Company in nuclear energy supply chain gets $900M for its KY project
Part of a nearly $3 billion U.S. Department of Energy grant to strengthen the domestic fuel supply will make its way to Kentucky.
A third of the money, or $900 million, is being awarded to General Matter, the California-based company that set up shop in far west Kentucky last August.
In Paducah, the nuclear startup is planning to build the nation’s first U.S.-owned, privately developed uranium enrichment facility where it will concentrate the element to power nuclear reactors for energy generation.
The grant, in tandem with another sum for another company located in Paducah, along with support from all levels of government, creation of a nonregulatory board and a number of other policies — including lifting a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction — send a signal to data center companies and utility provides the Western Kentucky city is keen to welcome nuclear again.
The money coming from Washington is, “in support of President (Donald) Trump’s commitment to enhance energy security and reduce reliance on foreign suppliers,” according to a Jan. 5 news release from the Department of Energy. The investments, including the one in Kentucky, expand U.S. capacity for different kinds of enriched uranium that creates a new supply chain while adding jobs.
“Today’s awards show that this administration is committed to restoring a secure domestic nuclear fuel supply chain capable of producing the nuclear fuels needed to power the reactors of today and the advanced reactors of tomorrow,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright in a news release about the grant.
General Matter CEO Scott Nolan told Kentucky Public Radio Wednesday the company would use the money to speed up construction and to cover startup costs at the site.
Nolan, who is a partner in the venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel who also founded PayPal and Palantir, said the money accelerates General Matter’s timeline and the facility will be operating before 2030.
“This award is really going to help us build at a larger scale more quickly, and pull in our ability to satisfy all domestic demand years earlier than without it,” he said.
Two other $900 million awards went to American Centrifuge Operating and Orano Federal Services.
Global Laser Enrichment, another company building a uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, was awarded $28 million. The company is developing a laser enrichment plant where it will repurpose depleted nuclear tails.
The Trump administration’s push — and the Kentucky General Assembly’s — to reduce reliance on foreign sources of nuclear fuel and the technology to create it comes as nuclear is again framed as a suitable power source for national security purposes and to support infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, built by the federal government in the 1950s and shuttered in 2013, is one of the nation’s first and largest former enrichment facilities undergoing cleanup and other preparation for redevelopment.
In late July, the Department of Energy said it was considering the site to carry out the Trump administration’s plan to build the nation’s artificial intelligence infrastructure, including the energy sources necessary to power it.
“It’s here that we’re going to end today’s foreign reliance on uranium and enriched uranium from our adversaries,” Nolan said last fall at the company’s groundbreaking ceremony in front of Paducah’s Gaseous Diffusion Plant. “This is going to be a lot of hard work, but it’s going to be something we do this decade.”
It’s not yet clear exactly which companies or utilities needing fuel General Matter is set to produce may contract with the company. Nolan told the Herald-Leader last fall General Matter was in discussion with a number of potential partners that could prospectively purchase uranium from the company that then does the enrichment service.
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