Utah to apply with feds for a nuclear campus in remote Tooele County

Miles down a dusty dirt road — near a small cattle farm and dirt bike trails criss crossing the remote, barren desert in northwest Tooele County — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and other state and local leaders gathered to mark another milestone in their race to make Utah the “energy capital of the world.” 

With a mountain range separating it from the Great Salt Lake to the east, the area was so remote that Cox, when he started Friday’s news conference standing in front of a big American flag, jokingly told attendees: “You’re not lost. You’re at the right place.”

He alongside Tooele County leaders announced that they plan to apply with the U.S. Department of Energy as a potential host of a “nuclear lifecycle innovation campus.”

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If federal officials accept Utah’s proposal, the campus could entail hundreds of acres of land devoted to facilities for “fuel fabrication, enrichment, reprocessing used nuclear fuel, and disposition of waste,” according to a request for information the Department of Energy issued in January inviting states to volunteer. 

“Depending on state priorities and regional capabilities, the sites could also host advanced reactor deployment, power generation, advanced manufacturing, and co-located data centers,” the DOE said in a news release announcing the request for information. 

If the federal government accepts Utah as a host, Cox said “the goal will be very simple: strengthen American energy security, reduce reliance on foreign-controlled supply chains, and build the safest, most complete nuclear energy ecosystem in the country, right here in the state of Utah.” 

Utah and Tooele County officials are nearly done drafting their application, but the specifics of their proposal have not yet been filed with the federal government. 

“We haven’t finalized our proposal yet,” Cox said, telling reporters “stay tuned, because those are conversations that are ongoing.” He said the state is “about a week away” from submitting it.

Emy Lesofski, energy adviser to the governor and director of the Utah Office of Energy Development, told reporters that state leaders are eyeing a wide swath of “thousands” of acres in the remote area of northwest Tooele County as an ideal location to pitch to the federal government for the potential campus. 

She said the land being considered is owned by Utah’s Trust Lands Administration, a state agency that manages a portfolio of trust lands for the purpose of generating revenue to benefit public schools and other state beneficiaries. 

Lesofski said Utah leaders are confident in the state’s chances, but it will also likely be competing with other states including South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi and maybe Texas. 

“Realistically, we’re the crossroads of the West. We’re centrally located. We’ve got all of the pieces, from an infrastructure perspective that help connect us across our region,” she said. “We’re the whole package, guys.” 

Lesofski predicted that federal officials will move quickly to evaluate proposals from Utah and other states. She guessed the decision will come within six months — or sooner — because “there’s a sense of urgency to get it right and to get moving on it, because it is so important from a geopolitical perspective, from a national security perspective.” 

Why pitch a location in the West Desert?

State leaders held Friday’s news conference in the remote area about eight miles west of the tiny, desert ghost town of Delle north of I-80, which is mostly visited by dirt bikers. It’s about 55 miles west of the Salt Lake City International Airport and about 65 miles east of Wendover on the Nevada border.  

The area in Tooele County, Cox said, is “uniquely suited for an innovation campus.” 

“The geology, the arid climate, existing infrastructure, distance from major population centers and some of the very best people on planet Earth, make it one of the most practical locations for this kind of work,” he said. 

Cox told reporters the Tooele County leaders “really stepped up, they came to us” to volunteer. Even though he said they eyed other counties, state leaders see Tooele County as having all of the needed puzzle pieces for a successful application with the DOE. 

“Being somewhat remote is a positive thing, but (so is) having access to a major metropolitan area,” he said. “We’re going to need a lot of workers, and they need to live somewhere. So Tooele County is a great place for that; Salt Lake as well.” 

Cox added that “you need rail access close by as well, and we have a lot of rail access out here.” Plus, he said “you’re going to need power lines and transmission lines, (and) they have a lot of transmission available out here.” 

“It just kind of checks every single box that we could need for a campus,” he said. “There were other places that we could have gone, but we thought this met all of the requirements that the DOE was looking for.” 

Lesofski said it’s tough to pin down exactly how many jobs a campus of this nature could bring to Utah, but she said it would likely bring well north of 10,000. 

Cox said the potential economic impact is also tough to determine this early, but he said a rough estimate of $50 billion in investment could come to the state. He said it’s possible it could be on par with Hill Air Force Base in Davis County, which generates “billions and billions of dollars every single year” and supports thousands of jobs.  

‘Utah is choosing energy abundance’

Cox said Utah is eager to get into nuclear energy because “right now America is at a defining moment.” 

“The question for all of us is do we build or do we continue to fall behind? Do we compete to win or do we retreat?” Cox said. “At the center of this moment is a fundamental choice: energy abundance or energy decline. Today, Utah is choosing energy abundance.” 

Energy, he said, “is the foundation of a strong economy and a high quality of life.” 

“If we want Utah to remain a place where families can succeed and businesses can grow, energy must be reliable, it must be affordable, and it must be available when we need it,” he said, which is the “entire purpose” behind an initiative his office launched nearly two years ago called Operation Gigawatt to double the state’s power production over the next 10 years.

“As I’ve said many times, if you are serious about energy abundance, you have to be serious about nuclear energy,” Cox said. 

For decades, he said the U.S. has fallen behind other countries including China when it comes to nuclear power, “and that has consequences.”

“This is not just about electricity,” he said. “It is about economic strength, industrial capacity, and whether America leads in the technologies that will define our country for the next century.

‘Safety is non-negotiable’

Repeatedly throughout Friday’s news conference, Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson emphasized that modern nuclear energy development is “safe.” Henderson said during a delegation trip to the United Kingdom last year, she visited multiple sites for fuel processing and fuel production, “and there were towns, communities, play grounds, right next to these facilities.” 

“The community had just grown up around it,” she said. “And it just demonstrated to me that the technologies, the advancements that have come, are so safe that there are communities throughout the world that love having facilities next to them. They’re good community partners. They’re places where people work. They live around them. And we’re really excited to be part of that in the state of Utah.” 

Nuclear energy, Cox said, “should not be controversial.” He said it offers “something very few resources can: reliable around-the-clock power with a small land footprint and extremely low emissions.” He added that it’s water efficient — which could benefit efforts to save the shrinking Great Salt Lake. 

“If we’re serious about saving the Great Salt Lake, we have to be serious about how we produce energy,” he said. “Technologies that use less water directly support the long term health of the lake. That is part of the opportunity that lies before us.” 

The governor also said the U.S. has been generating nuclear power, creating nuclear fuel and storing it for decades, and “safety is non-negotiable.” 

“Developing a safe, secure location for consolidated fuel management — building on decades of safe storage in this country while improving efficiency — is critical to advancing our nation’s energy dominance,” Cox said. “That is how you build energy dominance, and we’re going to do it right here in the state of Utah.” 

By hosting a “nuclear lifecycle innovation campus,” Utah could play a part in the effort to modernize the nation’s “full nuclear fuel cycle” and position the U.S. to be a leader in advanced nuclear energy, Cox said.

“Used nuclear fuel still contains about 95% of its original energy potential,” he said. “With the right technologies, we can actually recycle that fuel and use it again and again to generate more power, getting far more value out of the same resource.” 

France, Cox said, has been “safely recycling used fuel using technologies that we invented right here” in the U.S. 

“It’s time to reclaim our technologies and use them for our benefit, our communities, and to protect our natural resources,” he said. 

Tooele County Council Chair Jared Hamner applauded the proposal, which has support from the Tooele County Council and the Tooele County Chamber of Commerce. 

“Today’s announcement is the beginning of a process, not an end to one,” Hamner said, adding that county officials will “work closely” with federal and state officials and the community to “get this right. … No shortcuts. We will not compromise on safety. We will not compromise on the environment.” 

Legislation to pave the way 

Cox signed three bills earlier this week aimed at positioning Utah as a player for national nuclear energy development. He ceremoniously signed them again during Friday’s news conference to highlight them. They included:

• SB135, which authorized the Utah Office of Energy Development to coordinate with public and private entities for nuclear fuel recycling facility development — as well as to specifically “pursue development of a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus.” 
• HB78, which established the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Office within the state’s Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control, while enabling the director of the office to enter into cooperative agreements with federal agencies. 
• SCR1, a resolution expressing Utah’s support for nuclear energy development, as well as the state’s intent to work with federal officials to pursue “state status for additional elements of the nuclear fuel cycle.”