Following a press conference announcing a $20 million, five-year grant for energy research in Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear once again pressed for legislators to lift the state’s moratorium on nuclear energy in the state.
“The legislature is cautious about lifting that ban,” the governor said in an interview. “I think there is a feeling on behalf of some that somehow lifting the ban on nuclear is being disloyal to coal or some other form of energy. I think we’re getting past that point now. I think most Kentuckians realize we need an all-of-the-above strategy in the energy field, and nuclear is just a part of that.”
Under a 1984 act of the legislature, state lawmakers placed a moratorium on the construction of any nuclear power plants in the state until a federal high-level waste facility such as Yucca Mountain was available to store spent nuclear waste. The Yucca Mountain project was dropped early in President Barack Obama’s administration after substantial pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who doesn’t want the facility in his home state, according to a Sept. 16 Associated Press article on the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s site. Reid has concerns if the Republicans gain control of the senate after midterm elections that the project will be revived.
“Nuclear energy is here to stay in the world, and how we employ it and how we utilize it is going to continue to develop,” said Beshear. “Right now, it takes 20 or 25 years from start to finish to even build a nuclear power plant, so nothing is going to happen in the near future on that kind of thing. But I do think that we need to lift that ban in Kentucky so that at least we can have some conversations with companies about the possibilities in the future for nuclear, as well as every other form of energy.”