Good Morning, RVA: Wear shorts maybe?
I will not be held responsible if this is a bad decision.
Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and today’s highs are in the upper-70s–maybe even breaking into the 80s! I not know what’s happening with the weather lately, but I’m definitely into it!
Water cooler
The future developers and architects of the old GRTC bus barn will hold their final public meeting tonight at John B. Cary Elementary at 6:00 PM. If you’d like to lobby loudly for less parking, for more parking, or for the abolishing of cars entirely as it relates to these luxury apartments, tonight’s your last chance. This development has the potential to change the character of that neighborhood, so you should certainly let your opinion(s) be heard!
In other public meeting news, not a lot of people turned out at the public meeting to chat about raises for Councilfolk. I feel bad for them, the job is on the books as a part-time gig, but it certainly doesn’t feel like part-time work. They’ve made $25,000 for the past 18 years, which, back then, would have been a way more livable salary of $37,490. I guess I should have gone to the meeting and said as much!
Here’s a mostly boring, but probably important to read, piece about the legislation and logistics behind Dominion’s planned third nuclear reactor. There are tons of interesting ancillary facts in there though–like, did you know that 40% of our power is provided by the existing two nuclear reactors at North Anna and Surry? That’s a bigger percentage than Finland! (here’s a super interesting PDF of every country’s energy useage, if you wanted to get lost in some neat charts this morning)
Henrico County Schools have been dealing with a rash of bomb threats this week. It’s totally a “better safe than sorry” thing, but man I bet emergency responders are getting tired of these dang shenanigans.
Joe Biden is out, and Hillary Clinton takes a seat in front of the House committee on Benghazi today at 10:00 AM where she will most likely answer unrelated questions about her Damn Emails. The Atlantic ran this great / terrifying piece on said committee and how the American press can’t really grok how to handle it.
Sports!
The Mets will head to the World Series after their 8-3 win over the Cubs. Meanwhile the Blue Jays beat the Royals to extend that series to game six. The World Series starts on Tuesday.
This morning’s longread
iOS 9.1 Emoji Changelog
A surprisingly not boring rundown of all the new emoji that were added yesterday with Apple’s release of iOS 9.1.
Of particular note is the middle finger, which has been the #1 emoji on Emojipedia for the past twelve months. This is now available to iOS users for the first time…Some of the most popular emoji additions in iOS 9.1 are going to be the food and drink entries. The cheese, hot dog, taco, popcorn, and champagne are frequently requested, and now available.
This morning’s Instagram
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
A couple of nuances that might interest you (not to be pedantic, I hope):
– I believe nuclear supplies 40% of Virginia’s energy (aka consumption aka kilowatt-hours) which is the total consumed over time. Nuclear is a smaller percentage of Virginia’s highest power (aka demand aka kilowatts) which is the instantaneous (or short-time average) amount consumed. The most power is needed on hot summer days around 5:30, and at that point lots of natural gas and possibly even old oil-burning units are helping supply power. Nuclear is considered baseload because it’s generally run at constant power because it’s not quick and easy to change the power output. That always-on nature is why its percentage is higher when you look at the total contribution over time.
– There are two nuclear power stations in Virginia (North Anna and Surry) which have two reactors each (fully separate nuclear, mechanical, and electric systems both connected to the electric grid). So this would be the third reactor at North Anna and the fifth in Virginia.