The US Department of Energy Approves a $100 Billion Plan to Transform Nuclear Contaminated Sites into 1.8GW Data Centers

According to foreign media reports, the US Department of Energy has approved a $100 billion plan to transform an old uranium enrichment plant in Paduiuka, Kentucky into a large new data center campus. This move was made after the Department of Energy announced last year that it would open more than ten federally owned sites for data centers and nuclear energy development.

The park will be located at the Paduiuka site owned by the Department of Energy, which was once the site of the Paduiuka gas diffusion plant and was listed as a Superfund site due to radioactive waste contamination. The Superfund site is a land managed by the US Environmental Protection Agency for the remediation of hazardous pollutants.

Tim Walsh, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management at the Department of Energy, stated in a statement: “We are committed to finding ways for the American people to restore federal land to productive use. This commitment is at the core of our ‘American Energy Hub’ program – increasing affordable energy, leading global AI innovation, developing local economies, and fulfilling our obligation to restore and revitalize communities. “

Asset management company and developer Brookfield, energy infrastructure company NextEra Energy, Big Rivers Power Company, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative, and Paducah Power System have all participated in the plan to transform the site into a 1.8GW AI and high-performance computing workload data center park. As part of the Padiuka project, NextEra Energy will utilize natural gas to provide 2GW of new power generation capacity and deploy up to 2.6GW of battery storage to support the operation of the new park. The work on this site is expected to be completed by 2031.

Reconstruction efforts

Padiyuka is one of the 16 sites announced by the Department of Energy last year to be open for AI infrastructure and energy development. The other sites are located in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. Seven of the venues are listed as super fund venues.

Earlier this month, the Department of Energy selected Amentum and DC Blox to transform the Savannah River site in South Carolina into a 1GW data center park, equipped with 2GW of on-site power generation capacity, including natural gas and nuclear energy. Savannah River is another location designated as a Superfund site due to nuclear pollution.

In March of this year, the Department of Energy announced that the Portsmouth gas diffusion plant in Ohio would develop 10 GW of new power generation capacity to support the construction of new data centers. The project is executed by SoftBank Group and SB Energy, and has received $33.3 billion in Japanese funding for 9.2GW of natural gas power generation. Like Padiuka, the Portsmouth site was previously used for uranium enrichment. Portsmouth is not a super fund venue, but its lead cleanup work is tracked by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Padiuka site was built in 1952 for the production of enriched uranium. In 1988, the site was found to be contaminated, leading to the start of restoration work in 1989. The facility was leased for commercial uranium enrichment between 1993 and 2013. The restoration and retirement work has been ongoing until now.

The efforts of the Department of Energy are part of the growing trend of data center developers targeting commercially unfavorable sites to construct new parks. Last year, Fierce Network reported plans to transform the old Homer City coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania into a natural gas powered data center campus. In 2024, Fierce Network also reported in detail on the Energy Department’s plan to transform old coal-fired power plants into data center development.