Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Grand Island utilities manager Lynn Mayhew testifies to Natural Resources Committee in EQC reappointment hearing
Loading...
Summary
Lynn Mayhew, a civil engineer and generation manager at Grand Island Utilities, told the Nebraska Natural Resources Committee he has experience overseeing local generation and served previously on the Environmental Quality Council; senators questioned him on power capacity, costs and nuclear training.
Lynn Mayhew, a civil engineer with Grand Island Utilities, appeared before the Nebraska Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee to answer questions in support of his appointment to the Environmental Quality Council.
Mayhew told the committee he has worked 18 years at Grand Island Utilities, oversees the city’s generation and water systems and served six years in the U.S. Navy on a nuclear submarine. "I spent six years in the Navy," Mayhew said, describing training at nuclear power school and prototype school and service on the USS Annapolis during its initial criticality and sea trials.
The hearing focused on Mayhew’s technical background and local generation capacity. When Senator Barry DeKay asked about typical load, Mayhew said Grand Island’s normal daily demand is about 100–110 megawatts, with a historical peak of 174 megawatts. He listed local capacity as roughly a 100-megawatt coal plant, about 97 megawatts of natural-gas-fired generation, 10 megawatts of solar and about 26 megawatts of wind at Prairie Hills, and noted part-ownership in generation at Nebraska City and Hastings.
Senators pressed Mayhew on broader energy issues. "The data centers are very power hungry," Mayhew said when asked about hyperscale facilities and their influence on utilities. He said recent bids to build new generation in Grand Island show substantially higher costs, and that available dispatchable options today are largely natural gas. On whether small modular reactors could be deployed on land as they are in naval service, Mayhew cautioned that intensive training, security and regulatory frameworks make land deployment more complicated than it may appear.
The committee recorded no proponents or opponents on the public record and had no online comments. Chair Senator Tom Brandt closed Mayhew’s hearing and thanked him for appearing. The committee took no formal vote during the public portion of the session.
