by Jane Van Ryan

The stars could hardly have shown brighter on the prospects of allowing uranium mining in Virginia than in 2007.

Virginia Uranium Inc., the company hoping to develop the nation’s largest known uranium deposit on a cattle farm in southern Virginia, made a compelling case for lifting a decades-old state ban on uranium mining. The change would save consumers billions of dollars over the life of the mine, create jobs and revenue and, perhaps most importantly, provide a much-needed boost for the faltering economy in southern Virginia, especially in Pittsylvania County.

Read more.

Van Ryan is an energy writer and retired communications professional who resides in Rockingham County, Va.

By Alwyn Moss

If the 95 percent or so of respected American scientists are even close to right, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry would be wise to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline project.
The lame justifications being used to suggest that approving the pipeline would not cause harm to the planetary climate and would be a boon to the U.S. economy can be easily countered.

Continue reading.

Moss lives in Blacksburg.

by Larry Hincker

Christina Nuckols’ column on Virginia Tech’s scientific research and evaluation of the Southside uranium deposit, “Tech’s ties to uranium cash raise questions,” March 10, itself raises questions. I am concerned the innuendo of the headline and other aspects of the column imply a bias on the part of the university or its scientists.

It is ironic that this column appeared during Sunshine Week, an effort by statewide media to focus attention on government transparency. This is based on the belief that effective government follows open access to information.

Read more.

Hincker is associate vice president for university relations at Virginia Tech.

By Christina Nuckols

With the nation’s largest known undeveloped uranium deposit 100 miles from campus, it’s hard to blame Virginia Tech professors interested in energy research for beating a path to Pittsylvania County, home to an estimated 119 million pounds of the radioactive ore.

But Tech officials have opened themselves up to criticism by failing to fully explain the university’s complex relationship, particularly its financial connections, with Virginia Uranium Inc., the company seeking permission to mine the site.

Continue reading.

Nuckols is editorial page editor of The Roanoke Times.

Wikimedia Commons

By Tamim Younos

Climate change is a controversial and polarizing issue of our times. There are extreme opinions and agendas on both sides that are not helpful in coping with the issue in a rational manner. There is no serious effort to inform the public about the facts of climate change, possible causes and effects of climate change, and its strong link to our daily lives.

The science of climate change encompasses causes and effects of climate change. Climate change mathematical models are developed to make projections of what the future climate will look like under various human influences. While there is uncertainty in climate-change models, the factual basis of climate change is the rise in Earth’s average surface temperature, measured over long periods of time: years, decades or even centuries.

Continue reading.

Younos is president and research director for environmental sustainability programs at the Cabell Brand Center for Global Poverty and Resource Sustainability Studies in Salem.

By Liza Field

Gov.Bob McDonnell’s proposal to cut motorists free of the gas tax, and strap our road-use costs onto the state sales tax seems, at first, helpful to no one.

Why would conservative policy encourage more gasoline waste, road congestion and deterioration, rather than less — and do so at more taxpayer expense?

Read more.

 Field teaches philosophy and English at the Virginia Governor’s School and Wytheville Community College.

By Sen. Mark R. Warner and Alex Laskey

Here’s an unsettling fact: The U.S.economy wastes more energy than it uses. Each year, 57percent of the energy flowing into our economy — from oil, coal, natural gas or renewables — is wasted as heat, noise and leaks. And this estimate is conservative: It doesn’t include lights that illuminate unoccupied rooms, or air conditioners left running in a vacant home or office.

When you pour a cup of coffee in the morning, you wouldn’t tolerate 57 percent of it dribbling out through a gaping hole in the side of the mug. So why do we allow this to happen to the energy that powers our economy? America’s energy waste doesn’t just put us at the bottom of international rankings (a 2012study ranked the U.S. ninth out of 12 major economies, three places behind China); it’s also costing businesses and households $130 billion per year.

Read more.

 Warner, a Democrat, serves on the Senate Banking, Budget, Commerce and Intelligence committees. Laskey is the president and co-founder of Opower, an energy efficiency software company based in Arlington.

McDonnell and budget leaders should reject schemes to keep a mining proposal alive.

Sen. John Watkins last week retracted his bill to pursue uranium mining in Virginia after failing to win support from his colleagues, but he immediately asked Gov. Bob McDonnell to press forward with development of regulations for the risky enterprise.

A spokesman for the governor said Friday he was reviewing that request. It should not take him long to conclude that pursuing rules for a prohibited operation would be a waste of staff time and taxpayer money.

Continue reading this editorial.

Wikimedia Commons

State legislators are pushing bills to eliminate costly utility incentives and replace them with rules that could make rate increases more likely.

State legislators are in a rush to pass emergency legislation they claim will save Virginia power customers money. Homeowners who have followed the politics of utility regulation in recent years know they had best grab their parkas and start chopping up the dining room table for firewood because future electric bills are sure to send a shiver up their spines.

Continue reading this editorial.

Wikimedia Commons

Legislators and supervisors representing the county where a uranium deposit is located oppose lifting a moratorium on mining.

Virginians are keenly aware that their legislature is not populated with nuclear scientists. The vast majority of the 140 men and women who will determine whether to lift a 1982 moratorium on uranium mining in the commonwealth hold no expertise in the topic.

We hope, but don’t anticipate, that all have read the National Academy of Sciences study, which warned of the difficulties in implementing adequate protections against environmental and public health hazards.

Continue reading this editorial.