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Horton Attends Missouri Economic Summit

Interim Economic Development Director James Horton attended a Missouri Economic Summit on Monday, July 23rd in Columbia, MO. Hosted by Governor Jay Nixon - the Summit was an educational overview and an update on a unique alliance between the State of Missouri, Westinghouse LLC, and Ameren Missouri called "NexStart SMR Alliance".

This Alliance has joined forces with every single power provider in the State of Missouri, the University of Missouri School System, and other companies and entities in an effort to be the first to bring to market an SMR. SMR stands for "Small Modular Reactor". These reactors are built in parts and are completely self contained, relying on no outside energy or water needs for safety back ups. Westinghouse currently makes a larger one which is the only design that has been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the last 20 years and is the only design currently being built in the United States.

Their new design, being based around a modular build idea, would revolutionize the industry and create an entirely new, global market. The State of Missouri has joined forces on this to be the place where not only the first of these reactors, when approved, would come online and be put to use at the current Calloway County location, but be the State that is the place which manufactures, produces, and ultimately ships the reactors around the world.

Governor Jay Nixon called this effort "transformative to the economy of Missouri" and his words were proven very true as speaker after speaker came forward to educate the standing room only crowd on the value and effects of this new technology. If this alliance is first to market with an SMR - they would be setting the standard and be at the forefront of what analyst who spoke predict will be a $23 billion dollar a year market.

As a brand new market - this would create thousands of jobs. Each plant that is built by a factory current estimates show would create 20,000 direct and indirect jobs and each plant would have an overall economic impact of nearly $3 billion on the State economy.

While this idea and process will take time - the effects and the planning are being studied out now and everyone in the State is preparing to do their part to make this happen. In Barton County our first job is education - about the industry, about the project, and about the safety of these new nuclear power plants. Once the designs and plans are approved, within two to three years of now Westinghouse will be opening up site selection to pick a location to manufacture the plants at which Barton County will be in a position to submit for being a location.

As with any new industry - there will be ample opportunities for ancillary jobs that become needed to fill needs created by the industry. As O'sullivans in their day created many side suppliers and created new needs - so will this opportunity.

This also marks a way to assure for the future that Missouri will continue to enjoy the historically low electric rates well into the future as there is plenty of low cost energy created by these plants to supply the future needs of Missourians and therefore Barton County citizens.