Wise County’s prospects for developing small nuclear power projects will be the subject of two information meetings being held this week.
A Tuesday meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in Mountain Empire Community College’s Goodloe Center, in Big Stone Gap, while a Wednesday session will be at 10 a.m. in Cantrell Hall at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise.
The sessions are open to county residents and others who are interested. They are part of a study of whether a microreactor would be feasible for the county.
The events are being organized with support from the Virginia Department of Energy and the GO Virginia economic development program.
The feasibility study will “guide the development of a framework for potential future decisions related to advanced nuclear energy development in Southwest Virginia,” the county said in its announcement of the meetings. “This initiative does not represent approval of a specific project, site, or reactor design. Instead, it is focused on identifying and prioritizing the criteria that would be used to evaluate potential future projects for consideration.
The information sessions will “provide additional information related to the project, project deliverables, and to garner input from attendees,” the announcement states.
The presenters will be Bob Bailey, project manager, Jeff Whitt, executive director of the Virginia Innovative Nuclear (VIN) Hub, and Wise County Director of Economic Development Brian Falin, according to Karen Mullins, county attorney and interim county administrator.
In January 2025, the GO Virginia Region 1 Council approved a $100,000 grant to fund the feasibility study.
The LENOWISCO Planning District Commission, which provides planning support and services to Wise, Lee and Scott counties and the city of Norton, is assisting Wise County with the study.
Thomas Lawson, a regional planner with LENOWISCO, said Friday that the study is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Microreactors are compact nuclear reactors small enough to be transported by truck. Most would produce up to 20 megawatts of thermal energy that could be used directly as heat or converted to electric power, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. A small modular nuclear reactor, or SMR, which has also been discussed as a potential project in the coalfields area, ranges from 50 to 300 megawatts.
LENOWISCO Executive Director Duane Miller has said that microreactors could provide a stable and consistent power supply to rural areas, which would reduce dependence on “intermittent” sources like solar or wind while acting as a recruitment tool for economic sectors that use a lot of energy.
The study aims to identify and analyze a prospective site for a microreactor and the infrastructure that would be required, according to the grant application. It would also determine the baseload power capabilities and help identify customers such as data centers.
In December 2025, then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office announced that UVa-Wise would purchase a nuclear control room simulator to support workforce development and professional training. The college received a $275,000 grant from the Virginia Clean Energy Innovation Bank for the project.
Wise County was one of the localities in the running for a small modular nuclear reactor announced by Youngkin in October 2022 as part of his energy plan. The former governor wanted to deploy the nation’s first SMR in the coalfields region, which has been affected by the downturn of the coal industry.
SMRs are smaller, simpler versions of traditional nuclear reactors that produce about a third of the power and can be built in a factory and shipped to a site.
In 2023, LENOWISCO released a study naming seven potential sites that could accommodate SMRs, including the former Bullitt mine complex in the town of Appalachia; the Limestone mine area near Duffield in Scott County; an abandoned mine land site at the border of Lee and Wise counties; the Lonesome Pine Regional Business and Technology Park near Wise; the Project Intersection property in Norton; the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center area near St. Paul; and the Red Onion industrial property in Dickenson County.
Community advocacy groups, including The Clinch Coalition and Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, raised concerns about local efforts to explore SMR projects, saying there was no opportunity for public feedback on the sites named in the LENOWISCO study.
Those efforts led to the creation of Southwest Virginia Nuclear Watch, which continues to monitor discussion of nuclear energy projects in the region.
