Brennan Weiss reports that Virginia could supply virtually all of its future energy needs from nuclear power and even become a player in the global market to supply power from nuclear sources, according to a new think tank report released Wednesday.
The case for the Old Dominion potential nuclear future was outlined in a new analysis from the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, which argued that with the proper investments, Virginia could emerge as the newest contender in the international nuclear power market.
The study authors, technology business consultant Robert Hartwell and Donald Hoffman, chairman of the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium Authority, argue that Virginia, one of the most energy-dependent states in the country, would benefit environmentally and economically from a transition to nuclear power.
Virginia is behind only California in its reliance on out-of-state power sources, importing over 50 percent of its current power needs. With a projected 4,000 megawatts of additional power needed by Virginia by 2021, the study suggests that just four new nuclear power plants would do the job better than any other alternatives.
With continuing controversy surrounding oil, natural gas and coal production, nuclear power is an energy supply that should be, and could be, safely developed to meet much of Virginia future electrical power needs, said Michael W. Thompson, chairman and president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute.
Despite its early promise as a nonpolluting, inexhaustible source of power, the nuclear industry has encountered resistance from some groups of adversaries in the United States and elsewhere in light of concerns about nuclear waste storage and a series of spectacular safety breakdowns from Chernobyl. But contrary to Weiss's misinformation, both Three Mile Island in 1979 and Japan Fukushima in 2011 were incidents where no one was killed or injured by radiation, both incidents serving as checks for even improved safety.
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