Goochland County, like other localities, wants to grow its tax base as a way to lighten the tax load on homeowners.
In particular, Goochland wants to make the county just west of Richmond attractive to technology companies, especially data centers.
To do that, the county has proposed some zoning changes in the form of a Technology Overlay District in the more suburbanized eastern end of the county.
So far, none of this sounds particularly unusual. So why did more than 300 people crowd into the Goochland High School auditorium last week for a planning commission meeting? Some might have been drawn simply by the mention of data centers, which have become as controversial as they are lucrative for the localities that host them. Others were drawn by Section 15-450, subsection A, which listed the types of facilities that would be allowed “by right” in the district. Item 8 includes a “small modular nuclear reactor facility.”
There’s nothing like the prospect of a nuclear reactor in your neighborhood — especially when that neighborhood is right up against the county line with suburban Henrico County — to bring out the crowd.
When the hearing drew near 11 p.m. and not all of the roughly 80 people who had signed up to speak had been heard, the commissioners adjourned and set a second meeting for Sept. 25.
Goochland County appears to be unique: April Wade, executive director of the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium, says she knows of no other locality in Virginia with a zoning ordinance specifically aimed at allowing SMRs, as this new species of nuclear reactors is known, by right. (Surry County, already home to a Dominion Energy nuclear plant, allows them through a special permit that would require a separate vote; Goochland would allow them in this technology ditrict without a separate vote — although, as we’ll get to later, locating a nuclear facility isn’t that simple).
Depending on what happens in Goochland — and county supervisors are looking to vote on this proposed district Nov. 6 — this could be a one-off proposal never heard from again. Or it could be the start of a trend, which makes what’s happening in Goochland relevant throughout the state, particularly in the rural counties that are looking to attract the data centers that many residents in Northern Virginia are getting tired of.
Data centers generate a lot of heat (that’s why they require so much water to cool them), and nuclear reactors produce even more (perhaps close to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in the fuel rods). There’s certainly a lot of political heat surrounding both data centers and nuclear energy, so the overlap of the two seems particularly likely to trigger a civic meltdown, so I’ll try to provide some light instead.
First, the basic facts — then we’ll get on to the significance of all this.
Small modular nuclear reactors are just that — small
If you’re opposed to splitting atoms (or at least splitting atoms near you), the size may not matter. Still, if we’re going to talk about these, let’s understand what we’re talking about. Conventional nuclear reactions are big, and expensive. The theory behind small modular reactors is that, by being smaller, they can be built in a factory and shipped to their eventual site (that’s the modular part) — and if they’re smaller and can be mass-produced (more or less), they can be produced more inexpensively.
So far, all that is theoretical. The technology isn’t theoretical — we’ve had small nuclear reactors in submarines for decades. What’s theoretical is whether the economics work. Right now, there’s a lot of interest in SMRs, but the only ones in operation are in China and Russia. Think whatever you will about SMRs, but don’t picture a conventional nuclear reactor. Think something one-third the size.
There is no proposal to actually build a nuclear reactor in Goochland County
This zoning change, if approved, would allow one, but there is not a specific proposal on the table for an SMR. Goochland could approve this ordinance and never see a reactor built. For those who don’t want a nuclear reactor in Goochland, you’re right to want to foreclose the possibility now — but no one should be under any illusions that there’s a construction crew waiting to start work the moment the ordinance passes.
The siting of nuclear facilities is ultimately a federal decision, not a local one
A friendly local zoning ordinance may signal that Goochland is “open for business,” so to speak, to nuclear developers, but Goochland authorities don’t have the final say on anything nuclear-related. That’s the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has to approve siting nuclear facilities. Again, if you don’t like nuclear energy in general, or the prospect of nuclear energy in this specific location, you’re right to oppose this ordinance. However, Goochland supervisors aren’t going to be the ones voting on whether to build an SMR in the county — if there’s ever a proposal, that will be the NRC.
Now, here’s why Goochland’s potential embrace of SMRs matters:
There’s pressure on the data center industry to supply its own power
Data centers are driving the demand for more electricity, and not everyone is happy about that. There are complicated issues surrounding electric rates and how much of your residential rate increase is really due to the power demands of data centers. Another issue that often gets overlooked: transmission lines. We’ve got to move that power around, and we can’t do that unless we have transmission lines, but they are often as controversial as the power supply itself. There’s currently a big fight in Loudoun County over a proposed Dominion Energy transmission line that would supply power to Data Center Alley. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.)
One solution — simple in theory, harder in practice — is to encourage (or require) data centers to supply their own power. That’s the backdrop to the Goochland proposal. If the county wants data centers, it may need to make provisions for their power supply as well. That might give it a competitive advantage over localities that don’t make such a provision. (Whether Goochland should be recruiting data centers is a matter for Goochland voters; I’m just describing the environment it’s operating in if it chooses to do so.) Along those same lines, Wise County voters this fall will be asked to approve the creation of an electric authority, aimed at using natural gas to supply energy-intensive industries. Data centers aren’t specifically mentioned in the Wise County proposal, but they would certainly qualify as one of those energy-intensive industries.
The data center industry likes nuclear power
Data centers require power around the clock — and a lot of it. The rap against solar and wind is that they’re intermittent power sources. Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. The solution to that is battery storage — simply store the excess power they do generate when they are generating and use it later. That’s why Item 6 on the list of Goochland’s permitted uses in the Technology Overlay District allows “an energy storage facility.”
While the capacity of batteries is growing, they are still generally measured in terms of hours, so there remains a trust issue. Many companies don’t want the risk of batteries running out during a storm when solar isn’t producing energy; they want the assurance of “dispatchable” energy that they get whenever they want it. That leads to two other solutions: natural gas and nuclear. The proposed Goochland ordinance would allow both, although it’s the nuclear part that’s sparked the most controversy.
So far, the nuclear solutions have involved existing nuclear facilities. Last year, Constellation Energy announced a deal to reopen a shuttered reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to supply energy to Microsoft data centers. (No, not the reactor that suffered a partial meltdown in 1979; a different one at the same site.) Amazon has also signed a deal for power from a different nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, and it has partnered with Dominion Energy to explore the possibility of building a small modular reactor at Dominion’s North Anna plant in Louisa County.
The question going forward is whether we’ll see a push for SMRs on-site with data centers. The Goochland proposal is designed for that eventuality.
We’ve already seen some movement in that direction: A Middleburg-based company proposed building 19 data centers that would be powered by SMRs on a 600-acre site in Surry County, next to Dominion’s nuclear station. That developer is also now reorganizing under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The Goochland proposal raises the prospect that we’ll see more such on-site proposals.
Localities that want to attract data centers may want to replicate Goochland. Or not.
It’s hard to tell how much of a competitive advantage a county would get by passing an ordinance to allow an SMR (or a natural gas plant), but it would surely be some advantage. The question is whether they want to invite controversy now for a potential data center that may never come. The idea may be more saleable if there’s a proposal on the table: Vote for this SMR zoning, and we’ll definitely get a facility that will create X number of jobs and generate Y amount of tax revenue. Or maybe small reactors outside existing nuclear facilities won’t be saleable at all. We just don’t know.
We don’t know what the public acceptance for SMRs will be
We don’t have any commercial SMRs in the United States right now. None. We don’t even have any under construction. The proposals that are the furthest along — in Michigan and Tennessee — are at existing nuclear plants. The only one under construction in North America is in the Canadian province of Ontario, and it’s also at an existing nuclear power plant.
The point is, we don’t know how the public is going to react to the prospect of SMRs elsewhere. Appalachian Power has floated the idea of an SMR at its Joshua Falls substation in Campbell County, and the initial reaction there has been pretty muted. Maybe that’s because the Lynchburg metro is home to two nuclear companies, BWX Technologies and Framatome. On the other hand, when Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed an SMR somewhere in Southwest Virginia, it sparked an opposition group that’s still active even though Youngkin says the Southwest SMR isn’t happening (not that it was his decision anyway).
In proposing an ordinance that would allow SMRs in this technology district, Goochland may be helping test what that public acceptance might be. One potential downside: Goochland’s Technology Overlay District is essentially in the outskirts of Richmond. That might be a great place for technology companies, but some people are already freaking out over the idea of a nuclear reactor so close to a population center. That brings us to …
We’re closer to nuclear sites than we may realize
About one-third of Americans already live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant, according to a study by Columbia University’s Climate School. Florida Light and Power’s Turkey Point plant is about 25 miles south of Miami. The Beaver Valley Power Station is about 27 miles from Pittsburgh. Dominion’s Surry plant is across the James River from Williamsburg. There may be a bunch of small nuclear plants floating in Hampton Roads right now — naval vessels. The University of Virginia and Virginia Tech once had small reactors that have since been decommissioned; Virginia’s was on Observatory Hill, but Tech’s was in Robeson Hall, just off the Drillfield. (For more on that, see this story by Ralph Berrier.)
Granted, that feels different from a small reactor that’s potentially in your local business park, but we’re really talking about matters of degree. Again, the question is what the public feels it will or will not accept. What happens in Goochland may help tell us.
The politics are complicated
Virtually every voter in Goochland County has cast ballots for pro-nuclear candidates — they may just not have realized that could mean nuclear near them. At the national level, Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have all been pro-nuclear. All three also endorsed the use of artificial intelligence, which is particularly energy-intensive. That’s not to say that an SMR near the Henrico line or anywhere else, for that matter, is a good idea, but the proposed Technology Overlay District is simply the outgrowth of policies that Goochland voters have backed.
Almost all of us have.
Where the next governor stands on energy
You can see how the candidates for governor (as well as the candidates for lieutenant governor and House of Delegates) answered our questions on energy on our Voter Guide. Early voting is now underway.
For more political news and insights, sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. This week I’ll analyze the early voting trends and whatever else happens this week.