Editorial: Small nuclear plants may be key to state's energy mix (heraldnet) [View all]

The state allocated $25 million to fund review of a modular nuclear reactor as a climate solution.

Tuesday, April 2, 2024 1:30am Opinion In Our View

By The Herald Editorial Board


Among the projects funded in the supplemental budgets signed Friday by Gov. Jay Inslee was a $25 million feasibility and review study that will consider the pros and cons of building a small modular nuclear reactor near the state’s only commercial nuclear energy facility, located north of Richland.

The $25 million is part of the supplemental capital budget, an allocation from the revenue generated from the Climate Commitment Act’s cap-and-invest program, which since last year has been holding quarterly auctions of carbon credits, paid by the state’s heaviest carbon polluters. That money in last year’s and this year’s budgets is being used for a range of solutions for clean energy production, pollution and greenhouse gas reduction and correction of more than a century of harmful impacts from fossil fuels, in particular for disadvantaged communities, all meant to address the emissions’ impacts on a warming planet and people’s health.

Admittedly, nuclear energy is among the more controversial technologies with potential for joining the mix of cleaner sources of energy — meaning less responsible for greenhouse gas emissions — on which the state relies, including hydropower, solar, wind and energy storage projects.

The $25 million project faced a last-minute objection from an environmental group and a state tribal confederation that urged Inslee to veto the project. Columbia Riverkeeper, a longtime watchdog and critic of the lagging cleanup efforts at the federal Hanford Nuclear Site, also north of Richland; and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation sought the governor’s veto.
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more: https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-small-nuclear-plants-may-be-key-to-states-energy-mix/