Author Archives: matt ohern

Virginia Tech OK’s Intelligent Infrastructure Initiative

The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors voted Monday to approve a $78 million plan to make the university a leader in “intelligent infrastructure.” The term encompasses everything from self-driving cars and drones to smart construction and energy systems — areas, in the words of President Tim Sands, that are “related to energy systems for the cities of the future and the way that people move in and around those cities.” Continue reading

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New Misinformation on Public-Private Partnerships

Anticipation that the Trump Administration’s trillion-dollar infrastructure plan will be based largely on long-term public-private partnerships (P3s) has led to a number of attacks on the P3 concept, most of which either fail to understand what it is or deliberately misrepresent it. Continue reading

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Farmers Score Win with Insecticide Decision

Mark March 28, 2017, on your calendar. The USDA and the U.S. EPA have been engaged in an epic dispute regarding the use of chlorpyrifos. The insecticide is used on at least 40,000 farms in the U.S. and on 50 different types of crops. If you read The New York Times story on the insecticide you would conclude that EPA scientists were merely protecting the health of young children and farm workers. The New York Times suggested EPA’s science had been rejected. The news article made no effort to review the powerful arguments made by USDA against EPA banning the use of chlorpyrifos. Continue reading

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Coal Ash Scare – Real or Not?

Coal-fired power plant scrubbers now remove 80-90 % of airborne particulate, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants. But that means “fly ash” and noncombustible residues (what we used to call clinkers) must be sent to landfills. That’s opened a new front for anti-energy activists, who use accidents, “detectable” pollutants in water, and scary stories about health threats to advance their agenda. Continue reading

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Gillespie tax plan makes good sense

Ed Gillespie, one of the candidates running for Governor this year, has proposed a major tax cut that makes a lot of sense. Its key provisions would cut individual income taxes by 10 percent across the board over a three … Continue reading

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