Category: Business and Economy
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Virginia Risks Running Out of Other People’s Power
By Steve Haner An electricity drought is looming, not only for Virginia but also for much of the United States, if the political hostility toward the most reliable forms of electricity generation is not reversed. Warnings that wind and solar power alone will not be sufficient resonated like a drumbeat from the podium of a…
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Turbine Blade Failure Closes Vineyard Wind, Nantucket Beaches
Posted on Boston’s CBS affiliate WBZ this morning: NANTUCKET – The federal government has ordered the Vineyard Wind farm to shut down until further notice because of a turbine blade failure this weekend. Several beaches were closed on Tuesday while crews worked to clean up “large floating debris and fiberglass shards” from the broken wind turbine blade off the coast…
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To End Carbon Energy We Need More Carbon Energy!
By Steve Haner Three recent announcements from Dominion Energy Virginia in rapid succession point a path forward for the utility that complies in part and utterly rejects in part the carbon-free energy pipe dream of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). All three of the announcements will result in major cost increases to the company’s…
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The “Black Jobs” Narrative is False, Harmful
By Derrick Max While most of the post-debate news coverage is still rightly focused on the mental acuity (or lack thereof) of President Biden, the use of the term “Black jobs” by former President Trump in the context of low-income, unskilled jobs that will be impacted by our open southern border, bothers me almost as…
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Will Dominion Now Have Three Offshore Windfarms?
By Steve Haner The Kitty Hawk North windfarm off the coast of North Carolina, stalled because of its need to bring transmission cables ashore under Virginia’s Sandbridge Beach neighborhood, now has a new owner, a new name and a new lease on life. It is hard to imagine Dominion Energy Virginia would buy it without some…
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The Porridge-Too-Cold Economy
Back in January Harvard economist Paul Krugman wrote that the U.S. enjoys a “Goldilocks” economy where “where “growth, inflation, and unemployment are all at levels that look “just right.” Well, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released 1st-quarter numbers for the Gross Domestic Product, and it turns out economic growth nationally was 1.4%. Remember, the…
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Charlottesville Gas Study Not Pointing To Elimination. Yet.
By Steve Haner Charlottesville is one of three Virginia municipal governments that still owns and operates a natural gas distribution utility. With the current political hostility to all forms of hydrocarbon energy, the future of that utility is under debate and its customers will soon have a chance to speak up. The listening sessions follow other…
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VCEA Fans and Foes Both See Failure Looming
By Steve Haner There is a growing recognition that the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) as written is going to fail. Both those who strongly believe in its goal of ending the use of hydrocarbon fuels, and those who consider that idea nothing but fool’s gold, see major problems on the horizon. There is also…
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Venture Global: Virginia’s Unknown Energy Giant
by James A. Bacon An Arlington-based company that most Virginians have never heard of could well alter the global energy balance of power — if the Biden administration doesn’t get in the way. In 2023 and 2024 alone Venture Global LNG., Inc., has announced long-term deals to supply 3 million tons of LNG to the…
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Clean Economy Act: A Refresher on What it Does
By Steve Haner A senior Democratic state senator is leading an effort to review and possibly revise the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), which orders the future elimination of hydrocarbon fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) used in making electricity. His goal is to conduct a stakeholder process and bring legislation to the 2025…
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Mountain Valley Pipeline To Start Moving Gas
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the full operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Gas from West Virginia will now flow. Environmentalist heads are exploding, but this is the best news for Western Virginia’s economy in a long while, and an encouraging sign of hope for energy sanity. A decade ago both this 303-mile,…
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Now Fix the Clean Economy Act, Governor
By Steve Haner Governor Glenn Youngkin recently flew to Louisiana to join with other Republican governors in criticizing President Joe Biden’s energy policy, especially the president’s hostility to hydrocarbon fuels. Youngkin and the rest gathered at an oil refinery to make their point that oil and gas should not go away in the decades to…
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UVA as Entrepreneurial Hub?
by James A. Bacon Does the University of Virginia have what it takes to become an engine of technological innovation and entrepreneurial wealth creation? Mike Lenox, professor of entrepreneurship at the Darden School of Business, thinks that it does. James Murray, a venture capitalist specializing in telecommunications and information technology, isn’t so sure. They engaged…
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Psst! The economy is doing really well.
We all see and hear those complaints about inflation and economic woes. Here is a contrary analysis, from The Wall Street Journal, no less: Growing investment income and household wealth have joined near-full employment and rising wages to keep millions of Americans… spending their way through price hikes. The economy’s charge through higher interest rates…
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Youngkin, Miyares State California EV Mandate Never Adopted for Virginia
By Steve Haner Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) and Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) announced today that Virginia will no longer comply with the California air regulations that will restrict and eventually eliminate the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles. The announcement is sure to set off a political and legal firestorm as fierce as…