A closer look at the initial NLIC selections—Part 2

In January, the Department of Energy announced its new Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC) program, inviting states via a request for information to express their interest in hosting a facility supporting work from the front to the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

By April, 26 states had expressed interest in hosting such a facility. At the end of July, the DOE signed memorandums of understanding with five states-Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah-to more closely explore the possibilities of state-federal partnerships. These MOUs are not firm commitments from either the federal or state governments. Time will tell which-if any-of the five states develop projects through the program. In the meantime, today, we are taking a close look at what Utah, Idaho, Tennessee can offer in terms of a preexisting nuclear sector that could support new fuel cycle developments.

The first article in this two-part series focused on the nuclear offerings of Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Utah: Along with every other state selected by the DOE for a possible life cycle campus, Utah is a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Agreement State. However, it is also one of the 14 U.S. states that has never been home to a commercial nuclear power plant. It and Oklahoma are the only two states of the five to share this trait.

Despite this, Utah is associated with two canceled nuclear power projects. The first was the Blue Castle project, which aimed to bring two Westinghouse AP1000s to the city of Green River. Momentum for that project largely died out by the mid-2010s. (Earlier this summer, Hi Tech Solutions began work to revive the project, this time with Holtec SMR-300s.)

The more recently canceled nuclear project in Utah's past is the Carbon Free Power Project, a collaboration between Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems and NuScale Power. The project was to be sited at Idaho National Laboratory and would have provided power to the INL campus and customers in Utah and surrounding states. In 2015, the partners announced plans to develop 12 50-MWe NuScale reactors. Despite significant regulatory progress and financial investment, the plan-which changed in 2021 to six 77-MWe reactors-was ultimately canceled in 2023.

This shaky history stands in contrast to the state's new nuclear stance. In 2024, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox unveiled Operation Gigawatt, an initiative to double the state's power production by 2034, in part by promoting new nuclear development. Since then, a host of organizations have looked to develop projects in the state, including Valar Atomics, Holtec, Nuclea Energy, EnergySolutions, Anfield Energy, Utah State University, Elemental Nuclear, Nusano, the Military Installation Development Authority, TerraPower, and still more. Several of these projects were discussed in a recent American Nuclear Society webinar.

Utah also has a robust presence in the front end of the domestic fuel cycle. It has been home to numerous uranium mines and mills since the earliest days of the nuclear sector. Today, Energy Fuels runs the White Mesa mill in southern Utah-the only currently operating conventional uranium mill in the United States. (There are several operating in situ recovery uranium facilities.) At the back end of the fuel cycle, EnergySolutions runs the Clive site, which manages low-level radioactive waste.

The state's Office of Energy Development (OED) has released both its full, 151-page response to the DOE's RFI and a high-level, 32-slide presentation summarizing the key elements of its plan. That plan proposes a single site for Utah's campus: a 300-square-mile corridor of state-controlled land in Tooele County. This site, which the OED highlights for its valuable road, air, rail, internet, and electricity connections, is planned to include enrichment, fuel fabrication, recycling and reprocessing, and long-term waste disposition. The state also envisions this campus as "supporting complementary capabilities such as advanced reactor deployment, advanced manufacturing, and a data center."

Idaho: Comprehensive summaries of the nuclear histories and current sectors of the remaining two finalists for the NLIC program are outside the scope of a single article. The current makeup and historical background of Idaho's and Tennessee's nuclear sectors, if told in full, would span hundreds of pages, with their beginnings stretching all the way back to World War II.

Earlier this year, when Nuclear News ranked the top 10 states of nuclear, Idaho came in at number three. At the time NN defended that ranking by pointing to-above all else-the massive institutional presence of Idaho National Laboratory. In the early days of nuclear, INL was the site where the first usable electricity was produced from nuclear power. In all, more than 50 reactors have come on line at the site, each of which helped lay the groundwork for our current understanding and development of nuclear power domestically and internationally. Today, organizations and facilities within INL like the National Reactor Innovation Center, the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments test bed, and the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (to name a few) continue to push the envelope of the industry forward.

What's more, INL has also been the epicenter of one of the most-watched nuclear stories over the past year: the Reactor Pilot Program and its closely related Launch Pad program. Within and beyond those programs, INL works with dozens of organizations in private industry and education.

In the state's 113-page response to the DOE's RFI, Idaho Gov. Brad Little naturally starts by espousing the many benefits INL would bring to an NLIC campus, but he also points out that the state has significant supply chain, community engagement, and regulatory tailwinds that would boost the project.

As most readers would likely expect, Idaho's response confirms that the state plans to site its life cycle campus within the 890-square-mile INL site, arguing that its "geographic footprint, nuclear workforce, and existing site infrastructure" make it a natural fit.

While Idaho is open to siting new enrichment, fabrication, and reprocessing capacity at the INL site, its language regarding a long-term repository is notably less definitive than some of its competitors. The response reads that "Idaho is poised to engage in discussions about the eventual siting of a permanent national repository."

Later on, it clarifies its position slightly, saying that while the state is committed to research across the nuclear life cycle, it is essential that "permanent solutions" not be borne indefinitely by the state's communities, concluding that "the development of a permanent nuclear waste repository in neighboring Utah could provide a viable long-term solution for used fuel, helping to alleviate concerns in Idaho."

While this vision of its campus appears at odds with the DOE's aim to have an all-in-one, disposal-focused facility, Idaho's selection as one of the five finalists indicates that the DOE did not perceive its resistance to a permanent repository as a deal-breaker.

Tennessee: The complexity of Idaho's nuclear sector and history is perhaps only rivaled (and arguably superseded) by that of Tennessee. Returning to NN's top 10 states of nuclear, Tennessee came in at number one: the epicenter of new industry growth.

Like Idaho, Tennessee is home to one of the most important institutions in the nuclear community: Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ORNL's reputation is built on a storied history beginning as the key uranium enrichment site during the Manhattan Project. It was also the site of the third nuclear reactor ever built: the X-10. Like INL, its legacy carries into the present day; ORNL is now home to a complex network of research activities, test beds, and private partnerships exploring a broad scope of pure and applied science, including nuclear science and technology.

Looking beyond the labs, Tennessee has a much broader nuclear sector than any of the other four finalists. It is home to four commercial power reactors and has the eighth highest nuclear capacity of any U.S. state.

Those plants are managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest U.S. public energy provider. TVA is currently pursuing several advanced nuclear projects involving GE Vernova Hitchai, Kairos, Type One Energy, and NuScale. Those projects are complemented by significant fuel cycle projects in various stages of development from Centrus, Standard Nuclear, TRISO-X, Orano USA, Oklo, and LIS Technologies. Other significant nuclear institutions in the state include the Y-12 National Security Complex and the University of Tennessee.

Tennessee has published both a one-page summary of its RFI response and its full 207-page response. Its envisioned campus embraces the full fuel cycle, from enrichment to disposition.

Unlike Idaho, Tennessee clearly indicates that it is in the early stages of site assessment for a long-term geologic repository, though the response does acknowledge that, if another state is more suitable for said repository, "then Tennessee is open to exploring a collaborative solution."

The response further states that Tennessee aims to "transform the nuclear life cycle" by "diverting critical materials and isotopes into other health, defense, and industrial uses," which would substantially reduce "the country's needs for interim and long-term materials management solutions."

As for siting, like Idaho with INL, Tennessee intends for Oak Ridge to be the primary site for its innovation campus. The state expects that the city "would host most of the expected campus functions." However, the location of its potential repository is not definitively tied to Oak Ridge.