SB1418 corporation commission; small modular reactors (Carroll) preempts counties – except Maricopa and Pima – from regulating the location of small modular nuclear reactors if they are co-located with an extra high load factor customer – basically a hyperscale data center. We already have data centers locating here in our communities indiscriminately and using enormous amounts of water and electricity, plus providing very few sustainable jobs. SB1418 also says nuclear power units are not subject to requirements for a certificate of environmental compatibility, if they are being sited where there was another thermal unit.
Data centers in our communities are controversial. Arizona is already has more than 150 data centers with many more being proposed and opposed – near Surprise and in Page, Phoenix, Tucson, and Pinal County, among other locations. People are demanding more accountability, not less, as is being proposed in several bills.
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors are expensive and risky. They are not cleaner and cheaper and given there are no small modular nuclear reactors operating commercially in the United States, seem also unrealistic. The ones that were previously proposed in the United States were cancelled due to huge cost overruns.
Ask your representatives to vote NO on SB1418!
