Nuclear Energy and Natural Gas — An Unbeatable Combination — Will Launch A Southern Renaissance in Louisiana

Guest Post from Aurelia S. Giacometto via CFact.

A renaissance is underway in the South, the foundation of which is Louisiana’s impressive capacity to generate electricity. This new Southern industrial revolution is powered by clean, plentiful and reliable energy that will stabilize both rural and urban communities. It is not limited just to manufacturing and jobs. With Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry’s pro-business agenda leading the way, it extends to education and to other sectors of the state’s economy. Louisiana, I am proud to say, is setting the course for this renaissance.

Nuclear is an essential part of the current mix among the energy sources that power Louisiana’s homes and businesses. Why? Because nuclear power is clean, reliable, and emission-free.

In fact, 92% of the state’s emission-free electricity, and an estimated 16% of all the electricity used in Louisiana comes from the state’s two nuclear facilities: River Bend in St. Francisville (West Feliciana Parish) and Waterford 3 in Kilona (St. Charles Parish). Together, these two facilities employ 1,500 highly skilled workers. Grand Gulf in Port Gibson, Mississippi, a third nuclear facility, is also nearby, and providing electricity to the national grid that Louisiana customers can use as needed.

Waterford 3 Nuclear Station

Where other areas of the country struggle to provide the additional electricity needed to power the new data centers, Louisiana’s power grid easily possesses the capacity to support them. When coupled with Governor Landry’s other incentive programs like his Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP), Louisiana is positioned to realize the Governor’s vision of moving from the Stone Age to the Space Age.

As Secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), an agency long seen as a barrier to Louisiana operating at the speed of business, I am guiding the agency towards doing its part. Essential to this is replacing the state’s cumbersome environmental permitting process with a 21st century streamlined digital dashboard that will cut permitting times in half.

Governor Landry has directed us to clean up permitting without sacrificing Louisiana’s second-to-none environment — a sportswomen and men’s paradise — and at DEQ our sleeves are rolled up doing that. DEQ is a partner in the state’s economic development efforts.

Large data centers run by Google, Amazon, or the purveyors of AI, with their thousands of routers, servers, switches, and the cooling systems that are necessary to keep that equipment working at its optimal capacity, can consume as much as 100 megawatts, or about the amount of electricity needed to run 80,000 houses. Louisiana’s two nuclear reactors are currently producing 17,249 megawatts together. And Grand Gulf in Mississippi chips in an additional 1,443 megawatts.

Louisiana is well positioned today to accommodate these and other growing industries. And it will be in future years too, because it will be the new and more modest nuclear plants known as “small modular reactors” (SMRs) that will be called upon to generate much of the new power necessary to power the state’s future growth and the big data centers of the future. What do SMRs require? Open land with access to plentiful fresh water, resources Louisiana has in abundance.

At Eielson Air Force base in Alaska, a micro-nuclear reactor is being piloted to augment the facility’s existing power supply. The reactor supplies clean energy off the grid for the base to execute its operations that are essential to our national defense strategy. The SMRs are coming.

In the 1990’s Louisiana added hydro to its energy portfolio when it commissioned a hydro plant on the banks of the Mississippi River where it meets the Red River. There are more opportunities for hydro in Louisiana too. Between Louisiana’s natural gas, nuclear and hydro, the responsible all-of-the-above approach is working.

But what about natural gas (LNG) and the 61% of Louisiana’s electricity currently being provided by facilities that use natural gas? In recent years, LNG producers have found that the need for imported LNG in Europe and Asia has increased dramatically, especially since exporting natural gas has become more complicated for Russia.

That’s great for our natural gas providers. And Louisiana’s Sabine Pass, Cameron, and Calcasieu terminals show every indication of being able to do their part to meet the growing global demand for LNG. These are all pieces of the global energy supply puzzle that are beneficial for Louisiana and its businesses.

Is it nuclear and hydro versus natural gas? Absolutely not! France imports LNG and generates about two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear power. Louisiana welcomes the opportunity to grow our nuclear and hydro power sectors, thus freeing our dominating LNG sector to ship its product worldwide.

River Bend, Waterford 3, and Grand Gulf have operated emission-free together for nearly 100 years without a significant safety issue. And the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recently renewed the licenses of all three plants for another twenty years. Moreover, we at DEQ are the agency responsible for radiological planning and response at all three facilities. We conduct regular full-scale exercises in coordination with FEMA and other state agencies to ensure the ongoing health and safety of the public.

As the Biden-Harris Administration pursues its misguided efforts to stifle the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries, Governor Landry and DEQ will continue to navigate the rules and regulations to unleash reliable and affordable energy for Louisiana and the world. With nuclear and hydro essential parts of the mix, Louisiana’s energy future is among the brightest in the country. Louisiana is proud to be helping power the Southern Renaissance.

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy.

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