Surrey approves nuclear data center campus promising more than 1,300 jobs
Published on Monday, February 12, 2024 at 6:48 p.m.
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Green Energy Partners LLC has submitted renderings of the nation’s first combined data center and hydrogen fuel hub that the company is proposing to build in Surry County. (Image provided by Green Energy Partners)
A first-of-its-kind data center and hydrogen fuel hub combination in Surry County could create more than 1,000 jobs by 2035 and more than 1,300 jobs by 2036, according to an analysis of Richmond-based Chura’s economic impact report. Permanent jobs are expected to be created. (Image courtesy of Chura and Surry County)
Surry County Supervisors on February 8 approved a rezoning for the nation’s first data center and hydrogen fuel hub complex that Green Energy Partners plans to build adjacent to Dominion Energy’s nuclear power plant. Approved by a vote of 3-2.
Supervisors Amy Drewry and Timothy Calhoun, who urged their fellow board members to delay the decision, voted against it.
The Middleburg-based company announced last year that it had acquired about 600 acres after a multi-year search for potential sites across the East Coast. Greg Davis, an attorney representing Green Energy, said Surrey’s $6.45 billion investment over 13 years of construction will help the largely rural county of 6,500 people grow more than 1,300 people by 2036. of permanent jobs, half of which will earn six-figure salaries.
Green Energy’s announcement last year said it expected to hire 2,000 to 3,000 people, but after that, company and county officials each said not all would be permanent and the influx would happen all at once. I admitted that it wasn’t true. Most of the permanent positions are tied to operating a hydrogen plant or three small modular reactors, or SMRs, according to an economic impact analysis submitted with Green Energy’s rezoning application. We are proposing the use of data. Centered on the field.
Davis said Northern Virginia, where many of the state’s more than 300 data centers are currently located, is struggling to power the power-hungry computer infrastructure that runs Internet-based services 24/7. The high-voltage power transmission capacity needed for this purpose is becoming insufficient. . The shortage has led some developers, including Green Energy, to seek more rural areas, such as Surrey, which completed installation of fiber-optic high-speed internet infrastructure in 2022. In another rural Louisa County, just 160 miles northwest of Surry, Amazon plans to build two data center campuses by 2040, adjacent to Dominion’s sister nuclear power plant in Lake Anna. The plan is to invest $1 billion.
Data centers, even when powered by carbon-free energy sources like nuclear power, still require backup generators that rely on diesel fuel. Hydrogen “will even remove the use of carbon dioxide from the footprint,” Davis said.
Green Energy is proposing to house 19 data centers on a 3 million square foot campus. The influx of population and $74 million in annual tax revenue through 2036 is more than double the $27 million Surrey expects to take in this year, and is due to decades of population decline and below-average households in Surrey. There is a possibility that this can be stopped or even reversed. income. As of 2020, household income in Surrey was 21% below the state median, according to census data.
“Last Thursday’s zoning passage by the Surrey Board of Commissioners was a huge victory for the community and the Green Energy Surrey Center project,” said Bill Puckett, Green Energy Chief Operating Officer.
But the first-of-its-kind project is not without controversy, some of which centers around the prototype SMR.
“This is not a technology available to me standing here tonight,” Davis said of nuclear reactors. “These small nuclear reactors have been used in submarines and naval vessels without incident since the 1950s and are being researched and developed for use on land, but that will take seven to 10 years. .”
Mike Eggleston, one of eight opponents, called SMR an “unproven technology” and said it was used in 1979 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, located 11 miles outside Pennsylvania’s capital Harrisburg. He mentioned that a partial nuclear meltdown had occurred. According to a Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission report, the accident remains the most serious accident involving a commercial nuclear power plant in the continental United States and prompted significant changes in the safety of nuclear operations, but it was There were no detectable health effects on the workers or workers at the power plant as a result of the release of the substances.” public. “
Paquette said in 2023 that the proposed SMR would likely use tristructural isotropic, or “TRISO,” fuel. This fuel is made by encasing nuclear material in materials such as titanium to form pellets the size of golf balls. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s website, “TRISO particles do not melt in nuclear reactors and can withstand extreme temperatures far exceeding the thresholds of current nuclear fuels.”
Another speaker, Daniel Hsieh, said the green energy proposals were an “invasion by corporate interests” and that “our rural, quiet and peaceful way of life is intolerable.” Three other speakers said they supported the project.
Prior to the approval vote, Drewry filed a motion to put the matter on hold, saying Green Energy’s terms, which included spending $950,000 to improve Hog Island Road, were “vague.” Ta.
“There’s time to do this. It’s not that I’m against this project,” Drewry said, adding that the cost of the proposed right-turn lanes and road signs would exceed the current estimate of $950,000. This raised the question of who would pay if the increase exceeded that amount. Calhoun seconded Drury’s motion, which received only her and Calhoun’s votes.
According to a traffic study included in Green Energy’s rezoning application, the combined impact of the data center, SMR, and hydrogen fuel plant will increase the average number of car trips per weekday reported by the Virginia Department of Transportation in 2021. The number has almost doubled, increasing by 93%. Over 3,600.
Supervisor Walter Hardy filed a motion to approve the rezoning, seconded by Supervisor Breyon Pierce, arguing that the project would bring high-wage jobs locally and potentially lower the county’s tax rate. . Mr. Pearce then moved, and Mr. Hardy seconded, a motion to approve the associated comprehensive plan land use map amendments requested by Green Energy. Each motion passed 3-2, with Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Drury not voting in favor.
