Miss America Comes Home to Wisconsin

Tuesday, February 21st, 2023 -- 11:01 AM

(WMTV) Among dangly earrings and necklaces at a Kendra Scott in Hilldale, Miss America spoke about nuclear energy’s important role in a net-zero emissions future.

“Nuclear energy is really a big part of my life. It impacted me in ways I didn’t even know before I got into the field. My dad actually went through cancer twice when I was growing up and he’s still alive today because of nuclear medicine and that is something that’s really special,” Miss America’s Grace Stanke said.

Visiting her home state of Wisconsin this weekend, the nuclear engineer is advocating for her clean-energy platform. “I believe in diversifying our energy portfolio, and I believe nuclear should be one of the primary, reliable sources,” Stanke said.

The Chair of UW-Madison’s Department of Engineering Physics, Paul Wilson, agrees. “Today nuclear is about 16% of electricity in Wisconsin,” Wilson said. “I would love to see it much larger.”But the State says it currently has no plans for expansion.

Bob Fontaine, of Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission, cites nuclear energy’s price tag. “Building a new plant today does not compare well in cost effectiveness to other resource options,” Fontaine said. Solar is just cheaper, according to Fontaine.

“Over the next couple of years,” Fontaine said, “solar is going to become the major replacement for the continued decline in coal.” Meanwhile, Stanke says Wisconsin would be a great candidate for more nuclear energy. “I fully support solar. I fully support wind,” Stanke said. “However, I believe we need to start moving toward reliable and small land usage power sources.”

Beyond Wisconsin not receiving as much sunlight year round as other states, Stanke said solar’s needs competes with Wisconsin’s resources. “Wisconsin is the dairy state,” Stanke said. “When you’re planting a solar field, you’re removing that availability of using that land for agricultural or dairy purposes.”

Point Beach Power Plant is Wisconsin’s last remaining power plant. It’s where Stanke is headed for another meet-and-greet on Monday. “We used to have another power plant near Manitowoc in Kewaunee.

It shut down in 2013 and the biggest consequence of that is we burn more gas and we burn more coal,” Wilson said. “Wisconsin’s climate change gasses went up when we shut down Kewaunee, and so we just can’t have that happen anymore.”

As her academic advisor, Wilson says while it’s been energizing seeing Stanke use her platform for nuclear energy, he sees a strong future in the field for Stanke. “Independent of all this Miss America stuff,” Wilson said. “She’s just a good nuclear engineer.”

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