West Virginia is open for business when it comes to nuclear power after Gov. Jim Justice signed a bill last week to end the ban on building plants in the state.
That was good news to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who said the state is now moving in the right direction on nuclear power.
Capito said during a virtual press conference from her Washington office Thursday that she attended a hearing on nuclear energy and it came “on the heels of our Governor signing” the bill that will open the state for a potential major development.
Capito said there have been new innovations in nuclear energy, including ways to make it safer and to shrink the size of a plant to get more power in “small package plants.”
“There is a real opening here for us,” she said, especially in some areas where coal-fired plants have closed. “Why don’t we transition that energy source for a small package plant for nuclear?”
Transmission lines are already in place.
“We want to be part of the mix,” she said of a future that will once again include nuclear power with plants possibly coming to West Virginia. “We will see where this goes but the timing could not have been better. West Virginia is on board with this.”
Capito said many advantages would come with such a project.
These are billion-dollar projects, she said, and provide thousands of construction jobs and many permanent jobs, more than other energy producing plants employ.
“They need more people to run and sustain nuclear…” she said.
Not only that, it would provide substantial tax revenues.
Capito said the bipartisan infrastructure bill has incentive funding available through the Department of Energy related to repurposing abandoned coal power facilities and possibly transition them into a nuclear facility.
“The first one of these is going up in Wyoming,” she said of the construction of a “small nuclear platform.”
“The federal incentive for this bodes well.”
Capito said the competition for these plants should be keen so the state needs to be ready, and one of the first steps is to prepare some possible sites.
“You must have a site … to be able to show them something,” she said. “I would be readying four or five sites where you would be able to show them.”
Another step is to make sure the community around each possible site understands what could happen because there is some “negativity” associated with nuclear energy.
Residents need to know the cost/benefit details, she said, and be on board in moving forward with a project.
A nuclear plant is also green energy.
“I want us to be part of green future,” she said. “There is a big push toward more green energy…”
But she made it clear coal and natural gas will continue to be essential to provide the “baseline power” the nation must have.
“I am still very much in support of keeping our coal plants open and working,” she said, and those energy sources are crucial for the future.
Capito said the United States needs to be energy independent, especially considering a situation like the one in Ukraine, which is facing the threat of a possible invasion by Russia.
“We can’t depend on another country for energy,” she said, and it may take coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen and switchgrass energy to make that happen.
“We are truly beginning to move forward in a bigger way,” Justice said after signing the bill.
Capito congratulated the Governor and the Legislature for paving the way for nuclear energy.
“I want us to be open for business and open for investments in nuclear energy,” she said.
Although the nuclear power industry saw backlash after the 2014 Fukushima meltdown caused by an earthquake and tsunami, advances in technology and the concern over climate change have helped refocus attention.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, “Poland wants a fleet of smaller nuclear power stations to help end its reliance on coal. Britain is betting on Rolls-Royce to produce cheap modular reactors to complement wind and solar energy. and in France, President Emmanuel Macron plans to build on the nation’s huge nuclear program.”
“As world leaders pledge to avert a climate catastrophe, the nuclear industry sees an opportunity for a revival,” the article said. “Sidelined for years after the disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl, advocates are wrangling to win recognition of nuclear energy, alongside solar and wind, as an acceptable source of clean power.”
The article said more than half a dozen European countries recently announced plans to build a new generation of nuclear reactors.
“Some are smaller and cheaper than older designs, occupying the space of two football fields and costing a fraction of the price of standard nuclear plants. The Biden administration is also backing such technology as a tool of ‘mass decarbonization’ for the United States.”