As a growing demand for energy looms, Hampton Roads can take advantage of efforts to address the issue.
That’s what Doug Smith from the Hampton Roads Alliance told a gathering of business and development leaders in Williamsburg Wednesday.
Smith said the region can seize on its existing industrial workforce to lead the charge on next-generation energy projects — bringing new jobs and diversifying the region’s economy.
“We are remilitarizing, reindustrializing and decarbonizing all at once with very little direction and a ton of money flowing,” Smith said.
“What that means for Hampton Roads is, candidly, this is our moment.”
Energy demands have skyrocketed in the state and across the nation, particularly from power-hungry data facilities that have been popping up to handle the computing behind artificial intelligence technologies.
A single AI search takes the same amount of electricity as powering a light bulb for 20 minutes, according to researchers, which amounts to 15 times as much power as required for a normal Google search.
Energy industry leaders say that growing demand threatens to bottleneck electrical availability at peak hours, and that more generation is needed to keep up.
Concerns about energy availability have been a growing part of public discussions for more than a decade, including as one of the primary arguments for building pipelines to carry natural gas into Hampton Roads.
Local government leaders have discussed the importance of securing the region’s energy future.
“We will not keep a status quo if we get no new energy in our region,” Hampton City Manager Mary Bunting said at a meeting of the Hampton Road Planning District Commission in March.
Utilities like Dominion have ramped up development of alternative power sources. That includes the wind farms the utility is building off of Virginia Beach — which it’s already snapped up additional areas to potentially expand — as well as recently-announced efforts to explore small nuclear reactors to try to satisfy the growing demand.
Smith noted Hampton Roads is already capitalizing on its proximity to Dominion’s offshore wind efforts in hopes of becoming a hub for the wind industry. But the Alliance is already looking to the next opportunity.
“We think the next play for our region is nuclear,” Smith said. “I think nuclear is where wind was 10 or 15 years ago.”
