Jon and Chap! at the Burke VRE Station; Jon's Energy Plan Released

Ahhh...a miserable rainy Monday in northern Virginia with the train running 45 minutes later. What could be finer? :) In all seriousness, though, I agree with Jon Bowerbank that this demonstrates why we need to invest in our transportation infrastructure, particularly a 21st century transit system. As of now, we've got a long way to go.

In other news, yesterday the Bowerbank campaign released part 1 of its plan, "Transformning the Office of Lieutenant Governor to Build Virginia's Economic Future. This part is heavily focused on Bowerbank's #1 area of expertise - energy. Overall, it looks good, although I'd like to see a lot more emphasis on the "lowest of low hanging fruits" - energy efficiency. I'd also like to see less emphasis on biofuels, the most promising of which - algae, cellulosic ethanol - are many years away (if ever) from large-scale practical application. Finally, it would be great to encourage "businesses to use and implement clean coal technology" except for one problem - there is no such thing as "clean coal technology," and probably won't be for at least a decade or two (if then). Frankly, politicians love talking about "clean coal technology" because it sounds good, because they don't want to turn off voters in coal-producing regions, and because most people don't realize that "clean coal" is an oxymoron.