The US Department of Energy (DOE) has signed a lease with General Matter for the reuse of a 100-acre parcel of federal land at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant for a new private-sector domestic uranium enrichment facility. DOE said General Matter’s construction is expected to begin in 2026 with uranium enrichment operations planned for 2034. The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, closed in 2013, was built by the federal government in the 1950s to boost national defence efforts and later generated fuel for NPPs.
The lease provides General Matter with a minimum of 7,600 cylinders of existing uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to supply fuel for future re-enrichment operations. Reprocessing of uranium hexafluoride saves the American taxpayer about $800m in avoided disposal costs. General Matter benefits from a consistent supply of US-origin uranium hexafluoride feed suitable for re-enrichment.
“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. “The administration’s commitment to reducing barriers for American energy development is enabling the Office of Environmental Management to transform liabilities into opportunities, unleashing American energy, supporting national security and enabling U.S. innovation and jobs.”
General Matter is one of four companies DOE selected in October 2024 to provide enrichment services for the establishment of a US supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). DOE says building domestic supply chains is critical to the reshoring and domestic expansion of energy for advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence data centres. DOE said this privately funded nuclear fuel reprocessing is critical to national security reactors, commercial power reactors and research reactors.
The lease was signed in western Kentucky against a backdrop of containers holding depleted tails of uranium hexafluoride – some covered in rust. California-based startup General Matter, with ties to billionaire Peter Thiel, plans to build a proposed $1.5bn facility on the leased land. The company said it “evaluated more than 1,000 potential locations across 11 states before selecting Paducah, citing its strategic infrastructure, skilled workforce, and strong state and local support”.
General Matter CEO Scott Nolan said his company hopes to end America’s reliance on imported uranium, which has been steadily increasing since the 1980s. “We’re going to reverse that. We’re going to start a rebirth of enrichment in the US, here in Paducah, here on this land behind us,” Nolan said.
Nolan said that the 7,600 UF cylinders, which were part of the lease, would not be his company’s primary supply but “a supplement”, if necessary, to feedstock supplied by other providers in the nuclear fuel cycle industry. These include ConverDyn, a uranium supplier based across the river from Paducah at the Honeywell Uranium Hexafluoride Processing Facility in Metropolis, Illinois, and others.
General Matter plans to pursue Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing for enrichment, although Nolan did not specify the enrichment method General Matter plans to use. He said General Matter plans to begin “mass-manufacturing” hardware and doing construction on the site in 2026.
“The goal is absolutely this decade, and as soon as we can. So we’re going to be moving as quickly as we can. You know, obviously, with quality and safety in mind as the primary things,” he said. “But we think that these things are not at odds. You can move quickly and have extremely high quality [and] extremely high safety, and that’s our goal.” Nolan said his goal is to enrich uranium before 2030, although the DOE specified that operations are planned to begin in 2034.
General Matter is receiving $14m in tax breaks from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority based on its projected investment and meeting targets, including creating 140 jobs across 15 years with an average hourly wage of $64, including benefits.
Speaking at the General Matter ground-breaking ceremony at the Paducah Site, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said the project marks the start of a new chapter in the state’s leadership when it comes to energy, bringing the DOE site “back to life”. Members of Kentucky’s congressional delegation, who attended the ceremony, also highlighted the event’s importance, including senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul and Congressman Jamie Comer. “We’ve got a Department of Energy now that’s focused on a new energy economy, a practical, common sense energy economy that is an all-of-the-above portfolio,” said Comer. “You can’t have economic development without energy.”
McConnell, who had advocated for the Paducah site to become one of four selected by the DOE for a potential artificial intelligence data centre and energy project, said the ground-breaking was “about the future” He added: “That’s why we’re here, and sooner or later, I think America will understand that domestic use of nuclear energy is the way forward.”
Paducah’s operations left behind hazardous, radioactive, mixed (both hazardous and radioactive), and non-chemical (sanitary) waste. Over several decades, officials carried out $2.5bn in environmental remediation, addressing soil, groundwater and surface water contamination, to prepare the site for reindustrialisation.
“Paducah embraced the nuclear age 75 years ago,” said Paducah Mayor George Bray, “and now, as the country embraces safe and clean nuclear energy to help meet the power demands of the future, the General Matter project validates the importance of the Department of Energy site in Paducah.”
