Lately, Paducah, Kentucky — inhabitants 27,000 and residential to the Nationwide Quilt Museum — prides itself as “Quilt Metropolis.” However a long time in the past, it was additionally referred to as the “Atomic City” — a moniker it might quickly regain as AI’s power wants convey Paducah’s nuclear previous again to life.
The Division of Power (DOE) operated a uranium enrichment plant in Paducah for greater than 60 years till the plant shuttered in 2013 amid a downturn in nuclear power. The identical yr, Paducah was designated a UNESCO “creative city” for its quilts, a title it now boasts on its web site (together with a city-led initiative to make Paducah extra “thoughtful and type”).
Right now, the enrichment facility is within the highlight once more after a Peter Thiel-backed startup announced plans to revive the shuttered plant. In July, Donald Trump’s administration additionally chose Paducah as one of four sites the place it says it’ll companion with non-public firms to develop AI knowledge facilities and power initiatives.
Huge Tech — thirsty for sufficient electrical energy to energy its AI ambitions — needs to make nuclear power cool once more. It’s all taking part in into the Trump administration’s plans to remake the US energy grid with out photo voltaic and wind energy. In the event that they handle to revitalize nuclear power in America, the US goes to want extra enriched uranium. And that offer chain might convey massive adjustments to even small cities like Paducah.
Huge Tech — thirsty for sufficient electrical energy to energy its AI ambitions — needs to make nuclear power cool once more
Normal Matter emerged from stealth mode earlier this yr, led by former SpaceX engineer Scott Nolan. Peter Thiel, who cofounded PayPal and the datamining firm Palantir that’s selling software to the Trump administration to surveil people who migrate to the US, joined General Matter’s board. And Nolan stood in the Oval Office with Trump on May 23rd as he signed government orders ostensibly aimed at ushering in “a nuclear energy renaissance.”
At an August fifth occasion in Paducah, Normal Matter shared particulars about its imaginative and prescient for the ability. It says it’ll develop what it considers the “the nation’s first U.S.-owned, privately developed uranium enrichment facility” on the location and that it has signed “a multi-decade, one hundred-acre lease” with the DOE. Normal Matter plans to begin enriching uranium in Paducah by the tip of the last decade and “produce the gasoline wanted for the subsequent technology of nuclear power, central to America’s aspirations in AI, manufacturing, and different crucial industries,” in response to a statement on X. (A DOE press release says enrichment operations aren’t deliberate till 2034, nonetheless, and that development is slated to begin in 2026.)
That doesn’t fairly reply some key questions concerning the firm’s plans. (Normal Matter didn’t reply to a number of emails from The Verge.) Will the corporate depend on the identical outdated know-how the shuttered plant has all the time used or construct one thing new? If it does plan to revamp the ability with fashionable know-how, does it plan to provide the identical sort of low-enriched uranium that America’s current nuclear reactors run on, or does it assume it may be one of many first crops to provide extra extremely enriched uranium (referred to as HALEU) for superior reactors? The solutions to these questions will outline how formidable of a undertaking this actually is, and the affect it might have on energy grids throughout the US. The current DOE press launch notes that Normal Matter is considered one of 4 firms the company chosen in October of final yr to provide enrichment services for HALEU, though the DOE additionally announced plans to contract Normal Matter for low-enriched uranium in December.
Enrichment is only one step, and sort of a headache, within the nuclear provide chain. Uranium first must be mined and milled. Naturally occurring uranium has low ranges of the isotope U-235 that nuclear fission reactors cut up to launch power. The uranium must be transformed into fuel after which enriched to a couple of 5 % focus of U-235 to make gasoline for a standard reactor. Following a growth in nuclear energy crops constructed within the Seventies and Eighties, nonetheless, the business misplaced floor to gas-fired energy crops producing electrical energy at decrease prices. Nuclear reactors and uranium enrichment crops shuttered throughout the US.
However now, the alternative is occurring. Microsoft and Meta have inked offers over the previous yr to revive previous reactors. Different tech giants, together with Amazon and Google, have dedicated to supporting firms designing superior reactors which are purported to be smaller, simpler, and cheaper to construct — doubtlessly fixing lots of the issues which have plagued the nuclear power business for years, if they’ll finally show that these applied sciences are going to have the ability to carry out at business scale.
That’s all driving up demand for uranium enrichment, now seen as a big bottleneck within the nuclear power provide chain. Normal Matter isn’t the one operation in search of to counterpoint uranium in Paducah. The DOE has had a deal with one other firm referred to as World Laser Enrichment (GLE) since 2016 to promote it leftover tails, depleted uranium, from years of enrichment for nuclear weapons and reactors on the web site. GLE has been growing a brand new option to enrich uranium utilizing lasers that’s purported to be environment friendly sufficient to re-enrich uranium tails in order that they can be utilized to make gasoline once more. Normal Matter equally plans to re-enrich depleted uranium tails in Paducah, according to the DOE press release, though we nonetheless don’t know what sort of know-how it can use to take action.
Laser know-how has but for use to counterpoint uranium at business scale. Over the previous decade, there simply wasn’t sufficient demand for extra uranium enrichment capability within the US to maneuver ahead, says Nima Ashkeboussi, vice chairman of presidency relations and communications at GLE. Then Russia — a serious provider for nuclear gasoline globally — invaded Ukraine, and in 2024, and the US barred imports of uranium from Russia. GLE utilized for a license in June to lastly begin re-enriching the depleted uranium tails at a web site adjoining to the Paducah plant, and expects to listen to again from the Nuclear Regulatory Fee in about 18 months.
If all goes properly, GLE plans to have its facility up and operating by 2030 so it will possibly begin making the low-enriched uranium historically utilized by current nuclear reactors. If no less than one of many superior reactors makes it to business operation, Ashkeboussi says that’ll be a market sign that it will possibly begin producing extra extremely enriched uranium (referred to as HALEU) that next-generation reactors want. For now, solely Russia has the potential to commercially produce HALEU. However already, knowledge facilities and AI have been a serious driver in reinvigorating nuclear power, Ashkeboussi tells The Verge. “We see that as an enormous development potential,” he says.
Each the Biden and Trump administrations have labored towards onshoring the nuclear provide chain once more. The US presently has the capability to enrich about a third of the uranium its nuclear reactors want. For Joe Biden, nuclear power supported US local weather objectives of slashing planet-heating air pollution by transitioning away from fossil fuels within the energy grid. Trump is sabotaging US climate commitments and renewable energy projects, however nonetheless says nuclear power has a task to play on the subject of ensuring US tech firms have sufficient electrical energy to dominate the AI market.
The plans for Paducah appear to suit neatly into the Trump administration’s vision for AI, which it released final month. In brief, the plan contains fast-tracking the event of energy-hungry knowledge facilities along with primarily fossil gasoline and nuclear energy crops by limiting environmental reviews.
“It appears their mindset is development and manufacturing in any respect prices.”
The push to construct, particularly because the Trump administration concurrently guts the Environmental Protection Agency and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has raised some flags over how a lot oversight and group participation there shall be with these new initiatives. “I don’t have any confidence in what the administration is doing to guard public well being and security. It appears their mindset is development and manufacturing in any respect prices,” says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear energy security on the Union of Involved Scientists that has been crucial of the environmental and security risks nuclear energy can pose.
Nuclear power has been a divisive know-how amongst folks involved about local weather change and air pollution. It’s a carbon pollution-free supply of electrical energy. However uranium mining close to the Grand Canyon has already sparked opposition from environmental advocates and the Havasupai Tribe over the way it might have an effect on close by communities and the water sources on which they rely. And the federal authorities has but to resolve a long time of wrangling over where to store radioactive waste from nuclear reactors.
Including to these issues, the Trump administration needs to construct on federal lands and even repurpose polluted Superfund websites for all this infrastructure. The shuttered enrichment plant in Paducah itself is a Superfund site, which suggests it’s on an inventory of locations so contaminated that the Environmental Safety Company has stepped in to prioritize their cleanup. That legacy exhibits the pitfalls and hurdles that policymakers and firms must attempt to keep away from in the event that they need to convey nuclear power again to small-town USA.
“No matter what’s occurring with the Trump administration, it is a massively bipartisan endeavor concerning uranium enrichment. There may be quite a lot of assist for it proper now. I feel there’s quite a lot of momentum to essentially get it proper,” says Rowen Worth, senior coverage advisor for nuclear power on the nonprofit Third Manner, which helps nuclear power.
Native lawmakers, for his or her half, have proven optimism over Paducah doubtlessly taking part in a pivotal role in the future of AI and power within the US. Normal Matter’s $1.5 billion proposed project in Paducah is meant to create 140 jobs, according to Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY).
“Only a few years in the past, the thought of Kentucky main the subsequent wave of nuclear power growth might have appeared formidable,” Sen. Danny Carroll (R-KY) wrote in an op-ed within the Lexington Herald-Chief. “Paducah is once more on the heart of America’s nuclear future.”
