(The Center Square) – A pair of bills related to promoting nuclear energy’s future in Wisconsin passed through Assembly committee on Wednesday with its $2.25 million appropriation removed.
Instead, that funding would come via Wisconsin’s Economic Development Corp.
The bills create a nuclear siting study and holding a nuclear power summit.
The siting study in the amended Assembly Bill 108 would now also include fusion generation and would be due to the Legislature 19 months after the bill goes into effect.
Assembly Bill 132 would require the organization of a Nuclear Power Summit in Madison at a new University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering building.
Rep. Moore Omokunde, D-Milwaukee, voted against the siting study, saying that nuclear energy is further down the line for the state and that it would be “cart before the horse” to do siting while nuclear energy is making advancements.
“I am a big proponent of renewable energy, I am a big proponent of having our portfolio as large as it can be, renewable and nonemitting energy,” Omokunde said.
Omokunde, however, voted for the nuclear summit, saying he would attend the event and hopes it could be a “genuine, authentic conversation” about nuclear power instead of a pep rally to expand nuclear energy.
Rep. David Armstrong, R-Rice Lake, said he differentiates between renewable and base power and that many things such as data centers need reliable base power that doesn’t “go up and down as the wind blows and sun shines.”
He believes nuclear is necessary “until you can get to the point where batteries are so good that they are a base power,” which he estimated could happen in the 2050s and 2060s.
