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.
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 Tuesday 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.
“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. A General Matter principal is Scott Nolan, who worked with SpaceX, according to a Tuesday article in the Paducah Sun newspaper.
The newspaper reported a formal announcement ceremony was to occur Tuesday morning at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant complex with DOE brass along with Gov. Andy 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.
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.