okay
um well welcome everybody thanks for uh
joining us
um on Earth Day I think that's kind of
it's kind of a great day to have our
meeting
um as we always do I will
um kick off with a quick safety message
and then we'll do introductions because
we actually have the new Authority
member we want to introduce
um but in addition to being Earth Day
it's also going to be very hot day and
for my safety message it kind of
reminded me as I was also slathering on
uh sunscreen onto my kids this morning
before they left for uh school that it's
time to remember to think about kind of
the summer heat and sun protection
that's coming so think about the you
know the various ways can protect
yourself from the Sun the one we always
remind folks internally especially as
they're in outages is how you prevent
you know heat stress before you actually
get in the middle of it right so it's
hydrating well before you actually start
a strenuous activity in it and it heated
environment it's you know applying
sunscreen before you actually get out
and start start doing things and make
sure you're reapplying if you're if
you're not really hydrated and you start
doing it
um you know a strenuous activity in the
in the heat you're much more prone to
heat stress even if you're thinking well
I'm drinking water throughout because
that's just sort of replenishing some of
the stuff you're losing but not actually
anyways we head into the summer months
as we're getting some of the summer heat
uh early today it seems like God just
just keep that in mind
um so yes as I mentioned we do have a
new member of the authority Ron Smith uh
joins us and so I will let him introduce
himself and then I would like everybody
in the room and our our board members on
the on the phone or on the um the WebEx
to also introduce himself so
University of Virginia
Dan Stoddard from Indiana Jones
Mason University
I'm Ronnie Smith and you know I'm a you
know yes please I'm really a citizen
representative with 43 years nuclear
background from 12 years and atomic
energy Commissioner of doe and I ended
up retiring from the bwxt
as president of the uwfc that's
Technical Services I also had three
years with Kojima on the French program
as well good morning glad to be here
if we're waiting for genetic energy
Consortium
Tom depante with framitone Laurie Corky
Virginia Department of energy and Rich
denims Vice Provost
George Washington University
um and Randy do you want to marry
yourself
yes Randy Heflin the senior associate
vice president for research and
Innovation at Virginia Tech
all right and then
um I think what we will do I'm trying to
see who else we have is there anybody
else on the line that we want to
interview
uh I mean Chelsea is here uh oh uh
Chelsea welcome Chelsea Jenkins from
apartment of Commerce
um
and yeah well will and will we will
introduce you as we get into your
portions of that
um presentation and
um we're gonna go will Payne we'll do
your update first because I know you
have a have a time constraint so
um I think everybody
knows will
um but we just wanted as we've done in
the past have an update on you know kind
of everything that's going on down in um
Southwest Virginia
um
so we'll turn it over to you sure thank
you Mr chairman uh can you see my screen
yes yes okay perfect uh just will Payne
kind of representing a bunch of
different entities but today the injury
Delta lab and the Southwest Virginia
energy r d Authority
um and uh pleased to have uh the
department of energy uh here
um that is vital to our work as it is I
know I know yours
um just a few updates
um
foreign
we'll probably have three three updates
uh so first more on the legislative side
I was around the general assembly quite
a bit this session obviously a lot of
activity and just really uh pleased to
see how well
um you know there was you know there's a
lot of how well folks work together a
lot of collaboration uh you know between
the administration and and you know
members of this Authority and and of uh
the Virginia nuclear energy Consortium
uh I do want to especially thank uh
April Wade
um you know working actually to support
uh legislation I'm going to talk about
related to the Southwest Virginia energy
r d Authority
um it was a tough session and a lot of
patience involved and a lot of hard work
um that um
should be recognized uh you know that
that she and both and then also will
clear and Chelsea
uh did to support this industry so on I
think this this mention of two bills
that we had companion bills that may be
relevant to the uh to to your Authority
we recognize so we had two bills Senate
Bill uh 11 16 and House Bill 1781 that
we we thought would would be helpful to
strengthen our authorities you know
ability to compete on for federal
dollars
um you know so the authorities uh
objectives include you know promoting
opportunities for energy development
um you know around creating jobs and
economic activity everything's kind of
viewed through through that lens
um but that also is consistent with the
energy plan and positioning the region
as a leader in energy Workforce and
energy technology research and
development and so we wanted to make
sure as we're going to compete and are
competing for some major you know
hundreds of millions of dollars of
Grants here with the U.S department of
energy with the Appalachian Regional
Commission with the U.S Eda that we have
this language in the code that supports
you know the work that we're doing
um you know the the bills kind of uh
reflect the Authority's work output
updating what's you know what we thought
the authority would do three years ago
uh including referencing what is in the
bill you know called the Southwest
Virginia energy Park
um and staying away from Parks as we
like to do here
um and and really focus on what what
this really is and as a lab here it's
referenced as a non-profit collaborative
in the bill and wanted to make sure we
tied the work that we're doing with the
Delta lab to uh the authority and the
authority while it doesn't have it does
not have any sort of uh oversight over
the work of the lab it provides you know
very important uh it serves an advisory
role
um you know so we we added a bunch of
different language there around you know
different Technologies you know we're
it's about supporting energy development
of projects generally and then we called
out some specifics so it's uh it doesn't
exclude uh any technology and so we
added a bunch of different Technologies
energy storage geothermal uh
um and of course around Workforce and
supply chain development uh
unfortunately the uh well I'm not going
to question the general assembly's
wisdom but our reference to Advanced
reactors and advanced nuclear reactor
Technologies uh was removed but I'll
I'll repeat that doesn't change anything
that we do
um we again just call that a few
different Technologies but status quo
for us and the Delta lab is the body
that is implementing these projects the
authority is advising the Delta lab is
doing the work and no one is gonna
uh tell us what to do
uh on actual deployment so those bills
were helpful to us
um in the ways you know that we need for
applying for Grants
uh number two
um I'm really excited to be
hosting
um
about 20 different coal Community
leaders co-impacted Community leaders
from around the country in June to see
what we're doing here in Southwest
Virginia and so the National Association
of County organizations has created this
program called building resilient
economies in Coal communities Breck as a
coalition it's a lot of you know local
regional state government and non-profit
and private sector uh folks and we have
two people from Southwest Virginia
um one of the person joining me and so
we are going to have a whirlwind tour
here of a lot of different initiatives
one of those being the work around
redeveloping repurposing previously
mined properties and with our our
partners Virginia energy are really
going to talk about what is it that
Virginia is doing right what it was that
we're doing unique uh and and how are we
getting ahead of reclamation
you know in order to prepare properties
for development right away to suit the
needs of in our case a lot of clean
power developers so we um we're excited
to have these people here and we're
going to put on a show
uh number three we talked uh it wasn't
the last meeting was probably two
meetings ago we mentioned the department
of Energy's grid Innovation program
grip we submitted a concept paper due in
January and were excited and with the
support of our federal delegation
entirely the senator Senators Warner
Senator Kane and Congressman Griffith
um supporting this concept of
a transmission
line extension
um and so we may have showed this
graphic before but Southwest Virginia is
a little you know unique with
um our utilities in the in the region we
have three utilities
that that serve the area in Wise County
and I think Mike Hatfield County
Administrator from Weiss county is
probably in the room today Wise County
has been
yeah I I couldn't say more about bending
over backwards to explore every
opportunity around energy and in this
case we are Wise County is served by
Kentucky Utilities or Old Dominion Power
um almost exclusively and you know we as
a Delta lab have access to a number of a
number of properties looking currently
at six to seven thousand acres of
properties to redevelop in very specific
ways for for certain projects uh this
this concept
um is about uh constructing transmission
infrastructure and I think it's relevant
to any rural area around Virginia but
constructing this infrastructure to
accelerate uh the development of clean
energy on in our case mine lands uh to
enhance grid resiliency and reliability
and to increase you know service
capacity to the area what we're talking
about right now we have projects it's
it's just under eight billion dollars
worth of clean energy projects across
the board and it is extremely exciting
and this is all just in one County by
the way
um and we are we are going to need
um you know
um an incredible
uh we're gonna need to move an
incredible amount of power here and need
to need to plan for that here over the
next few years and so this project is
really important
um we'll show you just just so you can
see the this path here and the goal is
getting to pjm you know Kentucky
Utilities is not in pjm and as we have
generation
um
solar and other types of generation we
need to make sure we get to pjm and
that's the goal of this project
and so uh we are excited to you know
this is probably a 15 to 20 mile
um you know uh transmission trunk line
uh to get to AEP territory that is in
pjm
and uh yeah this grant could pay for you
know up to 100 million dollars but it's
50 of the cost and
one of the developers uh otherwise are
are going to pay their their share but
if we don't if we don't get this support
we are we're not going to be able to
unlock uh the potential in the region
and so on every stop here to make this
happen and this is uh this is going to
impact uh a lot of the things that you
have been talking about
um what the governor's been talking
about and what we're going to be ready
for it
uh any uh any questions
well great well thank you for the update
I know you're obviously welcome to stay
on but I think you might have time to
constraint so um but we appreciate that
update and um we'll keep you on the
agenda for sure thank you very much for
sure
great
um so next I believe yes Christine is on
so we are lucky to have Christine King
from the game program
um she is the director and gain stands
for Gateway for Innovation
um in nuclear uh Christine has a long
um
history in the nuclear industry both on
the industry side on the investment side
and r d and Advanced Technologies as now
as is leading Gaines efforts to ensure
the the deployment of innovation into
nuclear and communities so
um
I asked uh Christine if she would spend
some time with us I think many of us are
familiar with game but I think uh some
of the work they've been doing over the
last you know year or two is
um really could be helpful and
applicable here in Virginia so I thought
it was a good time to get an update from
Christine on all the things the game is
doing so with that uh Christine welcome
I will um turn it over to you and I
think you have some slides to share
[Music]
um so um thank you for
um letting me spend uh part of your
morning with you I I'm proud to say I
started my Nuclear career in Virginia
um 30 years ago
I spent the first 10 years of my career
working
um for Arriva in the field
um supporting outages around steam
generator inspections and operability
assessments
working with guys named Tiny that aren't
tiny right so
um but I do want to share a little bit
about what we've been doing
um as the nuclear technologies move
closer to commercialization
um kind of we again have have are moving
with the technology I think is the best
way to describe it our early efforts
have been focused
on the developers and helping the
developers use the National Lab
resources to further their designs but
now we're also working locally okay can
you see
the slides yes we've got it perfect
um
so what we're doing is
um similar to helping developers who are
new to nuclear we're helping States and
communities and local leaders
um understand what's going on in new
nuclear and help them answer questions
all all not in an effort to advocate for
nuclear but just to make sure that that
people have the information they need to
make construct constructive decisions
so
um I'm going to dive in here for my
computer will cooperate
um so
so we've kind of ended up with you know
two phases of game
right I'll call it inside baseball on
the left hand side here and outside
baseball
and one of the challenges I think with
the nuclear industry is
um over time we've we've developed quite
the little Echo chamber
um so deliberately coming outside of
that Echo chamber and leaving our
decimal points behind is an important
aspect going forward as we engage in the
states and localities to think about
where we might build these facilities in
the future
um but let me talk just briefly about
some of the things we're doing on the
left hand side here inside baseball our
our voucher program is
um very well known
um and we're very proud of the progress
that we've made in that space and then
um most recently we have
um finalized the procedures associated
with sharing Legacy documents so those
are the first two places I'm going to
start today
um so the short story on vouchers is we
have awarded
79 vouchers we've completed 56
and we've worked with 45 different
companies to date and that's all in
seven and a half years with less than 30
million dollars
um I don't know that that I mean I think
30 million dollars over 45 companies is
uh
um a
minuscule amount of money
um in this industry
um to explain a little bit about
vouchers and I want to go through this
in case this is something that is
um makes sense as things move forward in
Virginia this might be something that's
worthwhile considering
so first of all these are not a
financial award
um kind of the simplest way to describe
them is you write the work scope for
National Lab staff to execute and I pay
the bill
um there is a 20 cost share that does
not have to be cash
um and the value can go up to a half a
million dollars
from the time that we close the cycle
it's open four times a year but from the
time that we close the cycle to award
announcements is six weeks so you're not
waiting forever to figure out whether
you got the award or not and whether the
work will be done
we have a standard crater that's a
Cooperative agreement we do not
negotiate that that's less for your
lawyers and more for mine
to make sure that we can actually get to
work quickly
um just to show you a little bit
um if you're interested to know
um as time has gone on we are seeing
more end users apply for these vouchers
most recently we have awarded vouchers
um uh in December to Dow Chemical
prior to the announcement of the X
energy project moving to Texas
um in the past we've done some work with
easement and these are you know these
are looking at how nuclear energy might
support industrial applications
um we've also awarded some vouchers
around reprocessing
um so
this is I think um as I said I think
this is something we're most well known
for
um and maybe this next item will become
the the second most famous thing
one of the challenges so what is Legacy
documents as many of you in the room
know the department of energy decades
ago built-in operated a number of the
the designs that we're considering for
today
the information the design information
the drawings the data the operational
data is all incredibly valuable as we're
designing new new systems
the challenge is
if that information is export controlled
um you need a process to release that
information
um to a a private partner
and the other part is typically you are
not identified as a private partner
unless you are funded by the department
of energy or
um you are Co co-sharing a project with
a national lab so what this project does
is allows us to share
Legacy data export controlled or not
without having to have a funded contract
with the Department of energy
and it really creates Equity across the
board
for folks that are new are developing
new technologies
um there's a lot more involved in this
but if you're interested in some of the
Legacy data from the National Labs and
it does not need to be just um
Idaho National Labs but all the
Laboratories we'd be more than happy to
help
um you don't have to know the exact
document you're looking for
um you can call us and tell us the kind
of data you're looking for and we will
go on a scavenger hunt and find it
um
all right Switching gears so as I
mentioned in the beginning
as our technology moves closer to
commercialization
and and I think you guys are aware just
based on the activity that's going on in
Virginia
um there's more stakeholders who are new
to nuclear
um that need to engage in these local
and state level conversations
so we serve as kind of an honest broker
in these conversations I don't have a
technology to sell I can introduce you
to what these new technologies are about
how you might think about them fitting
into Future Energy Systems
um we can share what we've learned from
other states and how they're approaching
um uh consideration of nuclear
technology
and
um
so the most important thing that we're
doing in this space though
is I don't have a templated
um and maybe the next slide gets a
little bit more into the detail to share
with you
um so let me before I go to that next
slide let me explain a little bit of
what you see on on the slide on the left
hand side is uh the left
corner is um
just showing you the states that we have
been involved in following legislation
talking
um talking with local leaders
um we are
and it's kind of twofold sometimes it's
Economic Development teams and sometimes
it's legislators and energy committees
um sometimes in for example in Colorado
it's the local counties themselves that
have coal stations they're concerned
about
on the right hand side
to to help specifically in states where
they're considering either new
legislation or looking at legislation
that's on the books
we have compiled a summary of
nuclear-related legislation that's the
bottom right box
and categorize that such that with this
interactive map you can not only look at
for example if you were interested in
zero emission credits and other
Financial provisions
you can look at if you have that
legislation in your state but you can
also look at the legislation that's
available or or on the books in other
states
so this is helpful for states that maybe
have recently lifted a moratorium and
now they're looking at any any other
legislation that may either need to be
strengthened or simplified as they think
about permitting a project going forward
the upper box
is our summary of what happened in the
2022
legislative sessions
whether it passed or not we tried to
track all the bills that were going
through the state level
um through the state level processes
last year
um rough guess is that website for 2023
would have at least double the amount
that we had on it last year
so we're in the process and um on this
particular website
um we are working working hard
to just give you again kind of
categorizing those bills allowing for
you to sort to look for similar bills
across States and giving you a quick
description of of what was in that bill
there's no analysis here it's just
information that can be used
um
so to give you an idea when I talk about
local engagement what does that mean
well first of all
local engagement doesn't happen without
having the right Partners so gain is not
going into communities where we're not
invited I don't have uh I don't have a
map over here in my house trying to
check off
um every state in the nation although
that could be fun but that's not our
objective
um we work ahead of time
um trying to understand not only who the
local or Regional leaders might be
but also understand the drivers for the
consideration of nuclear technology in
those areas and what I mean by that is
for some states that have
decarbonization goals
um you know they they're clearly trying
to understand potentially how nuclear
and Renewables might be good partners
in other cases as I've mentioned before
when you're dealing with fossil fuel
dependent States this is about economic
preservation and transformation of their
economy
and there the pressure may be coming
from neighboring states that do have
aggressive decarbonization goals and are
demanding clean energy
fossil fuel dependent States primarily
are energy exporters and Industrial
centers so they're also getting pressure
from their industrial customers
to deliver clean energy and it's very
important in every state and with each
group that you're working with to be to
be mindful of those drivers and that's
why you won't see us delivering
the same information we build the
information custom
um think of us kind of like uh
consultants in that space
um my team is very service oriented in
terms of having a meeting with our
stakeholder and
um listening to their needs and then
bringing back to them something that's
specific for them
one of the first webinar series you see
on the the upper right here was actually
with the state of Kentucky
um so we partnered with the Kentucky
office of energy policy
and the state at that time was not ready
to talk about nuclear they weren't
really ready to talk about transitioning
away from coal but they did need to talk
about future energy planning and what a
new Energy Future might look like so we
talked about energy planning in the
context of all of the above and through
that we introduced
um how advanced nuclear may play into
and all of the above scenario
um I'm I'm very pleased in in kind of
the response that we have this was a
webinar series with you the utilities
across the state in Kentucky
um and then we also
um ended with a workshop there
um so Kentucky has moved from this start
to they just in this legislative session
established a working group on Advanced
nuclear
that owes recommendations to the
governor by the end of the year
so they and and that was in the span of
less than 18 months
so we have the ability to help people
develop a Common Language quickly to
support the speed at which these
conversations are going
um after this meeting today I guess my
day this is just my day to be in
Virginia
um at least virtually
um I have been working with the southern
environmental law Center we were invited
because of the conversations that are
going on in Virginia and Tennessee and
North Carolina
and Georgia really throughout the
southeast the the Energy Partners or the
partners in the energy practice at the
southern environmental law Center we're
interested in understanding new nuclear
um the regulation the regulatory process
public engagement
um so we've been working with them for
three three Fridays we for fun we call
these Vision Fridays and today is our
last uh Vision Friday
um where we'll just be talking a little
bit more the questions have it evolved
over time in these conversations
um and today's discussion is kind of
um how does this look at a Utility
Commission level when they're
considering new technologies and how
that might be priced
the last thing I'll mention is I work
directly with
um the front office of the office of
nuclear energy where there they have
specific support with nazio and nehruk
and the governor's associate Association
in ncsl
um
so
I'll answer any any other questions you
might have in this particular space at
the end but I just wanted you to give to
give a flavor of the types of things
that we do
I always announce myself as a 30-year
nuclear veteran not here to advocate for
the technology but just to answer
questions
Switching gears a little bit
um and I guess kind of feeding off of
the the previous presenter
we have been doing
um work specifically in the cold to
nuclear space really focused on these
energy Community transitions
um I'm going to come back to our case
studies on the left hand side
um one of the most valuable things that
we've done though is on a monthly basis
we bring together the researchers that
are working on this on the nuclear side
of the equation the reason we are
meeting on a monthly basis is we are
dedicated to each other to Not Duplicate
our work in this space there is a small
window of opportunity for these
communities and the closer the faster we
can get to either no or yes
in terms of whether this type of
transition makes sense for them is
important and so the groups that you see
here we get together once a month one of
us presents where we are with our
particular research we get lots of hard
questions but at the core of us we're
trying to make sure that we're not
duplicating
efforts and that way each of us is
digging deeper into this and adding to
the information we need to make these
projects viable
on the case study side of things the
chart here is from the inner office
interagency working group on coal where
they identified
priority regions
um for coal retirements
and the impact that it might have to
different communities
um
kind of so
I have only been on the
um National Lab side of the equation for
um hang on just one second
have a ray of sunshine coming straight
into my eyeball there
um
I've only been on the National Lab side
of things for three years so I really
come at a lot of the work that we do at
gain with a commercial background
my objective in doing pilot studies
specific to Coal stations is really in
recognition that at some point somewhere
somebody's in a boardroom trying to
defend this project get approval and get
it financed
um so there's two things that drove us
in in choosing our pilot stations one
we needed we needed a partner utility so
not doing another study where you
weren't directly engaging with the
utility
and I wanted utilities that did not have
nuclear in their portfolio
um the idea being that it would be a
higher hurdle for them in many different
ways considering nuclear technology and
then we were also looking at whether
it's the ownership or looking for unique
features of the business case
such that
um as we do our pilot projects you know
hopefully what happens is with with a
handful or so of these people other
other stations might recognize aspects
of themselves
and in those projects in those models
and be able to come up to speed a little
bit faster let me tell you a little bit
about Coronado Generating Station it's
uh it's owned by Salt River Project it's
in St John's Arizona Four Mile four
hours East of Phoenix
um
it is a two unit station they have done
a significant amount of upgrades on
their environmental controls in the past
years and they are moving towards
seasonal operation
with retirement dates in the early 2030s
um the benefit here is it's wholly owned
by a Salt River Project so we're only
working with one utility the interesting
thing though is that there are six other
coal State uh coal units within
commuting distance of this station
it also sits in
Apache County which crosses into Navajo
Nation so we've been engaging with
Navajo Nation
the mayor's office of St John's is
involved mayor Spence also works at the
plant so sometimes I have to ask him
which Which hat he has on when we're
talking
three specific things
um for Coronado Generating Station we're
doing what I would call probably the
first 40 of a citing evaluation using
every sighting guide
looking at
exclusionary and avoidance factors
so
um if if they wanted to cite a nuclear a
new nuclear plant here or a large light
of Water Reactor
um helping them understand if there's
factors exclusionary factors that
prevent you from citing think seismic
activity that can't be changed
or um
um not enough water those types of
things or
avoidance factors
um may now I realize looking at the
picture you're going to say there's no
slope there but I'm going to use slope
as an example
um you know potentially in areas where
your slope is too severe
um you can
through engineering you can change that
if you wanted to so that's that's the
difference between exclusionary and
avoidance
um the second thing that we're doing is
really in service to the community is
helping them understand
if you were to transition from a coal
station to a nuclear station
what how does the community change what
does that look like
um that's in terms of number of jobs
it's also in
um for the utility we look at the
transition of the workforce itself
and the last piece
is
um every has recently published a
nuclear technology assessment guide
and it really gives the framework it
doesn't tell you the answers but it
tells you all the questions it gives you
a framework to walk through making that
decision
what I like about this guide is it
starts with what are your business
objectives
and you balance the technology against
that
um we
um we won't complete everything that
this guide asked for
um but we will be
identifying for Salt River Project some
technologies to watch
not specific designs
um or brand names so to speak but the
types of technologies that fit their
business objectives
and
um one other unique feature about the
assessment guide is it gives you a way
to think about where these Technologies
are in terms of maturity
and level of effort to completion and
um deployment so given where we are as
an industry in the decade of
demonstration with these new
technologies I think this is a place
where I hear many people struggle how do
I think about when these technologies
will be ready
the second station we have
is the Gent station this is in Kentucky
and Carroll County it's right on the
Ohio River
um interesting as you drive to this
station
there are three steel manufacturing
Mills nearby in a gypsum plant making
um uh drywall
what we're doing for them is similar to
some of the activities that we are doing
for Coronado we're doing a more detailed
evaluation on the sighting
um and but kind of the the unique
feature of this particular one is
looking at how they support their
industrial customers so could you
envision
um either
delivering the same inputs they received
today
or if if you're delivering process heat
and steam or do you need to go through a
synthetic fuel
um to to to support those industrial
customers so we'll be engaging with the
industrial customers and part of these
projects both of these projects
gent station is expected to complete in
September we are on the the last piece
of our analysis for Coronado
um and that's our economic assessment so
we would expect the Coronado
um
pilot study to be out this summer
the last report I want to point you to
is the loan programs office published a
liftoff report
um they did this for three different
Technologies but they specifically
focused on Advanced nuclear as well
again I think this is
um a useful report and understanding
what full-scale Industrial
civilization will look like
and this is based on adding 200 Giga 200
to 300 gigawatts of advanced nuclear
um they go through and look at all the
different models and why they chose that
particular number
um and if you'd like an introduction to
the researcher that did this work um be
more than happy to make that Julie's uh
really a great person to talk to
that is all well
this is actually one of my favorite
charts coming out of that particular
report
looking at how we might
um think about the features of our
energy in the future and how they
measure against one another and
um they they were
um just in one chart trying to capture
uh how all of those Technologies compare
on these different features
and that truly was my last slide
great thank you Christine
um I think we we do have time for a few
questions I've got one but I will open
it up to our group Scott I have two
questions that are not necessarily
related to Scott will BW uxt thank you
so much Christy for your presentation
I'm curious that I'm asking this
question
um sort of thinking about deployment
which I appreciate using that word uh
just about on every slide but also a
manufacturability and I'm curious if you
have an example or two where a game
voucher has at least gotten a step
closer several steps closer because I
understand what gain is and what it's
intended for
um and if you can't mention uh developer
or company organization name that's fine
if it's proprietary for whatever reason
but I am curious if you could give us an
example or two
that where you could you saw the direct
benefit of getting one step closer to
deployment or perhaps even being
utilized today
with baby x energy or Tara Powers with
their ardp you know big demo programs
yeah so I I think
um uh initially
um and I'm gonna I'm gonna share this
just because I think it might be
interesting hang on I thought I was
going to share it come back
yeah I did put a backup slide in
uh as all good nuclear people do uh so
just to give you an idea
um
this is you can see over time
um we have had primarily this was
developers we've now seen suppliers
start to step in and use a voucher
program
um specifically either tackling
um
you know doing some modeling associated
with being able to deploy that component
a lot of this has been in the molten
salt area you'll see up here with the
molten salt reactors
um being one of the largest
beneficiaries of the voucher program and
I don't think that's because of the
nuclear aspects of molten salt reactors
I think it's really associated with the
challenges of
you know pumping and the corrosive
nature of molten salts
um
and
but you also see utilities and energy
users that are coming in and so when I
think about deployment from a utility
perspective we have some of them coming
in on TVA in particular is I'm doing a
study to look at where they might cite
new nuclear
um within their service territory
um we also have utilities
um or non-non-utilities
um this is kind of an interesting group
that's emerging
um
I'll call them nuclear land Developers
so they're not
um
they don't plan to build and operate
a nuclear plant but they are working
ahead of the industry to identify viable
sites
and potentially looking at re
repurposing I don't know if they intend
to get into remediation but there's kind
of like a new
um
a new support system in the supply chain
that's emerging around that
um
this gives you an idea of where the
vouchers have focused
in the past
um and again I think just because of the
nature of where we've been
um you see this a lot where you might
imagine a round Reactor Core Design but
what I'll point out is on the top of
this right hand chart
you're starting to see more operability
things come into space right where
people are looking at transport
canisters and cables and shielding and
pumps
so to me those are all positive
indications of
um
of where of where the technology is
moving
um we have uh two companies that have
recently come in in the reprocessing
space
um and looking at Technologies there
I'll point out one thing um so on our
website you can see an abstract of all
of the vouchers
and when it's completed we do publish a
one-page summary the results of the
vouchers are protected to the companies
for five years
for business purposes
um
some of them have chosen to to publish
papers publicly and where we where we
know those are out there we can share
those
um but I I think there's I think there's
a lot of good examples of about how
the program has is moving and helping
folks think about scale and deployment
oh my second question
other questions
um Christine I had one on the the called
the nuclear
um work that you're doing
it's kind of two parts one is um did
each of those generating stations come
to you all
to partner on those Pilots did you I how
did you identify those I mean you talked
about the characteristics
um that made them attractive but
did they invite you in I guess that was
that's the first part of my question
yes they invited well
okay so so St John's the community
invited me in and then I had to convince
Salt River projects that we should we
should do a project together
um in St John's so it was actually the
economic development team
um
seeing the retirement looming in their
future and and doing some of their own
research they felt like nuclear might be
an option but you know they didn't
they didn't have the skill sets to
evaluate that so they reached out to the
interagency working group on coal
communities and they got referred down
to gain to learn more about nuclear
technology
um and then I approached Salt River
Project about
um doing a research project together
um it took us about four months to get
through the utility all the way to the
board for approval of the project
resulted in that utility coming forward
and asking if we could think about doing
a pilot project in Kentucky and we
looked at a variety of I think we looked
at two or three of their stations before
they settled on the Gent station
um in particular
I've been working in Northwestern
Colorado with the Craig and Hayden
stations next week I'll be talking with
the Pueblo station there
um we've we've engaged in Montana with
coal strip
so
we it comes through a variety of
different places to work in Montana and
um Colorado came from the Senators
um Senator
um
Senator Rankin in particular in Colorado
Craig and Hayden are in his district
and he he was trying to figure out how
to save the jobs
how are the how are those studies the
pilot studies how are they funded is
that a joint funding between the station
and yours at all game
I I pay for that out of my research
budget
um and I've
um
and I don't know how many pilot studies
we will end up doing
um in this space but that's the nice
thing about the way gain was created we
were created to be flexible and Nimble
um to be able to do these types of pilot
studies
the only request I have
so as you might imagine there's some
things
um I'll talk specifically about the Salt
River Project again we're working with
the integrated resource planning team
and so some of what is in our documents
to them are probably business sensitive
information
all my ask is that they allow us to
publish a public version of the
information and I also asked them to be
a peer Champion to other coal
communities or utilities thinking about
the same transition
so that's
um kind of what I get back on my
investment of time and dollars for the
station
Christine Scott again another
Tom picked up on where I was sort of
going what my next question was
regarding the call to nuclear and the
feasibility studies that you are in the
gain is engaged in I'm curious if those
have included
um and maybe they do maybe they don't uh
anything on the economic side
in terms of informing the actual
business case for the communities and
The Operators that are there now
maybe not
do you mean the costs the reactor cost
or almost the cost of doing business
you know if I'm gonna build a reactor
replace in this case in terms of what
kind of energy generation I'm going to
have
you know on the grid I'm just curious if
that piece is is something you all are
doing or if it's not
um that's just another factor that we
need to always be thinking about
um
if we're gonna when it comes to
deployment
so I
I'm gonna attempt to answer that and
this may not satisfy you so correct come
back at me no worries if I could if I
don't hit it right so from an economics
perspective
um you know we start with the business
objectives and I I think sometimes
digging in here and looking further out
in terms of not only what they want to
do with that station but potentially
what's going on on at a state or
Regional level in Arizona in the
Appalachians you know a lot of folks are
thinking about how to support hydrogen
hubs right
so the economics in the beginning become
are you going to use this facility for
more than electricity generation so
that's where it starts
um and in some cases they're like
mandatory for electricity generation and
we understand how much demand is
increasing
um over the next couple of decades
they're looking at other retiring
sources uh in Arizona like they're
following
um the the license the
the existing license for Palo Verde
and when that might come offline
um
supporting hydrogen hubs locally also
thinking about how
how the technology might enable other
Industries like what else could I
attract so that's when you start to get
in not only to the manufacture of
hydrogen but also potentially thinking
about Advanced manufacturing or other so
it starts to get into the supply chain
and so when we're working with economic
development teams it's really looking at
maybe a more of a strategic map or road
map and how you might think about now
that I have this technology what else
could I do with it
one of the biggest holes we have in this
space is and the hardest question to
answer right now is how much will a
reactor cost
and there's research to point to in
terms of
um you know what we expect in terms of
the learning curve and where
and the research that has pointed to
what price point do we need to achieve
on you know lcoe
um
we are currently on the game team
um trying to figure out how to get some
anonymized cost data with some
uncertainty bands
out that can be useful in this space
primarily and thinking about
especially if you think about integrated
resource planners what is the
performance in terms of dispatchability
and flexibility
um but having the the cost and the time
Associated when we might achieve that
cost so that's how we're looking at the
economics the economics on a county
basis is really understanding
you know how many jobs you'll have at
the station itself
how many jobs does that induce in the
community and what you might expect from
a a tax basis associated with having
that technology in the community
thank you
any other questions
okay well Christine I have one last one
just uh can we share your slides because
those are great absolutely I will I will
send them
um send them to you
I I want to finish with one um
announcement we're we're pretty excited
we're partnering with the nuclear energy
Institute and every
um in the fall we will be hosting a
meeting specifically dedicated to Coal
to nuclear
um I'm sure you guys are aware that
there's many panels out there
um in nuclear meetings talking about
coal to nuclear but the devil really is
in the details for these projects these
communities have small Windows of
opportunity
um so I I when we set the dates um it
will probably be in the late mid-october
or early November time frame
um
it's going to be close to you I think I
have not secured my location but it's
probably going to be in a neighboring
state with a shared name
okay I think you guys got that okay so
um but yeah we're we're excited to um
it's not easy to pull off a conference
like this in less than six months notice
but we think it's important
um uh and a helpful
um just one thing I I would love to know
more about the the meeting the the Breck
group as well April maybe that's
something you and I could follow up on
that'd be nice
I'm it's already on my list great
anyway thank you so much I hope you guys
have um a great rest of uh rest of your
meeting and
um
ask her what you need from gain we're
here to help
um I I like I said I don't have a
standard set of products that I'm
selling
um we will go to work and customize
things that that are useful to to what
you guys are trying to achieve
thank you Christine really appreciate it
and yeah we'll share the slides and
um
well any follow-up we'll point you
direct we'll Point them directly to you
but thank you very much appreciate it
all right thank you
um do we still have as well and so on
yes yes Mr chairman I'm here all right
so I'm going to turn it over to will
clear
um for any updates on the energy plan
execution thanks for joining us well
sure appreciate the opportunity here and
um Ryan's got some slides that he's
going to share here very shortly and
both Ryan and Chelsea could do this
presentation so you guys drew the Short
Straw to listen to me today
um but if something happens to me they
can certainly pick up the Baton and move
it forward
um we've been extremely busy
um in the last couple of months since
the release of the of the plan I know I
presented the last time talking about
the energy plan
um and where where that was going to
take us
um
and um so today I'm gonna I've just got
a couple of slides here and kind of talk
where where we're going again will clear
deputy director of the agency
um Ryan's having some problems there
getting the presentation up is it up
Ryan
well everyone
there we go
in here
this way all right there you go
all right I think we're ready well okay
so go ahead and just uh flip the first
slide there uh Ryan
um so one of the things that we we knew
um
during the the energy plan uh writing
process and certainly thereafter was it
we were going to have to get a lot more
analytical and trying to understand
what's going on obviously energy
transition
is extremely complex
um and we felt like that
um we we just we didn't have the data
um that we needed to be able to make
these kinds of decisions to be able to
advise we felt like that was our role uh
we felt like we've not done that in the
past
um and I'll talk a little bit about how
we're reorganizing in a second here but
we felt like modeling was extremely
important
and so uh Ryan joined us
um last year and
um Ryan has really taken on you know the
these models and like I said he can do a
much deeper dive into it than I can but
what we really felt like we needed to do
was look at this
um you know and analyze it at a very
detailed level and so we felt like from
a pyramid approach we we needed to start
at the ground floor and figure out where
we needed to go from an energy
perspective for the Commonwealth and so
we're starting to entire we titled these
models as we're moving forward and
eventually they'll all sort of combine
up into a a very Dynamic Energy Systems
model
um but model one was important for us to
sort of build that framework and uh it
was entitled SMR affordability
um and in that particular model after
you know the governor's uh announced SMR
in Southwest Virginia
um
we felt like we had to do some real
detailed analysis of what costs that
would uh what would happen to the rate
payers
um we believe that on on other
initiatives in the past like offshore
wind we didn't have the data
um and it wasn't a data-driven approach
and we wanted to change that so we spend
Orion spent the better part of a couple
of months really diving into the cost of
advanced nuclear and how that fits
um in the Virginia's rate base once
again is number two model number two but
what we found in model number one
obviously is the things that most of you
already know
um you know is that you know first of
its kind reactor uh can
um can be done affordably to the rate
payers we did it we compared the costs
uh taking in the potential
um
benefits that brought were brought in by
the uh the IRA
um and we got a we got something that
was very comparative to a portfolio of
of of what we think we're going to be
going forward of all of our energy costs
um so that was exciting to us I mean
obviously we don't want to leave the
ratepayers and alerts here and we don't
we don't want to hang the cost of this
Innovation on on on the backs of the
rate payers and so with that we moved
forward into model two which was really
how do we reconfigure
um the Virginia clean economy act
framework to include smrs and does it
does it really make sense from an
affordability perspective what kind of
benefits we have
um you know and and some of the other
things that we can do around uh the
advanced nuclear you know in that
ecosystem uh with hydrogen and we're
still working on that model as we speak
but we've already started model three
which really is a is a detailed energy
Pro uh profile
um we we believe that that we need to
understand
um you know the demand profile for the
entire
um the entire Commonwealth to be able to
integrate what we found in two with
three that will eventually become our
Dynamic systems model
um you know from a demand perspective
there's so many interrelationships as we
move forward with clean energy
and and how you know how they all work
together
um example electrification how does that
impact us
um you know what what will that do to
our uh our demand
um and you know you know I think from a
from the other perspective is is that we
are seeing some tremendous growth with
some of the initiatives that you know
the administration is leading on the
economic development side so what is it
what does it look like if you try to
stress test our portfolio
um our energy portfolio and what does
that really mean so
um you know we're we're spending a lot
of time on this
um Ryan is spending most of his time on
this and we're very excited about
getting to a benefit but next slide Ryan
hey Will can I just jump in sure now
that was great
um just a few kind of clarifying points
um you know we went through the process
of just listening and uh developing the
the data and the sound analyzes that the
governor asked us to develop through the
process last year and you know
uh we're so grateful to have Ryan and
bringing on kind of this technical
expertise to really help connect all of
the dots holistically across the
Commonwealth and
that was you know one of the things we
realized early on is that there's a lot
of siled conversations
that have been happening when it comes
to energy planning and we've got to do a
better job of connecting those dots so
you know there isn't necessarily a place
that you could go to see how you know
demanding what what's happening within
Dominion's territory fits in with AEP
fits in with the cooperatives and things
like that and then looking forward to
Will's point I think it's been
understated that the demand growth the
the load growth that we're going to see
just from data centers from
electrification from semiconductor
activities from indoor AG all of these
things that are great in terms of
business investment capital investment
the Commonwealth job opportunities
they're energy intensive Industries and
that wasn't necessarily being captured
holistically when we were talking about
energy planning and so we aren't you
know we understand to decarbonize I mean
everyone's thankfully talking about this
now nuclear has to be
part of this this overall picture
but we have to we need to match that
demand load growth curve including the
economic growth that that we're shooting
for with optimizing the the generation
assets that make the most sense and are
the most cost effective for the rate
payer so the number one one of the
number one goals the governor has with
his his energy plan vision
is you know obviously the reliability
piece right we've got to have the lights
the lights have to come on but this has
to be done in an affordable way and we
can't figure that out unless we begin
connecting all of these dots
and we don't know if any other states
are doing this we're trying to figure
that out and Benchmark but
um we can't really find a great example
of a state kind of building this Dynamic
Energy Systems model to really
understand from a holistic perspective
what's going to happen and then how do
we do a better job of informing
legislators and other decision makers
um and then you know fitting all these
pieces together to kind of re reach uh
the uh the optimization goal that that
we all I think have mutually if that
helps
all right so so how do we how do we get
there
um and you know this slide that I I took
out of another presentation had a lot of
org charts and things like that and
we're not really really ready to present
org charts uh yet
um but a lot of people don't realize how
uh Virginia energy is organized
um our state Energy Office is housed in
Richmond and really has the
responsibility of being that trusted
source for information
um you know for for everyone in the
Commonwealth including the
administration the general assembly
um partners that we interface with every
single day
um the old configuration of that group
um it was called the renewable energy
and Energy Efficiency program
um and then did a lot of great work
um to push renewable energy
um has a great Energy Efficiency program
that saved uh you know saved
um local state uh entities over a
billion dollars since it's Inception
um but what we needed as I said to
become more analytical and we need to be
more focused
um on on how the energy plan lays out
what what really is important
um in these principles if you go back to
the energy plan there were five
principles what what we're doing is
we're using three of those principles to
reorganize
into teams uh one team will focus on
reliability one team will focus on
affordability and then we'll have an
innovation team
and we are uh like I said we we've made
some some moves on the manager's side to
sort of reconfigure the entire office
and we're looking forward uh really to
getting some folks sort of uh focused
and moving forward you know on these
teams
next slide right
so the other thing that that we we've
really focused on is federal federal
grants
um everyone in the room knows about this
and knows about the great opportunities
that are within the bipartisan
infrastructure law uh and the inflation
reduction Act
um
so right now I mean the way we sort of
look at it you can see the numbers but
the most important number is the 1.4
billion dollars which we think that we
are competitive for
um and we're actively pursuing
um opportunities or grants uh to to go
after that 1.4 billion and and the
couple in the nuclear space uh that
we're looking at right now so uh we're
very excited about this
um the governor makes the statement all
the time and we need to get more than
our fair share of this money
um we talk about affordability uh to the
rate payers
um this is an extremely you know once I
mean it's a once in a lifetime
opportunity to
um to reduce the cost to the rate payers
by deploying these dollars to buy down
the cost of potential generation
or um on the uh the housing side to
improve efficiencies uh for homeowners
um so as we we really see cost of energy
going up we have the opportunity
um if we work hard and we partner uh to
actually lower those costs
um so we're spending a tremendous amount
of our time uh doing this kind of work
and I think that that really concludes
uh prepared remarks uh do we have any
questions
any questions
okay
um well thank you Ryan it's good for all
your work on this and will and Chelsea
thank you for the update I think um you
know this is good to have every quarter
and just understand where things stand
and where we can be engaging
it's really really appreciate
all right thank you
um
sorry can I ask a question
yeah
um are you uh the White House made an
announcement a couple weeks ago
um regarding an additional investment
tax credit or production tax credit if
you deploy clean energy and coal
communities okay so you're not all right
I just want to make sure you had seen
that
yeah we we're we're following that
um and we've identified obviously
however coal communities and Christine I
loved your presentation it's not just
because you actually pronounced
Appalachia correctly
um I really appreciate what you're doing
we we love to work with you guys I know
April's trying to set up some a call
with you
um you know we've identified all those
communities and we would like to work on
some education efforts um together if we
can
um as we look toward transitioning those
to nuclear sites
no we'd be more than happy to help I I
think the um
with the Clean Energy Credit and then
now having this additional opportunity
for coal communities it's it's like
clean energy being on sale
you know I think it's really I think
it's a really um great opportunity for
these communities and more than happy to
help
great thank you
very much okay yeah I wanted to mention
something at the Virginia energy on the
SEC will be participated in for the rest
of the year I see a lot of nuclear speed
collaborative it's a joint venture
between the National Association the
energy offices and the National
Association of regulatory utility
commissions uh the intention is to
exchange the questions the challenges
so um it'll kick off next week we're
heading up to Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory
um
facility under there as well there are
23 students participating
um
progress Resurrection items to come
unavailable that you know but should be
an important process over the next year
or so yeah I think
um in talking with the neighbor folks in
advance of your trip from a friend home
perspective it did get me thinking as
you progress through the process this
year
um whether it's you Larry providing you
know kind of an update on the outcome or
someone from you know spokesperson from
the group I think that'd be a good
update to have on the agenda
um for for this group in the future
thank you
um I wanted April if you can hold for
just one second because I know
um Rich has to
um head up at 11 30 so before that I
think the only thing we need to vote on
today is just on approval of the minutes
so if we could take a couple minutes
um if you haven't already look through
these take a quick look if we've got any
changes I've got one small one
um
just one small change in the year
yeah yeah I I already
it's hard to believe it's already 20 23.
uh I also had another just small one um
under the bullets for the
um kind of meeting accounting I think in
the third main bullet we said 2023 Q2
meeting will be virtual I think we meant
to say
in person I figured that out but I
appreciate it so
anything else
okay can I get a motion to approve with
the two changes Andrew uh second second
the post
okay great minutes
uh okay so now I will turn over to April
for our legislative update
the legislative
um
the session was a little different for
us um we didn't get everything we wanted
foreign
um you know we did face uh sure so we
all read the newspaper but reporters
didn't have everything correct
um we did Facebook obstacles
propane he mentioned his bill uh his
nose the first one we saw a little bit
that they asked the Senate to take out
the word when we learned his bill
um regarding their Authority
really wasn't that there was a group of
anti the industry it was more more
politics than anything this year than we
faced these are you know we did go meet
with a lot of the legislators to remind
them
there's support for v-neck
um again
legislation that they voted for
um and as it passed bills that they
voted for
um in the end I think we came out pretty
well we did you know get the vehicle for
the power Innovation fund
um and that bill it's you know there's
the governor has pledged in his budget
10 million dollars
um 5 million is for the Department of
energy to give out for Grants to give
the other 5 million to the Virginia
Innovative we've been working on for a
while now the budget has not passed we
don't have money from the state but that
you know we are pretty happy with
um that outcome
we're also we had another bill passed
that um felted a plan
was a patronum got established a vehicle
for funding for nuclear education
it is something that we will be looking
at how to put a plan together with the
universities and funding this need for
that during the next session to see what
we can do there
um we did try to get nuclear power to be
included in the renewable portfolio
standard
didn't work
um but we did have a good debate
um and you know they want to come back
and talk about it again next year and so
after the primaries if we will look at
you know working with the legislature
the legislators on what we can do
during this time to see if we can
prepare for the next session see if
there's something else that we can do
um
that's LED overview on the legislature
it was a
given a long one but it was good
um
on the Hub although we don't have the
funding we have been meeting we hired
Bob Bailey you'll remember him he
actually was on the board for quite a
while to help us put together the
documents
we have a working group between industry
and universities
put this together
the law firm that we used
Lord Berkeley horn who were used to
establish v-neck years ago because
reporting probe owners helped us with
documentation together that we needed
for the good hub so regardless of the
state money we are moving forward to
putting the Hub together and looking at
opportunities that we can work to get a
hug up and running with other
opportunities
the budget will pass this year but if
not there is still plans to go forward
executed off the ground
um the SMR working group
um I actually
we have not put a meeting together this
year yet
um I have a speaker lined up so we will
be able to see that they're getting that
moving again and looking at dates also
to go in the southwest to bring some
of the experts that we have on the group
they've come down and meet people in the
communities
on other news we do have two members of
V-neck we are up to 14 members now
X energy joined this week
whole Tech joined a couple weeks ago
we have remember worship has definitely
grown and I'm excited to have everybody
involved in the conversation and
that's really um oh those are the things
I've a couple of things on MIT reached
out because they have a
the summer workshop for ngos elected
officials press
guns and people in the state invited to
go that and that is three days in at MIT
just to learn about industry tree
energy communities
are funded by the department of energy
they've reached out also they're going
to have a thing to do the Kentucky next
month so I
got problems names from some communities
here leaders to educate them again more
on the industry
and how to engage
it's it's interesting I was on a
phone call last week I think or a week
before I can't remember at this point
but um Idaho now is actually they have a
it's like a kind of a state energy
Consortium but it's heavily focused on
Advanced nuclear that they're trying to
stand up uh and I think
Virginia has become an example for a lot
of other states I know you know what
Kentucky did there
it's not a carbon copy of what we've
done here but
um it's very similar and so I think
there's a lot of interest in
understanding how this has been
Kentucky
to us orders
information on how we operate and how
Lessons Learned
Idaho actually used I had to message the
person during the during the meeting
they used the term uh strategic road map
and I said funny you should say that
there actually is one that exists in
Virginia so but uh
and next year believe it or not we will
be updating the Strategic plan next year
will be four years
who presented
this committee before mentioned this
any questions for April
okay
so um I'm Gonna Keep the updates kind of
short but um Ryan included in the um
meeting items that he sent out the email
I would just encourage you there's a
bipartisan policy Center did their own
but they did a cult the nuclear report
it's kind of the latest version there's
as Christine said there's a lot of
groups that are um looking at this but
this is it's got a lot of the latest and
greatest details if you're interested in
that and then I would encourage if you
haven't already take a look at the
pathways to liftoff's report on Advanced
nuclear that was include
um
I would
I think it may be interesting either for
um our our next meeting or or last one
of the year if there's interest from
this group in having someone from doe
one of the authors provide a briefing on
that report I think at the very least
one of the things I found most
interesting is it does put some kind of
parameters or at least some
a little bit of a horizon on deployment
um
deployment needs I I mean that it's very
ambitious whether we can meet it or not
but it at least provides some
perspective on how much nuclear Advanced
nuclear is going to need to be deployed
by 2050 to get where we'd like to go
from a transition standpoint so
um yeah interesting Christine mentioned
you know we could the authors are very
good at briefing so if that's of
interest because
I would just Echo that Tom have been
brief we were one of the I don't know
hundreds of folks that were interviewed
you know and had him
I don't know we'll say input you know
and help them um with their research but
I think would be a benefit
of Julie or someone else from that team
I present to this Republic just Echo
that
um are there any other uh announcements
from members
okay
um so I think uh we'll work with Ryan
we'll probably look at you know kind of
Summer uh time frame where we will start
the process of getting our you know
annual report going
um but we'll send out uh doodle Poll for
for those we'll try to as best we can
avoid August and the most
vacation time but pricing in July
September November
or last year I think that would yeah
that was September November we really
hammering the annual report you get this
knocked out yeah so we'll uh we'll send
that out okay
um Ronnie again welcome thank you for
engaging great to be here
um so down yeah we'll open up to public
statements is there before we go uh
sorry Erica one second
Christine did you have uh one more
comment yeah on the call to nuclear
space um keep your eyes out clean air
task force will be the next group to
publish a report in this space
um the research group got to see a draft
of that work
um I think it's a a again diving deeper
into this
and gain will be publishing
um some companion work to the liftoff
report around supply chain
um we were really looking at
um talking to suppliers looking at the
different components that we might need
to build for an advanced nuclear Fleet
and how quickly we could come up to
come up to scale and deployment and what
the concerns were
um just to preview
I know this won't surprise those folks
and you guys in the room but
um Workforce was
um a consistent uh concern in being able
to achieve scale and deployment and
supply chain
or to send those reports
um when they become available but
um or you could just follow us on social
media because that's that's the way we
communicate a lot as well
thanks
uh before we do public comment in the
room is there anyone on the virtual
meeting that had public comment if you
could virtually raise your hand so
okay
so Erica
it's like an afternoon
um
volunteer at the Virginia Sierra Club
I want to start off with first of all
that nuclear energy is not clean energy
um
from the very beginning of mining
uranium processing turning into yellow
cake Etc all the way down the line
to decommissioning which is going to be
the big business
um and uh forever ways and besides that
we cannot say zero emissions that is not
true every nuclear power plant is
running on a routine basis releases
radioactivity into our environment
through gases and liquid influence and
all kinds of filters and everything else
that has to be taken away to a lower
level radioactive dump
um so it's a falsehood to say it's it's
clean energy and I would agree with uh
Senator Craig Deeds that mentioned at
the uh the legislative session that
nuclear energy simply is not renewable
and that is one of the reasons of why
that bill failed to try to reclassify
nuclear energy it's renewable because it
simply isn't
as it goes for the other bill that
failed trying to make us a test pilot
project for untested unknown cost etc
for small modulars that bill failed too
because it's very much they were very
much aware of the unknown cost factors
I've known a lot of things and putting
us on the the Dole for rate payers
taking the risk and the cause we've
already seen multiple uh reactor and
Dominion I think was even partying at
that I guess it was a South Carolina one
where the basically I forgot how many
millions or billions were spent to fill
up a whole you know planned project that
failed uh northanna three uh some years
back was another project that they got
we got stuck with like 600 million
dollars for uh for shifting papers
around so you know
the the citizens and rate payers are
always you know have to be on on the
lookout for being on the cliff or
something it just doesn't work out
because it's too expensive too
complicated we don't have the workforce
I mean I've gotten on meetings before at
the NRC and I can barely understand
people because they're all from India
I'm a little concerned I'm not racist
but that's a problem and it's also a
problem that we don't have the
infrastructure for even parts that we
need now
we've got aging plants all over the
country including here in Virginia and
we don't even have the samples around
the Reactor Core itself to see you know
for embrittlement you know I'm just a
weirdo because I I I watch and read
documents and attend meetings we've got
a lot of issues y'all always talk about
new new we got a lot of stuff going on
with our old
in particular right now we have Indian
Point and we have Pilgrim whole Tech I
think has both of them and ones that
dump the water right after the waters
and stuff you know into the river and
they're getting pushed back this is kind
of stuff is going to happen all over the
country because they got to get rid of
stuff
we already see what's happening 12 years
later in Fukushima after that disaster
you know they're talking about
making some kind of pipes and putting it
out in the ocean and releasing it for 30
or 40 years
you know radioactivity is Bayou
biocumulative
you know I mean we don't know what we're
doing with that I mean we're that's on
some scale that humans don't even know
so that's a that's a big problem and as
it goes for again checking the NRC you
know we've got
um a combined
assessment meeting for northanna and
Surrey which they used to do them
separately because of coven whatever
they're doing it online now
but still the public goes online and you
can't see the the 2022 report for the
year you can't see you know do we have
leaks going on or anything nope sorry
we're going to have the meeting they've
been doing this for years they're going
to have the public assessment meeting
but the public has no privy to any
information about what's going on with
those two
goes to the whole you and that's got to
stop that's just wrong
and the other thing I was going to
mention is um you know I don't know
what's going on with North uh with
Dominion power I know they keep changing
things but the wastewater treatment
system plant
you know they seem to be you know
testing it before they used to have to
test the the the fluid the water coming
out of the you know to the cooling ponds
they used to have to test the
temperature throughout the day now they
just do it one time a day they do it
early morning and for the past three
days it just decided to keep going
earlier I'm not sure why there isn't
like some standardized stuff where they
do things at a certain time should be
important if they want to get accurate
information
but you know the whole idea of it
released at 14 degrees is has been
defunct for many years we get up into
the 20s I've even seen it probably get
up close to 30 degrees difference it's a
problem
so you know more information to the
public so that we can actually have
assessments but this idea of new what
we're going to do and you know I don't
think Virginia obviously legislative
session proof right there like wait a
minute what are you all doing it's not
renewable we're not going to get our
rate payers stuck again for something
that's unproven and you know what
there's still no true plan for nuclear
waste
don't have one
you know you got to stay you know
arguing about it you know between New
Mexico and Texas
I mean so
we've got a lot of stuff we need to look
at right now it's on the plate and also
the
the new licensure for even northanna
they're that's postponed for another
four months NRC doesn't even have those
Staffing
yes we don't have the stabbing we don't
have the employees needed you know
we don't make the parks
you know I mean
I I just think that y'all are continuing
just like the NRC putting the cart
before the horse
I want to be protected I live here in
Virginia and downtown both plants
Encompass the downtown region in the 50
mile evacuation Zone you know it just
seems like there's a lot of you know
lack of Daisy like oh nothing's gonna
happen thing
um but what you know and then half the
time we don't even hear about it until
later
uh you know the uh is it the Minnesota
Minnesota Power Plant leaked 400 000
gallons of radioactive water
public wasn't even alerted or anything
until later
and the last time I heard that was March
20th uh that they uh I think they've
already gotten like 25 of the water you
know that
um there's a lot of problems going on
and when you deal with nuclear it's
dangerous
toxic it's expensive and I think y'all
really need to look at what we got going
on right here
and these containers that we're putting
waste in
they're only scheduled to maybe last 100
years
so I you know even at northanna when
they go to check they lived up one
canister and they look under there like
one time with the GoPro cameras see for
cracks one
of all the rest of them that are out
there on the Block
you know I don't think that we should be
banking on luck
because we could really screw up our
state
so I hope that y'all do get the
education and people willing to somehow
you know watch over these plants as they
age
and especially get into the
decommissioning and waste because I
don't think we have a knowledge yet on
all if you take one spent fuel pool
that's been re-racked
more than it was designed originally to
contain they're full and they're full
with all kinds of different levels of
burnout
I mean I don't know I don't know where
the science is really coming in here
and northanna I haven't heard about
Dominion's plan yet where are we met
have they opened up the canister I don't
think yet we don't even know how the
fuel is going to do
I would like to see this
nuclear energy Consortium Authority
people and you know this room and
alongside with the NRC you know really
address what we have right now and stop
being like putting all this other stuff
ahead of things
because what's going to happen it's just
a matter of time there's going to be an
accident and it's going to be somewhere
in our country
and it's not going to be pretty and it's
all because y'all are focusing on the
future instead of looking at what we
have right under our nose right now
and that's what I'd like
to say thank you
any other comments
I just like I'm Mike Hatfield I'm an
academy administrator in Wise County and
I just like to thank this group
what you are doing
we cannot survive
the electrical grid cannot explain to
Oklahoma right now we have become
another new methods
and we in Southwest Virginia have been
interview leaders
the state for over a hundred years we
like to continue to do that so we're
appreciative of you all were
appreciative will Payne and the get out
the lab and Wilbur Department of energy
and holidays
all right well thanks everybody uh have
a great weekend safe travel Sacramento
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