Sites in Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise counties and the city of Norton would be “ideal” for installing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), according to a state-funded feasibility study released Monday.
Examining the technical feasibility, safety considerations and economic viability of locating small reactors in Southwest Virginia, the study conducted by Reston-based Dominion Engineering Inc. deemed Southwest Virginia a “competitive hosting ground for SMRs.”
The region is “in a prime position to attract new industries with inexpensive brownfield sites, mine water for cooling, existing right of way to transmission infrastructure and existing rail infrastructure,” according to the $150,000 study, which was commissioned by the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission and funded by the Virginia Department of Energy and GO Virginia Region One.
“The main takeaway,” said Dominion Engineering President Mike Little, “is that this community is extremely attractive for one of these facilities. It’s not just one … factor that makes it attractive. It’s broadly distributed across all of those categories. … There’s existing infrastructure here.”
The state-funded study bolsters Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s push for nuclear energy to be part of the state’s green energy framework, the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which was passed by the General Assembly in 2020. In October 2022, Youngkinannounced a goal of bringing a small nuclear reactor to Southwest Virginia within 10 years — despite the fact that the only currently operational SMR is in Russia. The idea of nuclear energy being a bridge between fossil fuels and renewable solar and wind energy sources has support from both Republicans and Democrats.
Last fall, Youngkin proposed allocating $10 million to create the Virginia Power Innovation Fund, with $5 million going toward the development of an SMR, but the legislature isn’t completely on board. A bill to establish a small nuclear reactor pilot program failed in the General Assembly this session, but nuclear energy is still a hot topic among state energy stakeholders.
“The study affirms the governor’s initiative to deploy SMRs in Southwest Virginia and their advantage in the region,” Youngkin’s spokeswoman, Macaulay Porter, said this week. “As the governor has said, the Southwest has a talented, generational energy workforce, a best-in-class training pipeline through local colleges and community colleges, and a unique geography that makes it among the best locations for research and development of advanced nuclear technologies.”
The seven potential SMR sites identified by the study are:
Bullitt Mine Complex, Wise County
Vacant limestone mine, Scott County
Abandoned mine land site, Lee County near Wise County border
Mineral Gap/Lonesome Pine Regional Business and Technology Park, Wise County
Project Intersection (188-acre surface coal mine site at U.S. 23 and U.S. Alt 58), Norton
Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center power station, St. Paul
In a statement Monday, Virginia House Majority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, called the site and feasibility study “the next step in making Gov. Youngkin’s ‘moonshot’ goal of making Southwest Virginia the home of the nation’s first SMR within 10 years a reality.”
The two major utilities providing power in Virginia — Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. and American Electric Power Inc. (AEP) — have expressed support for developing nuclear projects in the region, according to the study. In a plan released in January, Dominion stated that it “anticipates SMRs could be a feasible supply-side resource as soon as the 2030s.”
At least 70 commercial SMRs are in various stages of development worldwide, but only one in Russia is operational. In the United States, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved just one SMR design, from Oregon-based NuScale Power Corp., in summer 2022.
SMRs are designed to generate up to 300 megawatts per unit, about one-third of the capacity of conventional nuclear reactors, such as the North Anna and Surry power stations owned by Dominion Energy Inc. in Virginia, which power nearly 900,000 homes.
Supporters see SMRs as a solution to climate change because they don’t emit greenhouse gases, unlike gas- and coal-fueled power plants. And unlike wind or solar energy, nuclear reactors aren’t dependent on the elements and don’t require battery storage. However, critics say that large nuclear plants are too expensive to build and maintain, and it will take too long for SMRs to address climate change, as well as prompting safety concerns about radioactive waste and accidents.
A May 2022 study led by a Stanford University scientist published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that SMRs would likely create more nuclear waste — by a factor of up to 30 — than conventional reactors. However, a second study released in November 2022 by the Argonne and Idaho national labs said the amount of nuclear waste produced by SMRs would be about the same as waste produced by large light water reactors.
Virginia’s study on the viability of Southwest Virginia as a future home for SMRs “gives us third-party validation that Southwest Virginia is in the running, based on the land attributes necessary for deployment of SMRs,” said Will Payne, managing partner of consulting firm Coalfield Strategies LLC and head of business development for InvestSWVA, a regional business attraction campaign that focuses on adapted reuses for abandoned mine land.
“Southwest Virginia has and always will be an energy community,” Payne said, “and we believe that our land position makes us more competitive than other energy communities around the country.”
The primary reason many Southwest Virginia stakeholders are keen on SMRs is the economic impact such a project could have on the region. With the decline of coal mining jobs in Appalachia, the Southwest region has lost good-paying jobs and seen its population numbers decrease as a result.
“It’s fair to say deploying one SMR will absolutely transform this region’s economy because of the significant capital investment,” Payne said.
A 300-megawatt SMR would be expected to require a capital expenditure of about $1 billion, creating 40 to 60 permanent jobs and hundreds of temporary construction jobs, according to the study, and would provide more than $100 million in new local tax revenue over about 20 years. However, the report also confirmed that it could take 10 years for the first SMR to be operational in the region.
“We are thrilled to have completed this study, which holds great promise for transforming the energy landscape not only in Southwest Virginia but throughout the commonwealth of Virginia,” LENOWISCO executive director Duane Miller said in a statement. “Small modular reactors have the potential to provide a source of safe, stable and sustainable energy, enabling transformational economic growth, improving quality of life and complementing the region’s existing energy generating portfolio.”
A Middleburg developer plans to build at least 30 data centers on a 641-acre plot next to the Surry Nuclear Power Station in Surry County, with the possibility of a hydrogen and nuclear-powered green energy production facility in the future, the county announced Wednesday.
John Andrews, CEO of Middleburg-based Green Energy Partners LLC of Virginia, is a longtime Northern Virginia developer who built the Stonewall Energy Park in Loudoun County, including the Panda Stonewall Power Project, a natural gas-fueled 778-megawatt power station that uses wastewater from Leesburg to run the plant’s cooling tanks. Andrews also built Stonewall Secure, a business park near the Leesburg Executive Airport, as well as Fairfax County’s Spring Park Technology Center.
GEP is under contract to purchase the 641-acre property where the Surry Green Energy Center is set to be built, said Renee Chapline, a consultant with Surry County Economic Development.
According to Bill Puckett, Green Energy Partners’ vice president of strategic development, the company plans to build at least 30 data centers occupying three to five acres each, with construction starting in the next 18 months. The data centers would create revenue for the company to build a hydrogen-production facility on 10 to 20 acres and four to six small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) “on the order of 35 acres” — a system that would create a renewable energy source in the next 10 to 15 years to run the data centers if approved by federal and state officials. The data centers would run on conventional energy sources in the meantime, Puckett said.
If all goes as planned, the Surry facility would serve as a backup energy source for Loudoun County data centers, where 70% of the world’s data traffic passes.
Andrews is privately funding the data centers, but the company is currently interviewing prospective customers, and tech investors are “banging on our door,” Puckett says. GEP is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory and Surry County, and the company is also having conversations with SMR vendors, data center builders and hydrogen power experts. The company expects to create 3,000 direct and indirect jobs in the Surry area, although some may come in 10 to 15 years, if all parts of the project move forward.
SMRs have come up in Virginia’s energy sector before; in 2022, Gov. Glenn Youngkin called for the country’s first small modular reactor to be built in Southwest Virginia within 10 years as part of the state’s strategy to meet Virginia Clean Economy Act goal of 100% carbon-free power sources by 2050. A bill to conduct an SMR pilot program failed this year in the Virginia General Assembly, but nuclear energy is still a hot topic among state energy stakeholders. Youngkin anticipates that it would take about 10 years to build a functional SMR in Southwest Virginia, although Puckett says that depending on the model, an SMR could be up and running in five years in Surry. Although the only working commercial SMR in the world is in Russia, many countries are testing models.
The data center part of the project is fairly straightforward, and it’s a major deal for Surry County, Chapline said. GEP did not seek state tax incentives, she noted, although the governor’s office and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership have been briefed on GEP’s plans. She expects groundbreaking on the data center park to take place in about a year.
Puckett said Wednesday that ultimately the Surry Green Energy Center would use SMRs to heat water to 800 degrees, splitting the water into oxygen and hydrogen with the use of an electrolyzer that turns it into carbon-free hydrogen fuel. If built, the energy center would be the first of its kind in the United States. Surry was “ideal” for the development because it has plenty of available land and water, as well as fiber optics, gas lines, electric grid access and proximity to the Port of Virginia, Puckett said.
“Our objective is to create a model for the world,” Puckett said.
Chris Rawlings was a mechanic who wanted to be a pilot.
He left the Marine Corps in 2008 after deploying twice to Iraq, where he supervised an aircraft maintenance team, going on to perform similar duties as a civilian contractor in a hangar at Fort Eustis. But his plan was to get back into the service.
“My dream was always to fly fighter jets for the Marine Corps,” he says, but something unexpected happened, and Rawlings instead found his next career.
His boss at the hangar asked him to study ways to improve efficiency, and as Rawlings poked around, he noticed the “massive amount” of money the place was wasting from energy losses with temperature-controlled air blowing out hangar doors or leaking through hoses. Going green could save the operation a lot of money, he realized, and the idea stuck with him.
In 2014, Rawlings launched Richmond-based Bowerbird Energy LLC, which focuses on helping businesses cut their power costs. Nine years later, Bowerbird is “a multimillion-dollar business,” with more than 350 clients nationwide, Rawlings says. The company designs LED lighting arrays and HVAC systems, and it creates feasibility studies and energy plans for businesses interested in reducing their carbon footprints or switching to renewable energy.
“There’s so much opportunity in the energy industry,” says Chris Rawlings, founder and chief energy officer of Richmond-based Bowerbird Energy. Photo by Caroline Martin
“There’s so much opportunity in the energy industry,” Rawlings says.
As Virginia moves to transform its electric grid to carbon-free, renewable energy in the face of climate change, it’s creating enormous opportunities for businesses big and small.
“When you’re transforming the grid, you’re making big changes. It takes a lot of work to get that done and you need qualified people to do that work,” says Rawlings, who anticipates that grid transformation will likely result in contracts and job creation for Bowerbird and other small businesses like his.
The renewable energy market was an $881.7 billion global industry in 2020, according to Portland, Oregon-based Allied Market Research, which projects it will grow to $1.98 trillion by 2030 as governments and industries push to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions in the face of climate change.
Here in Virginia, in 2020, the then-Democratic-majority Virginia General Assembly passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), requiring all electricity in Virginia to be produced from carbon-free power sources no later than 2050.
Political leaders, environmental activists, lobbyists and energy executives say the transition will be challenging. In addition to creating carbon-free clean energy, grid transformation can also be expected to generate controversies, technical difficulties and tradeoffs.
Bob McNab, economics department chair at Old Dominion University and director of ODU’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy, says the renewable energy economy is projected to surge ahead of fossil fuels over the next 30 years.
What’s happening now, he adds, resembles earlier industrial revolutions in computers and cars that brought economic booms. And it poses a stark challenge: “Will Virginia lead or will Virginia follow?”
For environmental activists like Dan Crawford, chair of the Roanoke group of the Sierra Club, the transition to renewable energy is more than a business or government matter, though — it’s an existential crisis for humanity, as scientists warn that the world is on the precipice of a series of catastrophic tipping points.
“Climate change is not going to happen. It’s happening,” Crawford says, adding that switching to renewables might help save us from some terrible impacts, the worst of which “would be that no humans survive.”
Ambitious targets
Under the VCEA, Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc., the Fortune 500 utility that serves 64.4% of Virginia, is mandated to produce all of its power for its customers in the state from renewable energy sources by 2045. Columbus, Ohio-headquartered Appalachian Power Co., which serves about 14% of the commonwealth, must meet the same target by 2050.
“When your lights are off, that’s the only thing that matters,” says Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine of the importance of ensuring the reliability of Virginia’s power grid during and after the state-mandated transition to carbon-free renewable energy sources. Photo courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.
The law also requires Appalachian to increase its energy storage capacity by 400 megawatts and Dominion to boost its capacity by 2,700 megawatts, pending approval by the State Corporation Commission — all by 2035.
Finally, the General Assembly has required Dominion to have offshore wind projects capable of producing 5.2 gigawatts by 2032.
Toward this end, Dominion is developing its $9.8 billion offshore wind farm. Located 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, when finished in 2026, it is expected to provide power for up to 660,000 customers.
The VCEA also grandfathers in existing nuclear power plants, allowing nuclear energy to be in the carbon-free mix with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. (However, somewhat contradictorily, the VCEA excludes nuclear energy from its definition of renewable energy sources.)
The size and scope of Virginia’s energy grid and the commonwealth’s growing power needs are impressive and make grid transformation appear to be a daunting task.
State utilities generated 103.1 terawatt-hours of power in 2020, according to the Virginia Department of Energy. (One terawatt-hour is enough to light 1 million homes for a year.) And Virginia’s electricity demands are predicted to grow by more than 78% by 2050, according to a 2021 report from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Virginia’s status as the state with the world’s largest concentration of power-hungry data centers as well as mass adoption of electric vehicles are expected to be key drivers of that demand, the report concluded.
Yet, so far, Dominion and Appalachian have a long way to go to meet the carbon-free mandate.
Last year, just 5% of energy produced by Dominion’s Virginia Power came from renewables, up slightly from 4% in 2020. Natural gas accounted for 41% and nuclear energy was responsible for 43% of electricity generated by Dominion. Coal accounted for 11%. (Natural gas and coal emit greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change.)
As for Appalachian, across all its service areas in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee, 16.6% of its power comes from hydroelectric, wind and solar sources, while 63.8% is generated by coal and 19.6% comes from natural gas when operating at full capacity. The company estimates that about 8% of energy for its Virginia customers comes from its own or contracted renewable energy sources.
Dominion and Appalachian executives say they’re optimistic they will hit the 2045 and 2050 targets set by the VCEA, while cautioning that fluctuations in power produced from renewables make grid reliability a challenge as the use of renewables expands.
Cliona Mary Robb, an energy law attorney at Richmond-based Thompson McMullan PC law firm and chair of the Virginia Renewable Energy Alliance, an industry group supporting renewable energy awareness, says the two utilities could meet VCEA deadlines under the current framework “if they are absolutely forced to,” but she notes that the state’s electric utility regulatory laws are “constantly changing,” and she doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon.
Appalachian President and Chief Operating Officer Aaron Walker, meanwhile, says he wants to shift his utility’s Virginia operations to carbon-free renewables “as fast as we can — as long as we’re protecting the overall reliability, security and affordability of the grid.”
Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine is even more blunt: “When your lights are off, that’s the only thing that matters.”
Dominion’s offshore wind farm turbines will tower 800 feet above the water — almost 300 feet taller than the state’s tallest building, the 508-foot Westin Virginia Beach Town Center. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Prevailing winds
Regardless of caveats, Dominion and Appalachian have taken big steps since 2020 to launch renewables projects, with promises that the transformation will create thousands of new jobs.
In addition to its offshore wind project, Dominion has filed proposals with state officials for at least 23 solar and energy storage projects totaling 800 megawatts, enough to power more than 200,000 homes, with SCC approval anticipated in mid-April. And last year, Appalachian Power filed a plan to acquire or contract for solar power projects totaling 294 megawatts and wind power projects totaling 204 megawatts over the next three years.
Appalachian notes, however, that four of their solar projects were dropped by developers due to development or cost issues. “While disappointing, we are still able to meet our Clean Economy Act [annual progress] requirements,” a spokesperson says. In mid-March, the utility was set to file an updated plan with the SCC that includes several new renewable energy projects.
Meanwhile, Dominion expects to propose between 800 and 1,000 megawatts of new solar and energy storage projects each year through 2035, as it has for the past three years under VCEA requirements.
Despite this forward momentum from the utilities, state Republicans have been pushing back on the Clean Energy Act, with Gov. Glenn Youngkin calling for the act to be reevaluated this year and every five years going forward. In October 2022, he issued his own alternative vision for the state’s power grid, a proposal endorsing an “all-of-the-above” mix of energy sources, including natural gas and nuclear power. This is in keeping with national GOP messaging that a hasty grid transition away from coal and natural gas could result in crashing grids and brownouts.
“We did incredible work in the 2020 [General Assembly] session in passing the Virginia Clean Economy Act. We have our target — it’s a great target — but what matters now is smart implementation,” says Andrew Grigsby, energy services director with Richmond-based nonprofit green energy consulting firm Viridiant. “The big solar farms and the big wind farms are astounding technology. … [It will be] a more complicated grid — no doubt about that — just as my iPhone is more complicated than my calculator from 1996. But any resistance to the clean energy transformation is kind of sad.”
Political pushback and technological challenges notwithstanding, U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, who, as a state senator, co-sponsored the VCEA, is optimistic Virginia will meet the 2045 and 2050 deadlines, saying that grid transformation is showing early promise.
“We’re already seeing progress with the rapid growth of solar in the state, offshore wind development and more robust energy efficiency,” McClellan says. “That has meant thousands of new jobs and more affordable energy for Virginians. … If anything, we might be able to hit our goals ahead of schedule.”
Perhaps the most significant advance in renewables is rising out of the waters off Virginia Beach’s coast where Dominion is working on its massive 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. The project will include 176 wind turbines, each towering 800 feet tall and capable of producing 14.7 megawatts.
“[It] will likely be the largest capital investment and single largest project in the history of Dominion Energy Virginia,” the State Corporation Commission concluded in a September 2022 order approving rate hikes associated with the project.
A 2020 study published by the Hampton Roads Alliance projected that operation and maintenance of the offshore wind farm will support more than 1,100 full-time jobs in Hampton Roads, paying $82 million in pay and benefits. That would generate an additional $210 million in economic impact and net $6 million in tax revenues for localities and $5 million for the state government. Additionally, the project is expected to create 900 construction jobs per year through 2026, providing $57 million in pay and benefits.
Further, ancillary offshore wind businesses could create an additional 5,200 full-time jobs, with $270 million in pay and benefits, according to the study, with an additional $740 million in economic output expected for each gigawatt of new offshore wind energy development the region services, according to the study.
Sunshine state
Utility-scale solar farms are popping up across Virginia, but the land-intensive projects have faced concerted opposition. A report by the Virginia Coastal Policy Center at William & Mary Law School indicates solar farms can be contentious in rural counties, partly because “the types of crops most likely to be displaced by utility-scale solar installations are corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat, which are also among the most-planted crops statewide.”
In late 2022, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin set a goal of building a small modular nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia within 10 years. Dominion Energy says that nuclear energy will be a crucial component in grid transformation. Photo by Earl Neikirk
Localities that once embraced solar farms for unused land have started pushing back on some projects. In March 2022, Page County officials rejected a 571-acre solar project, and in December 2022, Rockingham County officials quashed two proposed solar farms. This January, Culpeper County denied a 1,900-acre solar project.
Last August, however, Charlotte County greenlit the state’s largest proposed solar farm to date, the $800 million to $1.6 billion Randolph Solar project. The 800-megawatt solar farm is expected to generate power for 200,000 homes. The developer, Reston-based SolUnesco, sold the project to Dominion after receiving approval.
But to reach this point, SolUnesco had to build consensus painstakingly, says founder and CEO Francis Hodsoll. The Randolph Solar project had to get buy-in from more than 150 landowners who collectively owned more than 1,000 parcels of land around the site.
Richmond-based attorney and lobbyist Greg Habeeb represents renewable development projects across Virginia in his role as president of Gentry Locke Consulting, an arm of Roanoke-based Gentry Locke Attorneys. The solar industry is getting better at working with local governments to create comprehensive agreements that cover potential impacts from solar farms, such as increased traffic, he says, and this helps build community support for the projects.
As the solar industry grows, Virginia will also require more utility-scale battery storage to make the grid reliable. Last year, Dominion began operating its largest battery energy storage pilot project at the Scott Solar + Storage facility in Powhatan County, which provides 12 megawatts of storage. The company has two smaller projects in New Kent and Hanover counties.
Fusion point
Advancing nuclear technology could also play a role in transforming the grid, and it’s an area in which there’s some bipartisan agreement. Youngkin has called for the country’s first small modular reactor (SMR) to be built in Southwest Virginia within 10 years, and McClellan has said that the development of new nuclear energy technology could help meet VCEA targets.
As planned by the U.S. Department of Energy, SMRs will vary in output from tens to hundreds of megawatts and have safety features that older, larger nuclear plants lack.
Dominion Energy, which has been considering several SMR reactor designs under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says nuclear power is a necessary part of its grid transformation plans. SMRs, the utility says, will present an “opportunity to provide an additional energy source which is available at all hours of the day to complement renewable energy.”
Dominion received approval in 2021 to extend the operational lifespan of its Surry nuclear power plant into the early 2050s; it has additionally sought to extend the life of its nuclear plant at North Anna to 2060, a matter still under review by the NRC.
A bill to establish an SMR pilot program failed in the General Assembly this session, but nuclear energy is still a hot topic among state energy stakeholders, says Robb with the Virginia Renewable Energy Alliance. With a membership that includes Dominion, Appalachian and several solar companies, the alliance sponsored a nuclear energy summit last September. “I think we’ve been sensing since last year that SMRs would play a role” in grid transformation, she explains.
Despite this year’s legislative setback for SMRs, Robb sees a place for nuclear power in the VCEA framework, although, she adds, the state’s energy policy will depend on which political party controls the legislature. All 140 General Assembly seats are on the ballot in November and many senior legislators are retiring, lending an uncertain outlook on the legislature’s balance of power.
“Coal is on its way out, but natural gas is still around,” Robb says. “I’ve often looked at natural gas as a bridge fuel” — between fossil fuels to renewable energy. “If SMRs work, their role [will be] replacing natural gas as a bridge fuel. I’m eagerly awaiting the results of the election.”
Virginia Business Deputy Editor Kate Andrews contributed to this story.
A variety of projects around the state intended to spur economic and workforce development will get a boost from $8.1 million in state GO Virginia grants, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Friday.
The 17 projects are expected to add hundreds of jobs. Nearly $4.8 million will fund two Virginia Tech projects, including one expected to build a talent pipeline for the emerging nanotechnology industry in Northern Virginia and another to transition to the production of green hydrogen in Hampton Roads.
Two other projects, totaling $150,000, will study the feasibility of developing multiple small modular nuclear reactor sites in Southwest Virginia, as well as the preparation of a supply chain report that will be used to identify businesses that can be retooled or recruited to provide manufacturing jobs to support those reactors. Youngkin has set a goal of developing a small modular reactor in Virginia within the next decade.
“GO Virginia allows us to invest in key projects that address regionally identified opportunities while fostering collaboration for economic growth between the private and public sectors,” Younkin said in a statement. “These projects exemplify the innovative partnerships that GO Virginia was designed to promote, and will advance Virginia’s position in critical industries such as life science and energy, as well as leverage emerging opportunities in semiconductor manufacturing.”
The largest award, $3.3 million, will go to the Virginia Nanotechnology Networked Infrastructure project in Northern Virginia. The project will connect higher education institutions with existing nanotechnology facilities across the state to a main hub at Virginia Tech by an advanced cloud-based system. The project will train 600 students, award 500 certificates and create 80 internships.
Other projects include funding for a Center for Entrepreneurship in Lynchburg; funding for pre-construction activities for a wet lab incubator and accelerator in Charlottesville; support for cybersecurity training in Caroline, King George and Stafford counties; and money to support a cybersecurity/data analytics/modeling and simulation cluster and an unmanned systems and aerospace cluster in Hampton Roads. A full list of the projects is available from the state Department of Housing and Community Development.
GO Virginia is a bipartisan, business-led state initiative to foster private-sector growth and job creation through state incentives for regional collaboration by business, education and government. A state GO Virginia board makes funding decisions and distributes Virginia Growth and Opportunity Fund monies to projects recommended by the nine regional GO Virginia councils.
Smoot is a unicorn — a Black woman overseeing 4,700 employees in the highly technical field of manufacturing components for nuclear reactors. Named last summer as head of the Lynchburg-based federal contractor’s nuclear division, Smoot spent 30 years as a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy, ultimately serving as executive director for logistics, maintenance and industrial operations for the Naval Sea Systems Command. She also earned degrees in electrical engineering and engineering management from Virginia Tech and Old Dominion University.
She has learned a lot about leadership and earning trust, she says. “You can charge the hill, but if no one is following, what is the point?” Smoot asks. Her leadership was put to a tragic test in 2013 when a gunman went on a rampage at the Washington Navy Yard. Two of her employees were among the 12 people killed. “I had to pull on every piece of my training,” she says of that horrific time. “It was a defining moment for me as a leader.”
Framatome Inc. President and CEO Gary Mignogna will retire July 1, and Chief Financial Officer Katherine Williams will succeed him, the Lynchburg-based nuclear reactor and fuel company announced Tuesday. Mignogna will become chairman of Framatome Inc.’s board upon his retirement.
Williams, who will continue to serve as CFO, has worked for Framatome, a French nuclear reactor company, for more than 20 years. She lived in Paris for seven years while with the company, and as CFO, she manages all Framatome’s financial activities in North America. Williams also serves on the Framatome Inc., Framatome Canada and Isogen boards. Framatome has 14,000 employees worldwide and 1,300 in Lynchburg. Its business includes designing and providing equipment, services and fuel for nuclear power plants.
Gary Mignogna
Mignogna has worked for Framatome and its predecessor, Areva Inc., for 45 years, according to the company’s announcement. A mechanical engineer who earned degrees from Drexel University and an MBA from the University of Lynchburg, Mignogna became president and CEO of Framatome Inc. in 2014. In 2018, its North American headquarters moved from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Lynchburg.
“First, we congratulate Gary as he prepares to transition to a new role and we count on his continued support and counsel. His legacy of thoughtful leadership will be a tremendous asset as chair of the Framatome Inc. board of directors,” Frédéric Lelièvre, senior executive vice president and current chairman of the Framatome Inc. board, said in a statement. “I am confident that the strong leadership that has positioned Framatome as a leader in the U.S. market will continue under Katherine. Her two decades of service to this company exemplify our core values of performance, integrity and passion for the future of nuclear energy.”
In 2021, Framatome Inc. started an independent subsidiary, Framatome U.S. Government Solutions LLC, which focuses on nuclear projects for federal agencies.
Before joining Framatome, Williams worked in financial management at DuPont, Westinghouse and Duke Energy.
In early October, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced his goal of developing a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) in Southwest Virginia within 10 years, part of a plan to make the region an epicenter of energy innovation.
Not long after, Youngkin said he planned to allocate $10 million to create the Virginia Power Innovation Fund, with $5 million going toward development of the proposed SMR.
An emerging technology, SMRs are being designed to generate up to 300 megawatts per unit, about one-third of the capacity of conventional nuclear reactors. Supporters see SMRs as a solution to the climate crisis because they don’t emit greenhouse gases. Unlike wind or solar energy, nuclear reactors aren’t dependent on the elements and don’t require battery storage, but critics have safety concerns.
Doug Lawrence, vice president of nuclear operations and fleet performance for Dominion Energy Inc., describes SMR as a “clean, reliable source of energy that is always on and not dependent on weather conditions.”
There are more than 70 commercial SMRs in development worldwide, but only one in Russia is operational. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved an SMR design from Oregon-based NuScale Power Corp. in summer 2022.
In a 2022 update to Dominion’s integrated resource plan, the utility said it could add an SMR to its fleet by 2032, with the potential to build one 285-megawatt SMR each year after that.
Critics of the technology claim SMRs are not cost effective and express concern about radioactive waste that could be generated by SMRs, as well as the danger of nuclear accidents. A 2022 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that SMRs would likely create more nuclear waste, by a factor of up to 30, than conventional reactors.
Nevertheless, this isn’t a case of Richmond lawmakers trying to dump dangerous but needed technology in a rural part of the state, says Will Payne, director of economic development initiative InvestSWVA. “There are … other regions that want to have SMRs throughout Virginia,” Payne says. “It’s highly competitive.”
It’s too early to know how many jobs an SMR could create or the economic impact a small reactor could have on Southwest Virginia, says Duane Miller, executive director of the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission.
By spring, Miller hopes to have a needs assessment explaining what SMR developers seek in a site location. The next step, he says, would be to identify sites in the region that meet those criteria
Election years are not the time to make waves in Virginia’s legislature, says Greg Habeeb, a former Roanoke delegate who now advises clients pursuing legislation in the General Assembly.
Big changes — the kind the state saw during the Democrats’ two years of full legislative control in 2020 and 2021 — are expected to be extremely unlikely amid the split, election-year legislature of 2023. “It’ll cause some people to be excessively bold,” but that’s not the natural state of things, says Habeeb, who leads Gentry Locke Attorneys’ government and regulatory affairs team in Richmond. “It’s hard to legislate on the off-off year.”
Odd-year sessions are automatically shorter than even-year sessions, when the state must pass budgets. The Virginia Constitution requires a session of 30 days, traditionally extended to 45 days in odd years, so there’s less opportunity to pass as many bills as with the 60-day session required in even years.Also, this fall, all 140 seats in the House of Delegates and the Virginia State Senate are up for election, and redrawn districts mean 61 incumbents suddenly found themselves sharing districts with other incumbents, setting up a crowded primary field for this spring. (See related story.)
Undoubtedly, lawmakers in Richmond this session will pass some legislation — likely in the areas of renewable energy, education, public safety, workforce development and industrial site development. But “you [can] take the social issues off the table,” including gun control and abortion, Habeeb says. “There’s little to no room for compromise on those.”
That said, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration is supporting a bill to seek out public school library books with graphic sexual content so that parents can prohibit their children from having access to those materials. Other social-issue legislation being introduced in the House this session includes a measure to make vaccinations optional for public school students. And though it’s almost certain to not make it to the state Senate floor, House Bill 1395 from Del. Marie March seeks to ban all abortions in the wake of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling repealing Roe v. Wade.
At least some bills this session are likely to gain traction and some bipartisan support, however.
For instance, there may be some movement toward filling two vacancies in the Virginia State Corporation Commission, the three-judge panel that governs utilities, state-chartered financial institutions, securities, insurance, retail franchising and the Virginia Health Benefit Exchange. In recent years, confirmations have been tied up in partisan strife, and with Judge Judith Williams Jagdmann’s resignation at the end of 2022, only Judge Jehmal T. Hudson remains on the bench.
“With two seats [open], there’s an obvious compromise,” Habeeb says. “The House fills one; the Senate fills one,” although there’s no guarantee that legislators will do that, he adds.
Other areas ripe for compromise include some Youngkin initiatives, such as measures to increase affordable, workforce-priced housing as well as a new agency focused on creating a “one-stop shop” for workforce development efforts.
A perennial subject
Extra money for site development will depend on the budget surplus, says Del. Luke Torian, D-Prince William. Courtesy photo
The Youngkin administration has proposed creating a state Department of Workforce Development and Advancement to take over 13 programs from eight state agencies, representing most of Virginia’s $485 million workforce efforts. His reorganization plan would move some responsibilities away from the Virginia Employment Commission and the Virginia Community College System.
According to the governor, the state’s workforce development initiatives are spread across 12 agencies, 20 other organizations and 800 programs. Meanwhile, Youngkin says, there are about 300,000 jobs unfilled statewide, and the state’s labor force participation rate was at 63.6% in October 2022, down from 66.4% before the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a December 2022 panel discussion sponsored by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Virginia Labor Secretary Bryan Slater called the current state of workforce development in the commonwealth “fragmented [and] siloed.” Virginia needs a “centralized hub … to drive policy, programs data and grants,” he added, and also a stronger focus on how many jobs are being filled through programs and how long people stay in those jobs.
It’s hardly a new idea. James W. “Jim” Dyke Jr., senior advisor for McGuireWoods Consulting LLC and former state secretary of education under Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, recalls that when he was tasked with consolidating the state’s workforce training functions in the early 1990s, “I had a full head of hair and Barry DuVal was the young mayor of Newport News.”
Del. Chris Head, R-Roanoke, is particularly excited about the proposed department. “We’ve spent an awful lot of money on workforce development,” he says, but Virginians often are not aware of training programs, due to a lack of marketing and poor interagency communication. Del. Terry Kilgore, the House majority leader, says Virginia’s workforce infrastructure is “duct-taped together,” compared with other states’ more cohesive approaches.
Also, notes University of Mary Washington political science professor Stephen Farnsworth, “one of the areas in which Virginia has not done well is unemployment assistance.” Kilgore says that if the VEC doesn’t have to worry about workforce training, it will be able to focus on more efficiently handling unemployment claims.
In April 2022, the VEC settled a federal lawsuit filed by three legal aid groups that represented Virginia residents who had struggled to obtain benefits during the height of the pandemic shutdown. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission reported in November 2021 that the VEC had made more than $1.2 billion in incorrect payments during the pandemic.
Dyke hopes the new department could be created “in one fell swoop,” adding that he’s spoken to legislators on both sides of the aisle who support the new department. But Farnsworth says that turf battles could trip up the plan — especially if the community college system loses some authority and resources from the proposal.
While Head says there’s “still a significant amount of discord between Democrats and Republicans in the House of Delegates,” he’s hopeful they will find common ground on the workforce proposal.
Not safe bets
It’s less clear whether Youngkin will find support for some of his other proposals, such as increasing the state’s current budget allocation for helping localities prep industrial sites for megaprojects from $150 million to $500 million, or adding $1 billion in personal and business tax cuts.
“I think every single legislator will agree we need to focus on developing megasites,” Habeeb says, but the governor’s proposed spending increase for site development may face some pushback.
“I’m not sure it’s going to be possible this year,” says Democratic Del. Luke Torian, a member and former chair of the powerful House Appropriations committee, adding it will depend on the amount of budget surplus.
Also, notes Farnsworth, “One of the tensions in Richmond is the governor spending a lot of time on the road. There is always a fear in the legislature that the governor from the other party will be able to launch a national campaign on the backs of [statewide] successes.”
In short, Democrats have political motivation to prevent too many compromises that would make Youngkin appealing to a national audience. In 2022, the governor campaigned for GOP gubernatorial candidates across the nation — trips he said were in exchange for the Republican Governors Association’s support during his campaign. Many political observers, however, say that Youngkin is testing the waters for a potential 2024 presidential campaign.
“Glenn Youngkin’s aggressive national outreach has made compromise less likely in Richmond,” Farnsworth says. “He hasn’t done all that much to encourage compromise.”
Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County, supports building a small nuclear modular reactor in Southwest Virginia. Photo by Earl Neikirk
Youngkin also has also proposed a $10 million investment to create the Virginia Power Innovation Fund, including $5 million to develop a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) in Southwest Virginia. (See related story.)
Nuclear energy is one way to help the state fulfill the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), which calls for all energy in the state to be generated from carbon-free sources by 2050. The VCEA was passed in 2020 by the Democratic-controlled legislature.
Although Democrats intended for this goal to be met primarily through innovations in solar and wind energy, including battery storage, Habeeb says other kinds of energy production — including nuclear — are currently needed to meet the 2050 deadline.
Kilgore is bullish about building a reactor in coal country, where it could easily find a home at an abandoned mine site. “A lot of European countries are relying on nuclear energy,” Kilgore says. “I’m all for clean energy — solar and wind — but we’re going to have to invest in gas, coal and SMRs.”
However, some environmental groups and Democratic Del. Richard C. “Rip” Sullivan Jr., the House’s chief patron of the VCEA, have voiced doubt about the viability of a small reactor in Southwest Virginia, which would take at least 10 years to be productive, the governor has acknowledged.
In an op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch last year, Sullivan wrote: “It is ironic that [Youngkin] would call renewables risky and expensive while trumpeting small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Solar and wind projects abound, while commercialized SMRs don’t exist anywhere in the world, because we don’t know how to build or operate them in cost-effective, safe and reliable ways.” [Editor’s note: While there are no SMRs in the United States, a Russian floating nuclear power plant uses two SMRs, and a land-based SMR is under construction in China.]
Casinos and cannabis
Meanwhile, state politicos say it’s a safe bet that Democratic Sen. Joe Morrissey will be doing everything in his power to gain approval this session for bringing a casino to Petersburg.
In October 2022, Petersburg City Council voted in favor of Maryland-based The Cordish Cos. developing a casino there if the General Assembly would allow it. In December 2022, Cordish Cos. officials said the project would include $1.4 billion in total commercial development.
Three years ago, the Assembly passed legislation allowing casinos to be built in five economically challenged Virginia cities — Bristol, Chesapeake, Danville, Norfolk and Richmond. Voters in the first four localities have approved casinos, which are under development, but Richmond voters narrowly defeated a referendum in November 2021, blocking a proposed $565 million casino resort. The next day, Morrissey, whose district includes Petersburg, began working on getting Petersburg a shot at a casino instead of Richmond. His 2022 bill failed, but he’s refiled it for the 2023 session.
Morrissey, who was elected to the state Senate in 2019, says in an interview with Virginia Business (see related January 2023 Q&A with Morrissey) that the region’s previous state legislators were “asleep at the wheel” when negotiations were held in 2018 to determine which Virginia cities could hold casino referendums — and that he would have fought “tooth and nail” for Petersburg.
The casino bid may receive some bipartisan support because Republican Del. Kim Taylor, who represents Petersburg and part of Chesterfield County, is carrying the House version of Morrissey’s casino bill.
Richmond casino proponents are still actively pursuing a second referendum, even if Petersburg also wins the right to build a casino. But two casinos in the region would mean fewer jobs and less revenue for each locality than just one casino, according to the findings of a JLARC report released late last year. And Cordish Cos. officials have said they are not interested in pursuing a Petersburg casino if one is approved in Richmond.
Another adult recreational issue that may come up during this session is regulating commercial sales of cannabis. Following the legislature’s 2020 decriminalization of marijuana, plans for creating a legal retail market are still up in the air, and loopholes for products like delta-8 gummies may also be addressed this year.
Head doesn’t expect an overall resolution on retail marijuana sales this session, although there could be some new medical marijuana legislation. Some Republicans, himself included, consider it “crazy” that marijuana possession was legalized in the first place, Head says, and are not likely to approve further legislation. Morrissey, however, is hopeful for some regulatory measures, calling them “a fiduciary duty,” while Kilgore expects the state Cannabis Control Authority to make recommendations for the 2024 session.
The list of bills that probably won’t be passed this year is long. Limits on abortion and LGBTQ rights — including restrictions on K-12 transgender students participating in school sports — are bound to hit Senate Democrats’ brick wall.
A bill as seemingly anodyne as adjusting state dentist licensing lost its prospective chief co-sponsor’s support “because it’s an election year,” says Republican Del. Phil Scott.
And even in the wake of high-profile mass shootings in recent months at the University of Virginia and a Chesapeake Walmart store, gun-control measures like Morrissey’s proposed ban on assault weapons are unlikely to pass through the GOP-controlled House.
Dyke says that higher education leaders in Virginia may seek more leverage in barring firearms from their campuses, but Habeeb says even that powerful constituency is unlikely to budge Republicans.
U.Va. and Virginia Tech — two schools strongly impacted by gun violence this century — are “so intertwined with their communities, and you can’t put a fence around the universities,” Habeeb says, adding that even if guns are banned from campuses, students and employees could store weapons off-grounds.
Nevertheless, there is a chance, he adds, that the legislature will find common ground this year “in investing in more law enforcement or more funding for mental health.” Both ideas have the support of Youngkin, who has proposed $230 million to expand the state’s behavioral health system.
Lynchburg-based BWX Technologies Inc. has begun producing the nuclear fuel that will power the first microreactor built and operated in the United States, the company announced Wednesday.
BWXT will manufacture a nuclear core for Project Pele under a $37 million award from the Idaho National Laboratory, as well as tristructural isotropic particle fuel, known as TRISO, for additional reactors and coated particle fuel for NASA.
The Department of Energy calls TRISO “the most robust nuclear fuel on earth.” Its small, energy-dense coated uranium particles withstand high temperatures and enable smaller, more advanced reactor designs.
The lab is providing technical support and oversight for the project. Fuel for the reactor will be blended down from federal stockpiles of high-enriched uranium (HEU) to high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) and fabricated into TRISO fuel at the BWXT facility in Lynchburg. BWXT facilities are the only private facilities in the country licensed to possess and process HEU.
Tristructural refers to the three layers of carbon and ceramic materials that surround kernels or balls of HALEU fuel. Isotropic means the coatings have uniform characteristics in all directions. Fuel particles the size of a poppy seed are enriched to a level four times higher than fuel used in most of today’s commercial nuclear reactors. The coatings retain fission products, making each particle its own containment system. They also protect the fuel from the factors that most degrade performance in conventional reactors, including neutron irradiation, corrosion, oxidation and high temperatures.
“TRISO particle fuel is ideal for the next generation of reactors poised to help us meet our country’s clean energy goals,” U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Kathryn Huff said in a statement. “It is extremely exciting to see decades of DOE’s investments in TRISO fuel’s robust safety performance paying off to power many of the most innovative advanced reactor designs to be deployed within this decade.”
BWXT subsidiary BWXT Advanced Technologies LLC received a $300 million contract in June from the Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office to build the microreactor. The transportable reactor prototype is set to be delivered in 2024 and then tested at the Idaho National Laboratory for three years. It is designed to be safely transported in standard-sized shipping containers. Microreactors are designed to reduce the need for vulnerable fossil fuel deliveries relied on by the military, and also to provide power for disaster response and recovery, power generation in remote areas and deep decarbonization efforts. The DOD uses approximately 30 terawatt-hours of electricity annually and more than 10 million gallons of fuel per day. Fuel will be delivered to the lab separately.
“With supreme safety and performance characteristics, advanced nuclear fuels are the key enabler for fielding of next-generation reactor technologies,” BWXT President and CEO Rex D. Geveden said in a statement. “We are extremely pleased to initiate full-scale production of TRISO for the Pele program and further develop similar coated nuclear fuel technology for space exploration programs with NASA. This differentiating capability at BWXT results from a longstanding partnership with the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Lab, and it is gratifying to reach this milestone.”
The commercial production of TRISO is the culmination of more than 15 years of work with Idaho National Laboratory and other DOE labs in partnership with BWXT and has the potential for use in space applications and other advanced concepts, Idaho National Laboratory Director John Wagner said in a statement.
“As the United States moves steadily toward a carbon-free energy future, nuclear power is an essential part of the journey,” Wagner said. “Project Pele will demonstrate the viability of this fuel type, opening the door for other advanced reactors.”
BWXT has expanded its specialty coated fuels production manufacturing capacity through previously announced contracts funded by NASA and DOD with program management provided by the defense department. BWXT also makes specialty coated fuels for NASA.
“The high efficiency and high thrust provided by nuclear propulsion makes it an enabling capability for human missions to Mars,” James L. Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate said in a statement. “Advancing nuclear fuels and systems are key to achieving our exploration goals at Mars.”
Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. has promoted Steven D. Ridge to chief financial officer and senior vice president, replacing James R. Chapman, who will leave the company, the Fortune 500 utility announced Friday.
Currently vice president of investor relations, Ridge will start his new role later this month and will be responsible for corporate and financial planning, investor relations, tax, treasury, mergers and acquisitions and asset management. He joined Dominion in 2014 and was previously an executive director in the energy investment banking group at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in New York.
“At Dominion Energy, we have remarkable bench strength. Steven Ridge is a great example of that. After nearly a decade in energy investment banking, Steven joined Dominion Energy and has spent the past eight years in leadership roles in mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy, financial management and investor relations,” Dominion Chair, President and CEO Robert M. Blue said in a statement. “During much of that time he worked closely with Jim Chapman and me, along with the rest of our senior leadership team. For the past year, he has been successfully leading our western gas operations that serve nearly 1.2 million customers. He has a wealth of experience in finance, is well-known to many of our investors, and is a strong, capable leader.”
Ridge earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree in international economics and finance from Brandeis University.
Chapman, the departing CFO, has been in his role since 2018 and before that was senior vice president of mergers and acquisitions and treasurer since 2016. He started at Dominion in 2013.
“During his tenure, Jim has adeptly overseen a rapid transition to an asset mix largely defined by state-regulated utility operations and a capital plan aimed at decarbonization in support of public policy goals and our commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050,” Blue said. “He has served the company well, and we wish him good fortune in the next chapter of his career.”
Also on Friday, Dominion announced its third-quarter earnings. Operating earnings for the three months that ended Sept. 30 were $944 million, compared to $918 million for the same period last year.
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