By Donald R. Hoffman
Governing
Virginia is leading the way in the United States toward energy independence through a unique, state-sponsored consortium of nuclear-energy experts. It’s demonstrating how to use its existing tools and assets to develop resources to expand clean, reliable and affordable energy generation while also driving economic growth and improved infrastructure, and it’s a model other states could follow.
Virginia imports more than 50 percent of its power, placing it behind only California in the U.S. in reliance on out-of-state electricity. And by 2021 the state will need over 4,000 megawatts of additional power just to meet demands. Solar and wind simply cannot provide baseload power -- the electricity needed to keep hospitals and other vital operations up and running -- during periods when the wind and the sun don’t cooperate.
At the same time, while there is a continuing debate about nuclear power chiefly focusing on safety and waste disposal, there is no debate that nuclear power is the least-carbon-emitting source of electricity among those that realistically could supply Virginia’s baseload needs. And nuclear is the least expensive large-scale source of energy in the state: an estimated .6 cents per generated kilowatt-hour, compared to 3.5 cents for coal and 4.5 cents for natural gas.
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