- The DOE is betting a legacy nuclear site can become a $100B AI infrastructure hub
- The Paducah, Kentucky, project pairs a 1.8 GW data center campus with new gas power and massive battery storage
- The plan is part of a broader federal push to turn federal lands – including a number of Superfund sites – into data center and energy hubs
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) approved a $100 billion plan to redevelop an old uranium enrichment site in Paducah, Kentucky, into a massive new data center campus. The move comes after the DOE last year said it would open more than a dozen federally owned sites for data center and nuclear development.
The campus will sit on the DOE-owned Paducah Site, home of the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which became a listed Superfund site due to radioactive waste contamination. Superfund sites are pieces of land managed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to remediate hazardous contamination.
“We are intently focused on finding ways to put federal land back to productive use for the American people,” DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Tim Walsh said in a statement. “That commitment is at the heart our American Energy Hubs initiative to increase affordable energy, lead the globe in AI innovations, grow local economies, and fulfill our obligation to restore and revitalize communities.”
Asset management firm and developer Brookfield, energy infrastructure company NextEra Energy, Big Rivers Electric Power Corporation, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative and Paducah Power System are all party to the plan to turn the site into a 1.8 GW data center campus for AI and high-performance computing workloads.
As part of the Paducah project, NextEra Energy will tap natural gas to deliver 2 GW of new power generation and deploy up to 2.6 GW of battery storage to help run the new campus. Work on the site is expected to be completed in 2031.
Redevelopment efforts
The Paducah site is one of 16 the DOE said last year would open for AI infrastructure and energy development. The other sites are located in are located in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Washington.
Seven of the 16 locations are classified as Superfund sites.
Earlier this month, the DOE tapped Amentum and DC Blox to redevelop the Savanah River Site in South Carolina into a 1 GW data center campus with 2 GW of onsite power generation. The power generation will include natural gas and nuclear sources.
Savannah River is another Superfund site due to nuclear contamination.
In March, the DOE announced another of the listed sites – the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio – would be developed with 10 GW of new power generation to fuel new data center development. That project is being executed by SoftBank Group and SB Energy, with $33.3 billion in Japanese funding for 9.2 GW of new natural gas generation. Like Paducah, the Portsmouth site was previous used for uranium enrichment.
Portsmouth is not a Superfund site, but lead cleanup efforts there are tracked by the EPA.
The Paducah site was built in 1952 to produce enriched uranium. In 1988, contamination was discovered at the site, leading to the start of remediation efforts in 1989. The facility was leased from 1993-2013 for commercial uranium enrichment. Remediation and decommissioning efforts have continued through the present day.
The DOE's efforts are part of a growing trend of data center developers eyeing otherwise commercially undesirable plots for new campuses.
Last year, Fierce Network reported on plant to turn Pennsylvania's old Homer City coal plant into a natural-gas powered data center campus. In 2024, we also detailed the DOE's quest to turn old coal plants into data center developments, featuring an interview with one of the people working on such a project.
Check out what Energy DELTA Lab's Will Clear told us about the pros and cons of working with these kinds of sites right here.
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