$40M investment to spur new nuclear developments in Idaho and Wyoming

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that its Economic Development Administration (EDA) intends to award $31 million to the Intermountain-West Nuclear Energy Corridor (INEC) Tech Hub. The Idaho Advanced Energy Consortium (IAEC), the group that leads the INEC Tech Hub, subsequently announced that matching donations from its stakeholder partners will bring the total investment up to $40 million.

According to the EDA, this funding will be used to accelerate new reactor deployment and the commercialization of next-generation reactors. For its part, the IAEC adds that the funding will strengthen domestic fuel production and expand the nuclear workforce in the Intermountain West region.

Tech hub background: The Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs (or simply tech hubs) program began in 2022, under the Biden-Harris administration. The program was authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, a $280 billion economic competitiveness package aimed, in part, at bolstering new scientific research and development. One of the ways this act planned to achieve its goal was by establishing new tech hubs across the country: consortiums of industry, higher education institutions, state and local governments, economic development organizations, and workforce partners to-as the EDA put it-"supercharge ecosystems of innovation for technologies that are essential to our economic and national security."

To establish these tech hubs, in May 2023 the EDA opened an opportunity for groups aiming to receive grants and tech hub designations. By October 2023, the EDA officially announced that 31 regional centers had officially been designated as tech hubs; INEC was among them. At the time, the EDA said that INEC would "build on the region's existing nuclear manufacturing and service sectors to capture an increasing share of the global [small modular reactor] market by developing collaboration hubs, incubators, and testbeds for nuclear start-ups and creating nuclear industry workforce development programs."

The involved parties:The INEC Tech Hub is a consortium led by another consortium, leading to some confusion over the levels of involvement between various partners. IAEC, the leading group of INEC, is a consortium with 57 members spanning organizations and individuals as varied as Curtiss-Wright, NuCube Energy, the Idaho Technology Council, Butte County (Idaho), and Idaho State Rep. Richard Cheatum.

INEC, meanwhile, lists 25 members-some of which also maintain IAEC membership, and others which do not. The states of Idaho and Wyoming, for example, are IAEC members but not INEC members.

INEC often references bringing new nuclear momentum to the whole Intermountain West-a loosely defined region that touches parts of California, Texas, and Washington at its furthest extents. Despite these references to the broader region, all INEC partners are based in either Idaho or Wyoming.

The funding: Through coordination with its members, INEC has so far focused on five development areas: accelerating reactor deployment, modernizing fuel management, workforce development, supply chain development, and supporting new start-ups. In its newest press release, INEC does not specifically state how the new influx of funding will support this complex mission.

Idaho National Laboratory, a founding member of INEC, recently announced in a press release of its own that it will support INEC in fuel supply chain and workforce projects. INL also said that it will support accelerating commercialization timelines by helping private industry partners "navigate regulation requirements, engage communities, apply advanced construction and manufacturing techniques, and demonstrate technologies more rapidly."

About the funding, INL Director John Wagner said, "This investment recognizes what we've long known at INL, that advanced nuclear energy is essential to powering America's future. This Tech Hub brings together the capabilities, infrastructure, and partnerships needed to move from research and development to deployment at scale."