Project Matador joins EIS pilot program; NRC seeks public input

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has released a notice of intent to conduct a scoping process and prepare an environmental impact statement to evaluate Fermi America's plan to construct and operate four AP1000 reactors at its Project Matador Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus in Texas.

While that announcement may seem routine, the process envisioned is not. As part of the company's combined license (COL) application with the NRC, it has agreed to participate in an accelerated environmental review pilot program under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Under this pilot, the applicant(s) develop a draft EIS under NRC supervision.

"By rethinking the traditional review process, the program is expected to reduce in-house NRC review time by approximately 50 percent and deliver resource savings of about 30 percent, all while maintaining compliance with environmental requirements," according to an NRC statement.

The draft EIS will identify, describe, and analyze the potential environmental effects of the proposed action and provide reasonable alternatives, according to a March 20 Federal Registernotice.

Public comments can be submitted on the scope of the EIS through April 20. Go to regulations.govand search for Docket ID NRC-2026-0100 to submit comments online. Further instructions and details can be found in the FR notice. Once the NRC completes its review of the EIS, the draft will be published in a future FRnotice.

Project Matador growing: The notice of intent is one of several new developments from Fermi America and its 5,236-acre Project Matador power and data complex, located in Amarillo, Texas, near the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. Developed in partnership with Texas Tech University, Project Matador is being touted by Fermi America as one of the largest private energy grids of its kind. The plans originally called for a site with 11 GW of power, including 4.4 GW of nuclear generation.

Fermi America has upped that overall number, however, with the company having announced plans earlier this month to file an additional 5 GW clean air permit with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. This announcement came two weeks after the commission approved a clean air permit for 6 GW of gas-fired generation. With this latest permit plan, the Project Matador campus could ultimately generate closer to 17 GW of electricity.

Quotable:"We are answering the president's call to jumpstart America's nuclear renaissance," Mesut Uzman, chief nuclear construction officer of Fermi America, said at the NRC's Regulatory Information Conference session, "Critical Links: Strengthening the Nuclear Supply Chain for Tomorrow's Reactors," on March 10.

"The only site construction-ready today, we have secured the talent, the only active large nuclear power plant [COL application] in progress with the NRC, and the best global nuclear partners in Hyundai E&C and Doosan Enerbility, given their track record of building dozens of reactors successfully across the globe," Uzman continued.

The NRC's acceptance of Fermi America's COL application is the first for a gigawatt-scale light water reactor since 2009.

According to documents from Uzman's presentation at the RIC, full nuclear construction is expected to start in 2027, with a target to deploy the first AP1000 in 2033.