Latest / Commentary - TJ Meadows / Why Would DOE Want to Go Forward?

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Why Would DOE Want to Go Forward? · Commentary - TJ Meadows

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: As time passes, thoughts crystallize. And here's where I've landed.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: There is now very little chance of a nuclear innovation
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: lifecycle campus coming to fruition in West Virginia. The Department
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: of Energy has vast experience deploying government capital through grants,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: research programs, and major innovation projects. Its process is structured.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Applicants are heavily scrutinized. And federal officials are looking for
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: projects West Virginia, deliberately or not, sent DOE a message
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: over the last several days. Getting a project like this
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: accepted here could be extraordinarily difficult. Who's at fault? Depends
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: on whom you ask. Putnam County Senator Eric Tarr joined
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: TalkLine Tuesday and argued... The Morrissey administration mishandled the opportunity.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Tarr also criticized the Charleston Gazette-Mail's reporting. The Gazette-Mail stands
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: by its story and can answer those criticisms directly. But
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: right now, assigning blame misses the larger point. Remember, West
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Virginia wasn't initially under consideration. DOE allowed the state into
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the process later after appeals for another look. Somebody Perhaps
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: several people spent valuable political capital making that happen, and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: now the opportunity may have been blown. When the governor,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: through his spokesman, says there is no circumstance under which
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: nuclear waste will come to West Virginia, DOE hears that.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Combine it with immediate public resistance, and why would federal
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: officials continue investing significant time evaluating West Virginia? They wouldn't.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And why would the people who spent political capital getting
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: us into the conversation spend more now? They wouldn't. This
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: isn't fundamentally about being pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear. It's about whether
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: West Virginia takes enough time to understand an opportunity before
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: outright rejecting it. A consolidated interim storage facility for spent
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: nuclear fuel raises legitimate questions about safety, transportation, long-term storage,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and community acceptance. Those questions deserve answers. Communities deserve a voice.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: But those questions should be answered before we say yes,
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  Speaker 1: And before we automatically say no. Because we're developing a
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: troubling pattern. No to transmission lines. No to data centers.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: No to nuclear. At some point, West Virginia has to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: answer a more basic question. What exactly can we say
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: yes to? Can we say yes to anything? Because if
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: no becomes our default answer to every major economic opportunity,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: our economic future may look very different from the one
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  Speaker 1: we keep saying we want.