Kentucky Public Service Commission hosts nuclear energy discussion at WKU

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The Kentucky Public Service Commission made a stop at Western Kentucky University’s Amy & David Chandler Hall to discuss nuclear energy and how it could be the future of Kentucky.

This is part of a statewide tour that the Commission has been on, and they’ve seen quite a bit of feedback at each stop.

“So we started in Morehead, which is just about 15 miles from the Maxey Flat waste site, which created a whole lot of the law in this country based on litigation around the waste that was deposited at Maxey Flat. So we thought we would get maybe more negative comments there. But it wasn’t necessarily the case. It’s been very, very balanced at every site that we’ve stopped,” chair Angie Hatton says.

The main goal is for the public to learn more about what nuclear energy is, as a WKU alum gives a presentation to teach a little more about it, and the Commission feels it’s been a great chance to hear from many different people across the Commonwealth.

“I feel like we’ve gotten good discussions and we watch people discussing afterward. We’ve had representatives from the utilities show up at some of the meetings to listen… and I think that’s probably important. Then in Paducah, we had 140 people or so show up and quite a few negative comments… and so I think the local officials probably took from that meeting that they had some work to do if they want to get community involvement and support for the nuclear industry,” Hatton says.

This is the sixth and final stop for the tour. At each conference, they’ve heard from members of the community about what they think nuclear energy could look like in Kentucky… and that’s going to lead to a May 12th and 13th conference at the Kentucky History Center in Frankfort, where they’ll discuss what possibly comes next for nuclear energy.

“We’ll have some panelists from the Office of Energy Policy and Energy and Environment Cabinet as well as the PSC will moderate those panels. I think we have people from NRC and Nuclear Energy Institute coming. We have investors coming from Guggenheim to talk about what they’re looking for and invest in things like this… and we’ll just hopefully have time for audience questions and just keep the discussion going is what that’s about,” Hatton says.

To make your comments heard, you can send comments via email to psc.comment@ky.gov or mail them to 211 Sower Boulevard in Frankfort, Kentucky 40601.

Staff asks you to use the case number 2025-00186 to help staff know which case is being discussed.