Goochland Planning Commission to weigh proposal Sept. 18 that could allow small module nuclear reactor near Henrico border

The Goochland County Planning Commission will meet Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at Goochland High School to weigh two items, including one that has drawn the attention of some Western Henrico residents.

The commission will consider a proposed amendment to the county’s comprehensive plan that would add a technology overlay district generally along the Route 288 corridor and Henrico-Goochland border, from a point just north of I-64 to a terminus along River Road to the south.

Among the uses that the county is proposing to permit within the zone is a “utility generating facility,” which the proposed amendment defines as either a natural gas peaking plant or small modular nuclear reactor facility.

Those facilities would be permitted to be built in the zone by right if the amendment ultimately is approved by the Goochland Board of Supervisors, meaning that developers would not have to seek rezoning approval before constructing them.

It’s the inclusion of the small modular nuclear reactor that has concerned some Henrico residents in the area.

The proposed zone skirts along the Henrico border in a number of spots, beginning just south of Kain Road in Short Pump and continuing south just to the west of several Henrico neighborhoods, including Graham Meadows, Foxhall, The Colonies and Tuckahoe Village West.

SMRs are viewed as a potential source of power internationally in the coming years, though none exist in the United States and only Russia and China have operational SMRs currently. They could replace large nuclear power plants, which are exceedingly expensive and take years to develop and build.

SMRs, envisioned to be about a third the size of traditional U.S. nuclear reactors, would be pre-manufactured and then transported to a site and assembled there. They typically have a capacity of 300 megawatts or less, and the proposed Goochland overlay district would limit one there to that same level.

The overlay district would be intended to “support and encourage technology products, processes, or related services, which is defined as businesses engaging in the activities of automation, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, biomedical research, computer hardware, computer software, defense, electronics, electrical sub assembly, medical technologies, pharmaceuticals, photonics, systems integration, internet software, data and data warehousing,” according to the proposed ordinance amendment.

Descriptions included in the proposed amendment also define a natural gas peaking plant as “a utility generating station which produces electrical energy via gas turbines fueled by natural gas and operates only during periods of peak electricity demand” and a utility generating station as “a facility which generates electricity for sale, transmission, or distribution or a natural gas utility which produces natural gas for sale, transmission, or distribution, other than in enclosed containers, to the public and is rate regulated.”

The latter term would not include solar energy facility, principal or supplementary or energy storage facility.

Dominion Energy Nuclear Operations President Eric Carr told CNBC last fall that SMRs eventually would become “a great, reliable source of energy for the entire nation’s grid.”

Dominion was weighing whether to build one at its nuclear station at North Anna in Louisa County, and CNBC reported that the company had envisioned potentially building six SMRs across its footprint beginning in 2034.