Del. David Bulova, D-Fairfax County, was in Las Vegas for a funeral last summer when he noticed the parking lot he was in suddenly got cooler.
The state legislator from Fairfax County looked up, and that’s when he got the glimmer of an idea that led to a bill that now sits on the governor’s desk, at least metaphorically, waiting for action.
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Across rural Virginia, but especially in Southside, rural localities are pushing back against solar projects on the grounds that they are an ugly industrial blight that ruins the landscape. Their resistance raises serious questions about whether Virginia can ever meet the goals of the Clean Economy Act, which mandates a carbon-free power grid by 2050. Right now, Virginia gets about 7.22% of its power from solar energy. If that much (or that little) solar prompts that much resistance, how are we ever going to ramp that percentage up many times higher?…