These days, Paduka, Kentki – Population 27,000 and National Quilt Museum Home – Proud of itself as a “quilt city”. But decades ago, it was also called “Nuclear city” – A monin can achieve it soon because AI’s energy is needed. Paduka’s atomic past brought back to life.
Department of Energy (DoE) operated Uranium enrichment plant in Paduka For more than 60 years until the plant closes in 2013 amid the recession in nuclear power. The same year, Paduka was nominated UNESCO “Creative City” For its quilt, a title it now covers on its website (with a city -led initiative to make Paduka more “thoughtful and kind”).
Today, the enrichment facility is again in the headlines after Peter Theal-supported startup Announced Plan to revive closed plant. In July, Donald Trump’s administration also Paduka is chosen as one of the four sites Where it states that this AI will partner with private companies to develop data centers and energy projects.
Big Tech – thirsty for enough electricity to give strength to your AI ambitions – wants to reinforce nuclear power. All this is playing in the plan of Trump administration to remake the American power grid without solar and wind energy. If they manage to revive nuclear power in the US, the US requires more rich uranium. And this supply chain can also bring major changes to small cities like Paduka.
Big Tech – thirsty for enough electricity to give strength to your AI ambitions – wants to calm nuclear power again
The general case emerged from secret mode earlier this year led by former SpaceX Engineer Scott Nolan. Peter Theal, who cofked Paple and Datamining Company Palantir, who is selling software to Trump administration Survey people who go to America, General Matter joined the boardAnd nolan Standing in an oval office with Trump on 23 May As he signed executive orders With the aim of entering “a nuclear power renaissance”.
In the August 5 incident in Paduka, General Matter shared details about his vision for convenience. It states that it will develop what it assumes on the country’s first American-owned, privately developed uranium enrichment facility “and has signed” a multi-decade, one hundred acres lease “with DOE. Normal case has planned to enrich uranium in Paduka by the end of the decade and “Producing fuel required for the next generation of nuclear power, AI, manufacturing and other important industries for the US aspirations in manufacturing and other important industries, according to” A. ” Statement on X(A Doe press release It is said that the enrichment operation is not planned up to 2034, however, and that construction has been slated to start in 2026.)
This does not answer some important questions about the company’s plans. (Normal case did not respond to many emails Ruckus.) Will the company rely on the same old technology that the closed plant has always done something new or has created something new? If it plans to recreate the facility with modern technology, does it plan to produce the same low-rich uranium that runs on the existing nuclear reactors of the US, or does it feel that it may be one of the first plants to produce more rich uranium (called (called called Haleu) For advanced reactors? Answers to those questions will define how ambitious it is actually for a project, and it can have an impact on the power grid across the US. Recently the DOE press release states that General Matter is one of the four companies which is one of the four companies selected in October last year. To provide enrichment services for Heleu, Although do also Announced the plan to contract General case for low -rich uranium in December.
The enhancement in the atomic supply chain is only one step, and is like a headache. Uranium is first to be mined and milled. Naturally occurring uranium is a low level of isotopes U-235 that nuclear fragmentation reactor is divided to release energy. Uranium has to be converted into gas and then enriched in about 5 percent concentration of U-235 to create fuel for a traditional reactor. Following a surge in nuclear power plants manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s, however, the industry lost ground for power -powered power plants at low cost. Nuclear reactors and uranium enrichment plants were closed across the US.
But now, the opposite is happening. Microsoft and Meta have made deals in the last one year to revive the old reactors. Other technical giants including Amazon and Google have committed to supporting advanced reactors, which are considered small, easy and cheaper to make – potentially resolving many problems that have disturbed the atomic power industry over the years, if they are eventually proving that these technologies are going to be able to perform on commercial scale.
All of this is increasing the demand for uranium enhancement, which is now seen as an important bottleneck in the nuclear power supply chain. Normal case is not the only operation that demands to enrich uranium in Paduka. Doe has made a deal With another company called Global Laser Enforcement (GLE) since 2016, to sell the remaining tails, eliminated uranium, from years of masses for nuclear weapons and reactors on the site. GLE is developing a new way to enrich uranium using lasers, which are considered to be sufficient to re -apply uranium tail to re -fuel to make fuel. Similarly, the normal substance is planning to regenerate uranium tail in Paduka, According to the DOE press release, However, we still do not know what kind of technology will be used to do so.
Laser technology has yet been used to enrich uranium on commercial scale. In the last decade, there was no adequate demand for more uranium enrichment capacity to proceed in the US, Neema Ashkabsi, the vice president of government relations and communications in the GLE. Then Russia – a leading supplier for nuclear fuel globally – attacked Ukraine, and In 2024And the US stopped the import of uranium from Russia. GLE applied for a license in June, eventually re -acquiring digated uranium tales on a site adjacent to the Paduka plant, and expects to listen to the Atomic Regulatory Commission in about 18 months.
If all go well, GLE plans to run its convenience by 2030, so it can begin to make less rich uranium used by the existing nuclear reactors. If one of at least one advanced reactors makes it for commercial operations, Ashkabusi says that it would be a market indication that it can start producing a more high rich uranium (called Haleu) That the next generation reactors are needed. For now, only Russia has the ability to produce commercially in Haleyu. But already, data centers and AI have been a major driver in strengthening nuclear energy, the hallway explains The verge ,We see that as a big growth ability, “he says.
Both Biden and the Trump administration have worked towards resumption of the nuclear supply chain. Currently America has capacity Rich Atomic reactors of uranium are required. For the biden, nuclear power supported American climatic goals to reduce planetary heating pollution by infectioning away from fossil fuels in the power grid. Trump is We vandalize climate commitments And renewable energy projects, but still say that it is to play the role of nuclear power when it comes to ensure that American tech companies have enough electricity to dominate the AI market.
Paducah’s plan AI seems neatly fit in the view of the Trump administration, which is Issued Last month. In short, the plan involves rapid tracking the growth of energy-flesh data centers in combination with fossil fuels and nuclear power plants by limiting environmental reviews.
“It seems that their mentality is construction and production at all costs.”
Crowd to manufacture, especially the Trump administration together Environmental Protection Agency And Nuclear regulatory commissionWith these new projects how many inspections and community participation have been raised some flags. “I have no confidence what the administration is doing to protect public health and safety. It seems that their mentality is construction and production at all costs,” says Edwin Liman, director of nuclear power security in the union of the scientists concerned, which is important for environmental and safety risks, can pose nuclear power.
Nuclear power has been a divisive technique among people concerned about climate change and pollution. It is a carbon pollution-free source of electricity. But Grand Canyon has already sparked uranium mining Opposition from environmental advocates and Havasupai tribe On how it can affect the nearby communities and water sources, which they trust. And the federal government has so far resolved decades of decades, where the nuclear reactors have to store radioactive waste.
Connecting those concerns, the Trump administration wants to construct on federal land and even reproduce superfund sites polluted for all this infrastructure. Closed enrichment plant in Paducah is the only superfund siteWhich means that it is in the list of places which are so contaminated that the environmental protection agency has stepped into priority to their cleanliness. This heritage indicates disadvantages and obstacles that policy makers and companies will have to try to escape nuclear power to bring back to the small town USA.
Despite whatever is happening with the Trump administration, it is a large -scale bilateral venture about uranium enrichment. There is a lot of support for this. I think it really has a lot of speed to correct it, “non -profitable third way says senior policy advisor for nuclear power.
Local MPs, for their share, have shown optimism to play potentially on Paduka Important role in the future of AI And energy in America. Common matter $ 1.5 billion proposed project There are 140 jobs in Paduka, According to Kentaki Governor Andy Aashiyar (KK),
“A few years ago, the idea of Kentki’s idea may seem ambitious to lead the next wave of nuclear power development,” Sen Danny Carol (R-KY) has written in one OP-Ed In Lakesington Herald-Leader“Paduka is again at the center of America’s nuclear future center.”
