WV drops bid for $50B federal Nuclear Innovation Campus | State Journal News | wvnews.com

https://www.wvnews.com/statejournal/news/west-virginia-drops-bid-for-50b-federal-nuclear-innovation-campus/article_c532084b-36c0-4134-bce4-79655fe7a5cb.html

West Virginia drops bid for $50B federal Nuclear Innovation Campus

• by Charles Young EDITOR
• 2 hrs ago
  
• 3 min to read
  
  

_{West Virginia has joined a U.S. Department of Energy initiative exploring nuclear energy development, building on recent state efforts to remove legal and regulatory barriers to nuclear power.}

_{Morrisey
Screenshot}

Quick take:

• West Virginia will not host a federal nuclear campus: The state Office of Energy said Sept. 30 it cannot execute the U.S. Department of Energy’s hosting agreement or fully commit to its requirements.
• The state had previously pursued the opportunity: West Virginia joined the DOE’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus initiative and submitted a broad proposal in April that included nuclear generation and manufacturing as well as fuel recycling and spent nuclear fuel storage.
• Morrisey opposed nuclear waste disposal: Gov. Patrick Morrisey has said West Virginia should pursue nuclear generation and manufacturing but “will not be a dumping ground for nuclear waste.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia will not host a federal Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus after state officials said they are unable to execute the required hosting agreement and fully commit to its requirements.

In a Sept. 30 letter to Marla Morales, acting deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, West Virginia Office of Energy Director Nicholas S. Preservati said the state cannot sign the agreement but remains committed to supporting President Donald Trump’s and Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s vision for a national nuclear renaissance.

Preservati also said West Virginia remains ready to support the DOE, the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus initiative and future campus recipients.

The decision marks a change from earlier this year, when West Virginia joined Idaho, Tennessee, Utah, Oklahoma and Louisiana in pursuing participation in the federal initiative.

The DOE program is intended to support development across the nuclear fuel cycle. Proposed campuses could include fuel fabrication, enrichment, used nuclear fuel recycling, advanced reactors, power generation, research and advanced manufacturing.

DOE estimates have indicated an individual campus could attract up to $50 billion in capital investment and create nearly 25,000 jobs. Those figures represented the potential scale of an individual campus and were not projections for West Virginia.

As part of its earlier participation, the West Virginia Office of Energy submitted a 48-page response in April to a DOE request for information about establishing Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses.

The state’s response described a broad vision for a campus and said West Virginia had “maximum interest” in hosting one.

The proposal called for West Virginia to serve as “the nation’s central hub for nuclear fuel recycling, interim storage, and long-term materials stewardship.”

It included potential development of a consolidated interim storage facility for partially spent and spent nuclear fuel from active and decommissioned nuclear power plants. The proposal also discussed fuel recycling, materials recovery and potential long-term disposal options.

The April response identified four potential sites: the 1,000-acre Hobet site in Boone County; the 380-acre Century site and 508-acre Casto site in Jackson County; and the 407-acre Old Standard site in Jefferson County.

Additional potential locations were identified in Grant County, Mason County, the Kanawha Valley and the Ohio River Corridor.

The sites had not been fully vetted or qualified based on geological characteristics, according to the state’s response.

The broad scope of the proposal also differed from Morrisey’s public position on West Virginia’s nuclear strategy.

Morrisey has emphasized nuclear power generation and manufacturing as ways to attract investment and high-paying jobs while building on the state’s existing energy industries.

“We are pursuing nuclear generation and manufacturing to bring high-paying jobs to West Virginia,” Morrisey said.

At the same time, Morrisey has explicitly rejected using West Virginia as a site for nuclear waste disposal.

“But West Virginia will not be a dumping ground for nuclear waste. Period,” Morrisey said.

Morrisey had directed the Office of Energy to ensure sites identified in final applications were considered only for nuclear generation or manufacturing.

The DOE initiative does not require participating states to host every type of nuclear activity contemplated by the broader federal program. States pursuing campuses were expected to enter hosting agreements with the department as the process progressed.

West Virginia’s decision not to execute the agreement ends its pursuit of hosting a campus through the current process, while state officials said they will continue to support the broader federal initiative and future campus recipients.

West Virginia’s efforts to expand its nuclear industry followed changes in state law.

In 2022, the Legislature repealed restrictions dating to 1996 that had limited construction of nuclear power plants in West Virginia.

In 2024, lawmakers established a state radiation control framework and began the process of seeking an agreement with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Those changes did not authorize construction of a nuclear plant at any specific location.

West Virginia officials have previously pointed to the state’s existing energy infrastructure, industrial base and workforce as potential advantages for nuclear-related development.

The state’s decision to decline the federal hosting agreement does not preclude other nuclear development in West Virginia, including projects focused on nuclear generation or manufacturing.

Editor Charles Young can be reached at 304-626-1447 or cyoung@wvnews.com

Summary: Article on Palisades spent fuel assembly incident

Matheny, Keith, Nuclear regulators probe fuel assembly installation mishap at Palisades, Detroit Free Press, Sep 26, 2026. https://www.freep.com/story/news/environment/2026/09/26/palisades-nuclear-holtec-nrc/91934961007/.

 

[“Built in the late 1960s, the Palisades nuclear power plant began commercial power generation at the end of 1971 and it operated for roughly 50 years until it permanently shut down in May 2022.” Holtec International is now attempting to make Palisades the first commercial reactor in the US to repower after permanent cessation.

 

On August 31, 2026, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued two notices of violation to Holtec for its Palisades restart work based on the findings of NRC inspectors that Holtec "‘failed to implement and maintain its radiation protection program for work activities with high alpha contamination levels,’ and ‘failed to monitor internal dose for individuals impacted by elevated airborne radioactivity in accordance with established procedures.’ Inspectors further found that ‘the issues with high alpha contamination levels and airborne radioactivity were not promptly raised to sufficient levels to initiate timely corrective actions to prevent repeated occurrences.’"

 

The NRC characterized the violations as Green-level findings because no regulatory dose limit was exceeded with workers despite the elevated levels of airborne radioactivity.

 

On August 31, 2026, Holtec issued a news release announcing that it had begun fuel-loading at Palisades. The press release said that refueling consisted of 204 fuel assemblies and included both new fuel and previously used fuel assemblies from the Palisades plant's final operating cycles prior to its shutdown in May 2022.

Apparently around the time it began the refueling process, a used fuel assembly tilted from its upright position after it had been placed, and the fuel-handling machine grapple was disengaged.

 

“A nuclear power plant's fuel assembly is a bundled structural matrix of ceramic uranium dioxide fuel pellets stacked inside long metal tubes, supported by a rigid framework. An assembly typically has 179 to 264 fuel rods, is 12 to 14 feet long and weighs between 700 and 1,750 pounds.”

 

“Neither the Palisades plant's owner, Camden, New Jersey-based Holtec, nor NRC officials released information to the public about the incident for weeks.”

 

Holtec finally mentioned the fuel rod assembly incident in one of several notices in a September 21, 2026 overview press release titled "Progress Report on Palisades’ March to Startup." Holtec said it has paused fuel loading activities while it seeks to determine the cause of the incident. The statement said:  “‘Consistent with the plant’s nuclear quality assurance program, a root cause evaluation has been initiated to determine the cause of the event and identify any resulting corrective actions. In parallel, Holtec’s corporate engineering division has devised and is developing equipment for the fuel retrieval and on-site storage equipment to return the fuel to the spent fuel pool. Palisades is also preparing a License Amendment Request (LAR) for submission to the NRC related to the proposed methodology to retrieve the assembly.’"

 

In a Sept. 24 statement to the Free Press, NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng said that the incident “‘did not meet reporting requirements to the NRC.’"

 

On September 26, 2026, in a news story headlined “Nuclear regulators probe fuel assembly installation mishap at Palisades”, the Detroit Free Press covered the incident and noted that Palisades’ refueling had been halted as Holtec seeks a license amendment from the NRC to retrieve the assembly from within the nuclear reactor vessel.

 

Edwin Lyman, a physicist and director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a leading nuclear energy watchdog, found the incident and lack of transparency disturbing:  "‘I suspect that the rush to do things quickly is leading to mistakes − and you don't like to have too many mistakes when you're talking about a nuclear power plant’" he commented.

 

Lyman noted that the use of old spent fuel is an issue, “‘because once it's been irradiated there are fission products within the fuel, and if one of those fuel rods were to rupture, some of those gases could escape’". He added, “‘It's not as radioactive as spent fuel that's no longer usable and is waste. But it has more radioactivity than in an unradiated assembly. It will increase the challenge to recovery compared to if it was all unradiated fuel ... it will require very special precautions.’”

 

Lyman additionally called the August 31, 2026 NRC violation notices to Holtec "’very disturbing”" and that he does not put much stock in the NRC's assessment of the incident's low safety significance.

 

Referring to the agenda of the Trump administration to push ahead with nuclear development, Lyman reflected, “‘The NRC is now a tool of the White House political program, and that program is expanding nuclear power as fast as possible and getting rid of regulations that they saw as slowing it down.’”

 

President Trump’s Executive Order 14300 of May 23, 2025 ordering the reform of the NRC and directs "‘a deadline of no more than 18 months for final decision on an application to construct and operate a new reactor of any type, commencing with the first required step in the regulatory process, and (2) a deadline of no more than 1 year for final decision on an application to continue operating an existing reactor of any type, commencing with the first required step in the regulatory process.’"

 

One new rule proposed by the NRC, Lyman said, would reduce the scope of non-emergency events that have to be reported to either the NRC or the public in a timely fashion.

 

The recent incidents at Palisades, "‘illustrate that trying to speed things up, trying to reduce oversight to meet arbitrary timelines, is counterproductive in the end, because ultimately it only causes delays down the road or potentially even worse,’” Lyman said. “‘Nuclear power operation isn't something you can speed up and lower your guard on without expecting serious consequences.’"]

 

 

Michel Lee, Esq.

Chairman

Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy (CIECP)

Senior Analyst

Promoting Health and Sustainable Energy (PHASE)

NY lawmakers letter to PSC Re Gov. Hochul Administration push for nuclear expansion (Sep 24 2026)

LETTER

September 24, 2026

Kathy Hochul 

Governor of New York State 

Capitol Building 

Albany, NY 12224

Rory M. Christian, Chair and CEO 

Michelle L. Phillips, Secretary to the Commission 

New York State Public Service Commission Empire State Plaza 

Agency Building 3 

Albany, New York 12223-1350

Doreen M. Harris 

President and CEO 

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority 

17 Columbia Circle 

Albany, NY 12203-6399

RE: Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Nuclear Reliability Backbone, Case Number 26-E-0335

Dear Governor Hochul, Chair Christian, President Harris, and Secretary Phillips: 

We write to oppose the use of any taxpayer or ratepayer subsidies to support the construction of new nuclear power plants in New York, as proposed in the Advanced Nuclear Policy Options paper published on June 12th, 2026, by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the Department of Public Service1

Nuclear power is the most expensive form of new energy. The Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island cost roughly 85 times its original estimate and left Long Islanders with some of the highest utility bills in the country when most of the $6 billion cost of the facility was passed along to local ratepayers after it was decommissioned due to public backlash over safety concerns2. The Vogtle Plant Units 3 and 4 in Georgia are the most recent nuclear generators built in the United States, the first in 30 years. That 2GW facility took 15 years to build, 7 years longer than planned3, at a cost of $36.8 billion, more than double the original cost estimate of $14 billion4. The exorbitant cost of this new nuclear generation led to a nearly 25% rate increase for Georgia Power customers5. By comparison, over just the past four years the state of Texas has built 30GW of solar and 6GW of storage for roughly the same cost6.

If construction of new nuclear generation in New York follows anything like a similar path to the most recent precedent in the United States, it will not only lead to unacceptable cost burdens for ratepayers and taxpayers, but will also arrive over a decade later than needed to address current near-term generation capacity needs. As a recent analysis of the New York State Energy Plan by Dr. Joseph Romm of the University of Pennsylvania7 pointed out, at a time when data centers are the largest driver of new electricity demand, “ironically, new reactors are the only option that worsens the affordability problem but can’t be built fast enough to address the AI data center demand crisis.”8 The same analysis also finds that small modular reactors lead to even higher costs per unit of energy than large facilities like Vogtle, and that the cost to develop new reactors does not benefit from learning reductions, but has become more expensive, not less, as more generating capacity has been developed.

In addition to being very expensive and taking a very long time to build, nuclear power is toxic and dangerous, generating massive quantities of hazardous waste and radioactive pollution while threatening catastrophic accidents. 84 years after the world’s first nuclear reactor was built in the U.S., there is still no solution for safe long-term disposal of the intensely radioactive and long-lived nuclear waste that reactors produce. All that waste will remain a danger to New Yorkers, our environment, and our drinking water for many generations into the future.

The options for state financial support proposed in the Policy Options paper include adding enormous surcharges to utility bills, providing taxpayer-funded construction grants, investing public money directly into nuclear reactors, and using public money to provide cost-overrun guarantees. The Public Service Commission estimates that these subsidies could total $23.9 billion, which is very likely an underestimate based on the industry’s track record. These costs would be on top of the recently approved $33 billion ZEC subsidy program to keep New York’s four existing nuclear reactors operating through 2049. Any of these options would burden New Yorkers with higher electric bills while taking on the risk of paying for cost overruns that history suggests are highly probable.

New York taxpayers and ratepayers are not a bottomless ATM machine for the nuclear industry. The extraordinary subsidies the PSC has authorized for nuclear power vastly overshadow spending on far more affordable and rapidly deployable clean options.

Rather than devoting financial resources to environmentally destructive, expensive, and slow-to-build nuclear schemes, we should be investing in proven, affordable solutions like wind, solar, storage, thermal energy, energy efficiency, demand response, and any number of other technologies and policies that can meet our needs more quickly and at lower cost to ratepayers and taxpayers.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely

Liz Krueger

28^th Senate District

Jo Anne Simon

52^nd Assembly District

Jabari Brisport

25^th Senate District

Cordell Cleare

30^th Senate District

Leroy Comrie

14^th Senate District

Kristen Gonzalez

59^th Senate District

Robert Jackson

31^st Senate District

Kevin Parker

21^st Senate District 

Roxanne J. Persaud

19^th Senate District

Gustavo Rivera

33^rd Senate District

Julia Salazar

18^th Senate District

Jose M. Serrano

29^th Senate District

Khaleel M. Anderson

31^st Assembly District

Chris Burdick

93^rd Assembly District

Catalina Cruz

39^th Assembly District

Martiza Davila

53^rd Assembly District

Manny De Los Santos

72^nd Assembly District

Phara Souffrant Forrest

57^th Assembly District

Emily Gallagher

50^th Assembly District

Deborah J. Glick

66^th Assembly District

Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas

34^th Assembly District

Andrew Hevesi 

28^th Assembly District

Anna R. Kelles, PhD

125^th Assembly District

Marcela Mitaynes

51^st Assembly District

Steven Raga

30^th Assembly District

Linda B. Rosenthal

67^th Assembly District

Grace Lee  

65^th Assembly District 

Dana Levenberg

95^th Assembly District

Diana Moreno

36^th Assembly District

Mary Jane Shimsky

92^nd Assembly District

Sarahana Shrestha

103^rd Assembly District

Phil Steck

110^th  Assembly District

Yudelka Tapia

86^th Assembly District

Claire Valdez

37^th Assembly District

Phil Ramos

6^th Assembly District

FN 1 https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocRefId=%7b0022BC9E-0000-CC34-A022-DD74AF1E199A%7d&DocTitle=2026%20NY%20Advanced%20Nuclear%20Policy%20Options%20Paper

FN 2 https://web.archive.org/web/20071201005429/http:/www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs9shore,0,563942.story

FN 3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant

FN 4

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61963. 

FN 5

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/after-2-years-ratepayer-pain-political-fallout-georgia-nuclear-vogtle/817792/. 

FN6

Ibid

FN7

https://www.nyiso.com/documents/20142/2223020/2025-Power-Trends.pdf/51517a1b-36fa-4f3d-d44d-eabe23598514. 

FN8

https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/web.sas.upenn.edu/dist/0/896/files/2026/01/NY-Nuclear-Report-1-8-26-FINAL.pdf

GABI Brief - Project Power: A New U.S.–Korea Nuclear Partnership

The Korean APR 1400 appears to be a worthy partner to the U.S. nuclear industry - repeatedly overly optimistic schedule estimates combined with years of overruns.

The dates listed for each unit are the years in which first concrete placement was started. Six of the reactors are in Korea. The other four were built by the Koreans in the UAE.

Two main points stand out: (1) the actual schedules are much longer than the projected and (2) there doesn't appear to be much of a positive learning curve.

David

Project Power: A New U.S.–Korea Nuclear Partnership October 1, 2026 By Global America Business Institute Project Power marks a potentially significant expansion of U.S.–Korea nuclear cooperation, combining U.S. reactor technology and market opportunities with Korea’s investment, manufacturing, engineering, and construction capabilities. The framework envisions up to eight large reactors, including both Westinghouse AP1000 and Korean APR1400 units, while opening the door to deeper industrial and supply-chain integration. Its success, however, will depend on resolving financing, regulatory, site, and commercial issues before the projects can move into construction. Global America Business Institute | www.thegabi.com

New England governors host nuclear summit to beat a dead horse

Today's revealing CT Mirror OpEd  on Massachusetts Governor Healey's invitation to a delusional "summit" of New England governors to resurrect "Small Mirage Nuclear Reactors."  It's being framed under the guise of powering AI data centers. The Clamshell Alliance and Citizen Awareness Network hosted a "reception protest" outside of the University of Massachusetts/Lowell venue hosted by the UMass Lowell nuclear engineering school. 

https://ctmirror.org/2026/09/30/a-reckless-drive-for-more-nuclear-power/

--
Paul Gunter, Director
Reactor Oversight Project
Beyond Nuclear

A utility scale geothermal plant goes live

In global first, a next-gen geothermal plant goes live at utility scale | Canary Media https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/global-first-next-gen-geothermal-fervo

With the first unit online, Fervo said it is working to commission two more 33-MWpower blocks by Jan. 1, 2027. The project’s remaining 400 MW — which is supported by a new agreement with Google — is under construction and slated to come online in  

San Onofre dumps tritium laced water into the Pacific

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/a-shuttered-california-nuclear-plant-sends-tritium-laced-water-toward-the-pacific/ar-AA2d3D7J

A shuttered California nuclear plant sends tritium-laced water toward the Pacific

Story by Everett Sloane

• 1d •

4 min read

About 5,000 gallons of tritium-laced wastewater flowed into a storm drain pathway toward the Pacific Ocean at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on Sept. 23, 2026, after a routine wastewater transfer ran well past its planned stop time. Southern California Edison detected tritium in the water at roughly 3,000 picocuries per liter, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission logged the release the next day as a non-emergency event.

San Onofre stopped generating electricity more than a decade ago. What happened this week is a decommissioning-site accident, not a reactor incident, and it went to federal regulators through the same event-reporting system that tracks routine problems at retired plants across the country. Tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, is a routine byproduct of nuclear plant operations and shows up in low concentrations in groundwater and cooling-system water long after a reactor stops running.

A wastewater transfer that ran past its stop time

Southern California Edison told the NRC that a planned transfer of mostly groundwater and concrete-cutting water continued between roughly 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Pacific time on Sept. 23 after it should have stopped, sending the excess into the plant’s Unit 2 storm drain and intake conduit rather than completing the discharge path the company had planned to use. The utility notified the NRC’s event notification system the following afternoon, citing an earlier notice it had already made to the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.

That sequencing matters under federal rules: NRC licensees report certain events to the agency once a separate regulator has already been told, rather than as the first call. Southern California Edison’s report reached the NRC at 2:57 p.m. Pacific time on Sept. 24, roughly a day after the discharge itself, and identified the pathway as leading from the Unit 2 conduit toward the ocean near San Onofre State Beach, on the San Diego County line in San Clemente.

Tritium at 3,000 picocuries, and a pH that broke the site’s own limit

The 3,000 picocuries-per-liter tritium reading is far below the EPA’s 20,000 picocurie-per-liter limit for drinking water, but the discharge broke a separate threshold: its pH measured 10.6, above the permit limit of 9 set for water leaving the site. Total suspended solids came in at 16 milligrams per liter, and results for oil and grease were still pending when the report was filed.

Wastewater leaving a nuclear site into public waters is governed by discharge permits the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board issues under the same National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System framework that covers ordinary industrial dischargers, not by NRC radiological limits alone. A pH violation on its own is a permit matter; combined with an off-path release of tritiated water, it drew reports to both agencies at once.

Thirteen years into a decommissioning that won’t finish until 2051

San Onofre’s two working reactors, Units 2 and 3, went online in the 1980s and supplied power alongside an older Unit 1 that dates the site’s operating history back to 1968. Southern California Edison permanently retired the plant on June 7, 2013, after replacement steam generators installed a year earlier developed unusual wear that the utility ultimately judged too costly to fix.

The site has been in an active dismantlement phase, known as DECON, ever since, according to the NRC’s decommissioning tracker for the site. Spent fuel finished moving into an underground dry-storage system on Aug. 6, 2020, and the NRC’s timeline calls for the site to reach unrestricted use by 2028, with full decommissioning — the point at which SCE’s oversight ends entirely — projected for 2051.

Southern California Edison says the release posed no threat

“Based on these preliminary analytical results and currently available information, Southern California Edison does not believe the release poses a threat to ocean water quality,” the utility told the NRC in its report on the Sept. 23 discharge. The agency’s own classification — non-emergency — reflects the same read: no evacuation, no public health order, no operating reactor involved.

It is not the only time SCE has had to explain an unplanned wastewater release at San Onofre. A 2020 discharge from the site’s sewage treatment plant, which sent partially treated wastewater more than a mile offshore after dilution problems, drew a sharper company response at the time: SCE called that earlier incident “unacceptable” and said it was reviewing whether its own procedures had failed to prevent it. Six years later, with the plant a third of the way through a 38-year decommissioning that has already outlasted its final decade of power generation, wastewater controls at the site remain the recurring weak point regulators keep coming back to.

Neither agency has said whether the Sept. 23 release will trigger a fine or a corrective-action order. The NRC’s report leaves that determination for later review, and Southern California Edison’s decommissioning timeline continues on the same schedule regardless — spent fuel stays in dry storage on site for decades longer than the reactors themselves ever ran.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.