The Department of Energy has signed a lease with a California-based nuclear startup for reuse of 100 acres of the Paducah Site in Kentucky for a new private-sector domestic uranium enrichment facility that could employ 140 people and be worth $1.5 billion.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said in a Tuesday press statement the project represents the largest economic development investment in Western Kentucky history. “This lease reflects Kentucky’s leadership in nuclear energy and our strong partnerships at the federal and local levels, as well as in the private sector,” Beshear said Tuesday.
DOE and its Office of Environmental Management announced the deal with General Matter in a Tuesday press release. News of the uranium enrichment project was first reported Friday by the Lexington Herald-Leader.
“Leveraging the resources of the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, including its skilled nuclear workforce and existing infrastructure, is unlocking private funding and fast-tracking commercial licensing activities,” DOE Office of Environmental Management Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Roger Jarrell said in the release.
The lease gives General Matter access to at least 7,600 cylinders of existing uranium hexafluoride for future re-enrichment operations, DOE said in the release. DOE said reprocessing of uranium hexafluoride could potentially save taxpayers $800 million.
Like the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, Paducah hosts a plant that converts depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) to more stable compounds.
“General Matter is bringing uranium enrichment back to the United States, starting at the site where the U.S. enrichment industry was born,” General Matter said in a Tuesday post on the X social media platform. “We will enrich uranium by the end of the decade,” the company goes on to say on X.
Based upon an Internet search, General Matter is a Los Angeles-based limited liability corporation. The General Matter CEO is Scott Nolan, who worked with SpaceX, according to a Tuesday article in the Paducah Sun newspaper.
A formal announcement ceremony was held Tuesday morning at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant complex with DOE brass along with Beshear (D) and Paducah’s Republican members of congress: U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, and U.S. Rep. James Comer.
Beshear said in a Tuesday press release the project could be worth $1.5 billion and provide 140 full-time jobs.
In the governor’s office news release, local officials also cheered the nuclear project announcement. “Paducah embraced the nuclear age 75 years ago and played a very important role in winning World War II,” said Paducah Mayor George Bray. “As the country now embraces safe and clean nuclear energy to help meet the power demands of the future, the General Matter project validates the importance of the Department of Energy site that has been so important to Paducah,” Bray added.
“For many families, the DOE site is personal,” Greater Paducah Economic Development President and CEO Bruce Wilcox said in the release. “Parents helped build it, their children work there today, and now the next generation has a chance to carry that legacy forward.”
Last month, Paducah said one of four DOE weapons complex sites selected by the department as suitable homes for new data centers.
The Paducah Sun reported that General Matter has backing from Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund affiliated with tech billionaire and conservative political backer Peter Thiel, who helped launch PayPal and other companies. On its website and on LinkedIn, General Matter said it is in the process of hiring more than 30 people.