro Positions Itself for the Big Ask
by James A. Bacon Staring into a fiscal black hole, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Chairman Jack Evans is trying to nail down the authority’s 2018 spending plan by November, months earlier than usual. The move, suggests Washington Post writer Martine Powers, “is a signal that the transit agency is preparing to ask the District,…