Good morning, RVA! It's 57 °F, and you can expect this afternoon to be truly, actually hot. Highs will creep into the upper 80s, the sun will shine, you will drink plenty of water because you can't do your best work if you're not hydrated. Don't put too much worry into the heat, because a chance for rain moves in tomorrow and will bring cooler temperatures with it. Regardless, it is way, way too early to start complaining about the heat! We just got out of winter!
Water cooler
At Council's Budget Work Session yesterday, Mayor Stoney's administration introduced ORD. 2023-123, the ordinance to buy Mayo Island from its current private owners and return it to the public. According to the ordinance, the City will pony up $7.4 million from "stormwater utility bond funding" and match it with that $7.5 million grant from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. The $14.9 million price is in between the original $11.4 million offer and the $19 million asking price. This is a huge, exciting move for the City, and I'm still kind of shocked that it's happening at all. I think I'm going to hold my breath until the paperwork is signed, though.
Also City Council related, today the Education and Human Services committee meets with a few interesting items on its agenda. Tune in for updates on the City's inclement weather shelter plan, public school construction, and RPS’s Head Start situation. All three of these have generated headlines in the past year, and, most likely, will again in the coming year.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Charlotte Rene Woods, Michael Martz, and David Ress report on yesterday’s reconvened session of the General Assembly. The Senate provided the most interesting part of the day, rejecting "amendments [the governor] proposed to at least 10 bills as an inappropriate exercise of executive power on issues the legislature already had decided." Youngkin's attempt to require parental consent for minors to join social media networks, which I mentioned yesterday, proved to be one of those inappropriate exercises of power. As for figuring out an udpated budget? No dice!
Karri Peifer at Axios Richmond reports that you can rent a tiki boat for a (nearly) two hour tour of the James River? "Tiki boat booze cruise" is a weird thing that I think maybe fits perfectly with Richmond's James River vibes.
Tonight, from 7:00–8:30 PM at the Libbie Mill library, Henricoans have a chance to get together and learn about the benefits of having a local climate action plan. Richmond's own climate action plan, RVAgreen 2050, has been in process for ages at this point and has benefited from some of the better community-engagement work I've seen in a while. I think it's something we can be proud of and something that the County could definitely learn from. Tonight's event is put on by the Henrico Conservation Action Network and is free to the public.
Yesterday, the Shelby County Commissioners reappointed the second Justin, Representative Justin Pearson, to the Tennessee House of Representatives. I don't know about you, but I'm going to keep watching whatever is happening in Tennessee. It's fascinating and feels like they're on the edge of something big (or at least interesting).
This morning's longread
The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin
I knew Bitcoin mining was bad for the environment, but I didn't know just how bad or how wasteful. Maybe we just shouldn't have entire complexes full of computers that spend the day solving math problems, sucking up as much electricity as entire towns?
This proved true in upstate New York, where a gas-powered plant reopened and now powers a Bitcoin mine. Three other large operations are run by companies that also own the fossil fuel plants where they operate, including two burning waste coal in Pennsylvania. Some of the Bitcoin companies that WattTime found to be causing the most pollution have held themselves out as supporting renewables. For example, Riot Platforms’ chief executive described Bitcoin mining as “uniquely beneficial and supportive of renewable energy.” Ninety-six percent of the power demand added by the company’s mine was met by fossil fuels, the WattTime analysis showed.
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Picture of the Day
Tools of the trade.
