NORTON, VA – Governor Glenn Youngkin announced on Friday he will propose $10 million in the upcoming state budget to create the Virginia Power Innovation Fund for research and development of innovative energy technologies, including nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture and utilization, and battery storage. The Governor also announced $5 million of this funding will advance the goal laid out in the recently released “all-of-the-above” Virginia Energy Plan, to grow Virginia’s nuclear energy industry by establishing a Virginia Nuclear Innovation Hub (Hub). These funds will also include grants for higher education institutions to study Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (SMR) technology, funding for nuclear workforce development, and additional money for SMR site exploration, including in Southwest Virginia.
The Commonwealth’s funds are part of an intergovernmental effort with Virginia’s federal representatives to utilize state and federal resources to turn Virginia into a leading energy innovator. The Governor made the announcement at a reclaimed mine site in Norton, Virginia in the heart of Southwest Virginia’s coalfield region. The mine selected is an example of a possible location for an SMR or other energy facility. Southwest Virginia includes hundreds of similar locations ready for development as potential energy and economic development sites.
Southwest Virginia is home to abundant energy resources in addition to traditional energy sources like coal and natural gas. Abandoned underground mines contain billions of gallons of water and naturally seep methane which can be captured and used to create hydrogen to heat homes, fuel industrial processes, and generate electricity.
Carbon capture and utilization technologies offer an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions by capturing CO2, storing it in abandoned mines and coal seams, and using it in industrial and chemical processes like concrete and paint manufacturing.
Southwest also has substantial deposits of minerals critical to America’s domestic industry, including manganese and metallurgical coal necessary to successfully onshore industrial supply chains and expand America’s battery manufacturing to support clean energy like wind and solar. This wealth of energy resources is what inspired the establishment of the Energy DELTA Lab in Pound, Virginia, which is a first-of-its-kind energy technology testbed that will provide laboratories and scientific assistance to promote energy innovation.
The mission of the Virginia nuclear innovation hub will be to support innovation in advanced nuclear technologies by identifying technological needs, supporting research by Virginia’s colleges and businesses, identifying nuclear workforce gaps, bolstering workforce training and education, and identifying supply chain gaps and filling those gaps with Virginia-made products.
The Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium Authority (VNECA) will facilitate the Hub and its activities to maximize their effectiveness. Established by legislation in 2013, VNECA was established to seize on the Commonwealth’s nuclear advantage and make Virginia a leader in the nuclear energy industry. Under VNECA, the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium (VNEC) was created to represent and bring together stakeholders across the nuclear energy industry including state government, colleges and universities, nuclear energy companies, suppliers, and other organizations that support the advancement of nuclear energy industry. VNEC’s website can be found here.
