Since Westinghouse teamed up with Ameren to compete for federal funding supporting small modular reactor development, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has found no shortage of local support for the potential project at the Callaway nuclear plant.In a speech this weekend at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Nixon said the project could lead to the local construction and export of SMRs, creating tens of thousands of jobs in the process.The project is vying for $452 million in funding made available by the Energy Department for the development and eventual licensing of SMRs. The Columbia Daily Tribune quoted the governor as calling the potential funding “transformational.”Local support appears strong, and the Democratic governor has already assembled a task force with members from the counties surrounding the plant. Both the Tribune and the Jefferson City newspaper have published editorials supportive of the project.The Westinghouse-led consortium's competitors for the funding include NuScale Power and Babcock & Wilcox/mPower, which recently announced an MOU with FirstEnergy.
Of course he did MO is very pro-nuclear.