FRANKFORT — The University of Kentucky would be home to a new authority to develop nuclear energy’s potential in the state, including identifying sites for nuclear reactors and other facilities, under a bill approved Wednesday by the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee.?

Senate Bill 198, sponsored by Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, a long-time advocate for nuclear energy, would advance recommendations made in a report by a working group commissioned last year by the legislature.?

The report found there were “no insurmountable barriers” to developing nuclear energy in Kentucky. Among its recommendations: create a non-regulatory authority to educate the public on nuclear energy while aiding the state in its development.

SB 198 creates that authority — which would be required to contract a site suitability study to find the best locations for nuclear facilities — to be housed in the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research.?

“In the distant future, and maybe not so distant future, we’re seeing coal production decrease,” Carroll said to the committee. “We’re going to have to start looking for other sources of base load energy to power this country. And I’m convinced without doubt that nuclear is the answer to the problems that we’re going to be facing in the future.”?

Carroll said his promotion of nuclear energy is not an “indictment” of any other energy source including coal and that he favors an “all of the above approach” to supplying electricity to the grid. Kentucky is among a minority of states that generates most of its electricity from burning coal, which in recent years has been outcompeted by lower-cost natural gas and renewables as a power generation source.?

Kentucky has never had any nuclear power plants, though the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in West Kentucky produced enriched uranium for the country’s nuclear weapons program and later for commercial nuclear power plants. An Eastern Kentucky site at Maxey Flats served as a place to dispose of low-level radioactive waste during the 20th century. Both installations contaminated surrounding soil and water and required extensive remediation.

The committee also passed a joint resolution, sponsored by Carroll, to direct the state’s utility regulator to make preparations for siting nuclear facilities.

“I think the time has come for it,” said Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, the chair of the committee. “That’s what our job is here to the citizens of the commonwealth is to get them affordable, reliable power.”?

Unlike coal plants, nuclear reactors don’t produce direct greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear is not an intermittent power source, like solar which, without utility-scale batteries, reliably produces power only at some times of the day. But?energy analysts remain divided on whether nuclear energy can be developed at scale quickly enough to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in time to curb the worst impacts of climate change.?

SB 198 also creates criteria for Kentucky communities to be designated as a “nuclear-ready community.”?

Carroll said the McCracken County Fiscal Court had recently taken the first step by declaring itself nuclear-ready.

“This will allow communities that are interested in not just reactors, but nuclear energy projects, and this could be manufacturing, it could be software development,” to show their interest, Carroll said.?