IS THIS STRATEGIC MANEUVERING BY THE DATA CENTER INDUSTRY – WORKING WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY?
“The U.S. needs to add 200 gigawatts of nuclear, Goff told CNBC in an interview. This is roughly equivalent to building 200 new plants, based on the current average reactor size in the U.S. fleet of about a gigawatt…”
“…A lot of the data centers are coming in and saying they do need firm, 24/7, baseload clean electricity,” Goff said. “Nuclear is obviously a perfect match for that,” he said.”
“But restarting reactors in the U.S. will only provide a small fraction of the nuclear power that is needed, he said. There are only a handful of shuttered plants that are potential candidates for restarts, according to Goff.”
“It’s not a huge number,” Goff said of potential restarts. “We need to really be moving forward also on deploying plants,” he said.”
The below was posted on the DOE Facebook page:
What can be more disruptive than data centers, transmission lines, substations, and new large scale gas plants?
How does a full-scale nuclear reactor fit into your community?
On Tuesday, Coalition board directors attended a joint event held by Dominion Energy and the Northern Virginia Technology Council. Apparently, Dominion Energy is going to dig in their heels and pretend like they have everything under control. In response to a question about load demand growth, the Dominion presenter literally said from the outset: “We’ve got this!” Basically, no need to worry, we have planned for this amount of growth all along. Really? You did? That’s why you have informed data centers that their wait for power hook up can take as long as 7 years?
To be very clear to our community, the Coalition confronted Dominion Energy in May of 2023 about the lack of generation to meet this exploding load demand, and their reaction was abysmal at best. All along they have been dragged, kicking and screaming, to be transparent about new transmission infrastructure and new generation to meet this exploding load demand.
Our goal has always been to share the most accurate information with the community. You need to know what shoe is going to drop next so that you can get engaged now. (See multiple options below)
Informing you of the direction of Nuclear Generation to meet this “unconstrained” data center development is NOT a commentary on nuclear. It is to inform residents what is being planned, and how it can impact you — not only IF it is planned near you, but AT WHAT COST to ALL of us.
The explosion of data center development is only now being considered for the cumulative impact on our communities, our natural resources, and our safe reliable affordable energy. And the future forecast is very troubling.
To quote Mr. Enil Avram, Dominion VP of Business Development directly, speaking about nuclear, Lake Anna and more, during the December 12 NVTC event:
“…Why is Amazon interested (in Lake Anna)? Well, like them, and many others (ie data developers) looking for ways to enable always-on reliable electricity, nuclear is obviously a great solution. But it’s very capital intensive. It’s one of THE most capital-intensive technologies that can be deployed out of those 5 that I mentioned. So, we need some partners, uh, to help us move that forward. Amazon raised their hand, and said we’d like to partner with you to enable new nuclear. That might involve providing some of the capital investment; that might involve taking some or all of the output under some form of a tariff. Um, so that is what we are exploring with them, and we are very excited about it. I would say that they may not be the last of that peer group to participate in something like that. We are having ongoing discussions with others as well, um, so it could be a great opportunity.”
“And North Anna is not the only site we are exploring either. We are actually looking at GREENFIELD SITES (new not-yet-established nuclear sites); we’re looking at sites where we either shut down or have operating coal-fired power stations because of the infrastructure and availability of land; you know, those have water resources already available, they have transmission infrastructure that Matt’s team has continued to maintain. So we are looking far and wide in the Commonwealth of Virginia to bring new nuclear.”
“…The big thing here is, nuclear is always on. It got the highest, I’ll call it the capacity value in the market. ….And so that aligns very well with how data centers operate as well. There is no other generation source that gets even close to that…”
Why should YOU care? Do you think it will be someone else that has to suffer the impacts of all this new transmission and generation? What if it’s not? What if it IS you? We can guarantee you this fact: Your utility bills will definitely be affected.
Does the current Dominion IRP (integrated resource plan) take into consideration a new 1.5 GW gas plant every 12-18 months, as forecasted by JLARC’s (judical legislative audit review committee)? Does it take into account the tens of billions needed to build new nuclear reactors? We don’t find those considerations in Dominion’s IRP.
We predict: Possum Point WILL be considered for a full-scale nuclear reactor, which would provide approximately 1 gigawatt of power.
Don’t forget: On the low-end Dominion is predicting we need 23 gigawatts of new generation. Per new information from Dominion, the Digital Gateway alone will require 7 gigawatts of power. But that is only what has been approved in the state as we write this, not new data center applications yet to be seen.
Possum Point ‘nuclear readiness’ check list:
- Possum Point has upgraded transmission lines Fredericksburg-Possum Point | Dominion Energy
- Possum Point substation is being upgraded per PJM plans and proposals
- Possum Point is a decommissioned coal plant
- Possum Point has immediate access to a large body of water
8 Things to Know About Converting Coal Plants to Nuclear Power | Department of Energy
“The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects we’ll need an additional 200 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and some of that could take place at or near retiring coal plants — creating new job and economic opportunities for these energy communities.”
Prince William County is now the new emerging data center capitol of the world, and the “unconstrained” data center development approved by our Boad of County Supervisors has real-life consequences ON US. Power generation is obviously more efficiently provided when located NEAR data centers. It only makes sense that here in PWC we will also bear the brunt of locating new power generation.
It is not too late to Make a Difference.
MULTIPLE EVENTS TO TAKE ACTION:
-> SCC Technical Conference
December 16
9:15 am – 5:00 pm
1300 E. Main Street – 2nd floor
Richmond, VA
(Full details here)
The technical conference will be open to the public with no advance registration required. The technical conference will also be available for viewing via live webcast. A link to the webcast of this event will be available at Virginia SCC – Webcasts.
-> Delegate Ian Lovejoy’s Town Hall
December 19th
Register and Attend
7-8:30 pm Patriot HS
10504 Kettle Run Road, Nokesville, VA 20181 – auditorium
to discuss the findings from the data center JLARC (Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission) study, to include impacts to our community, and potential legislative strategies at the state level.
-> Plan to go to the General Assembly in January to demand accountability for the data center industry.
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Some coverage on this topic:
Georgia nuclear rebirth arrives 7 years late, $17B over cost | AP News
Under pressure from the SCC, Dominion reveals the true cost of data centers • Virginia Mercury
As data centers proliferate, conflict with local communities follows
The big environmental costs of rising demand for big data to power the internet | PBS News Weekend
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