KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – As the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) undergoes something of an identity shift, it is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) data centers on remediated land at federal nuclear sites.
Robert Seifert, DOE’s EM director of infrastructure disposition and regulatory policy, told the audience at the Energy Technology and Environmental Business Association’s annual conference Wednesday DOE’s effort to redevelop the land is focused on AI.This is a priority under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Assistant Secretary for the Office of Environmental Management Tim Walsh has pushed for EM to focus heavily on the use of AI within nuclear cleanup and future land reindustrialization.
In focusing on AI, DOE issued a request for information last year that identified 16 nuclear complex sites within DOE that were candidate sites for data centers. In July 2025, DOE selected four sites: Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, Paducah Site in Kentucky and Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Seifert said the three sites of Idaho, Paducah and Savannah River are under development and moving forward in its leasing process. However, DOE is looking to take a different approach with its AI data center project that is proposed to be placed at Oak Ridge, Tenn., Seifert said.
With Tennessee’s selection under DOE’s nuclear campus program, Seifert said DOE will consider working with various nuclear developers in the Oak Ridge area and seeing where the data center fits in the potential campus setup.
“Tennessee has really been at the at the forefront of so many of these type of development opportunities, and we are really looking forward to working with you guys in the coming months and years to expand that that lifecycle innovation campus and to really realize what the next generation of operation is going to look like here in East Tennessee,” Seifert said.
DOE also is developing a data center and energy project at its Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
With data centers needing ample power generation, Seifert said DOE makes efforts to make sure to bring on companies capable of providing energy without significantly increasing customers’ electricity rates. The Trump administration released an initiative, Ratepayer Protection Pledge, in March to build out data center infrastructure and meet growing demands without raising electricity bills.
“We want to make sure, one, that if a company or an entity is looking to bring on data center compute to one of the department’s lands and or facilities, they are going to bring the associated power to the table as well,” Seifert said.
Seifert continued, “Another big part of this, as an aside, is that EM cleanup dollars do not go to these efforts. EM cleanup dollars are appropriated to affect the cleanup and to advance that mission. We are fully committed to ensuring that continues to be the case, we are going to drive that forward.”
