Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) formally announced the state’s bid for a Department of Energy’s nuclear lifecycle hub at a March 27 press conference held in Tooele County, Utah.
Utah state officials gathered were on hand as Cox announced that Tooele County would be the site of the nuclear campus. Cox said during the press conference that the DOE campus “could rival the impact of Hill Air Force Base, supporting tens of thousands of jobs and generating billions of dollars in economic activities for Utahns.”
Cox said Tooele County possesses unique qualities that allow it to be an ideal location for the lifecycle campus.
“The geology, the arid climate, existing infrastructure, distance from major population centers and some of the very best people on planet Earth, make it one of the most practical locations for this kind of work,” Cox said.
DOE’s solicitation, published Jan. 28, seeks to gauge states’ interest in hosting a lifecycle campus that could include fuel fabrication, uranium enrichment and waste disposal.
The campuses could also support a potential advanced reactor and a co-located data center. Responses to the request for information (RFI) are due this Wednesday.
Tooele County is located in northwestern Utah, bordering Nevada to the west and Salt Lake County to the east. Tooele County was also the center of a decade-long battle over a proposed storage facility for high-level nuclear waste by Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of nuclear companies.
PFS sought to build a waste storage facility at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele County and faced backlash from state officials, tribe officials and environmental groups.
Despite obtaining an NRC license to construct the facility, the Department of Interior (DOI) stepped in and denied the consortium from using the land. PFS took legal action against DOI, but ultimately canceled its plans for the storage facility in 2012.
According to a March 28 Daily Herald Utah article, Cox said that Utah has not finalized its proposal for what it will include in its potential campus, but is about a week away from submitting it.
Utah Office of Energy Development Director Emy Lesofski said in the article that Utah expects to receive an answer from DOE on the hub within six months.