Note to readers • This story has been updated to reflect that Utah Energy and the state propose building a facility to manufacture equipment used in the enrichment of uranium at Camp Williams. Utah Energy previously said it proposed building an enrichment facility on the site.
Utah is looking to build a facility that would manufacture equipment needed to enrich uranium on the Wasatch Front.
State officials on Thursday announced a proposed agreement between the Utah National Guard, the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) and Utah Energy, a subsidiary of California-based startup General Matter, to build the facility at Camp Williams, a Utah National Guard site in Bluffdale.
Drew DeWalt, a co-founder of Utah Energy, said at a news conference Thursday the proposed facility “would accept uranium, process it, and then send uranium out,” a process called enrichment. Enriching, or concentrating, uranium is an essential step in making nuclear fuel.
Then, on Friday, a spokesperson for Utah Energy said “at this time, our discussions are focused on manufacturing the hardware that is used in enrichment facilities at other locations, not the actual enrichment process.”
But Utah state leaders said they hope Camp Williams will be home to an enrichment facility — eventually.
The proposed manufacturing facility at Camp Williams “will lead to additional opportunities, including the exploration of nuclear enrichment within Utah,” said Joel Ferry, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, in a Friday statement.
If the facility is built at Camp Williams, its revenues will help fund other Utah National Guard projects, said Ariana Farber, MIDA’s deputy director. Those projects could include an aviation facility in southern Utah and wildfire response across the state, she added.
DeWalt stressed that the agreement is currently just a proposal. “This isn’t a done deal,” he said. “This is the start of a lot of engagement and a lot of work that we’ll need to do over the coming months and years.”
An enrichment facility at Camp Williams, if built, would be just the second in the country.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Creating nuclear fuel for reactors starts with the mining and milling of uranium, both of which already take place in Utah. The state is home to the last conventional uranium mill in the country, the White Mesa Mill in Blanding, which takes uranium ore from mines (including in Utah) and processes it into a more concentrated form, commonly called yellowcake.
From there, yellowcake is converted into uranium hexafluoride gas. The only conversion facility in the U.S. is the Honeywell Uranium Hexafluoride Processing Facility, located in Illinois.
The next step before nuclear fuel fabrication is enrichment, which further concentrates the uranium. The National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, N.M., is the only such facility in the U.S.
DeWalt said Thursday that building a uranium enrichment facility in Utah will address national security concerns by filling a gap in the American nuclear supply chain.
About 20% of U.S. electricity comes from nuclear power, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. But “the fuel that goes in these reactors is almost entirely dependent on China and Russia,” DeWalt said.
Last year, former President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan law banning Russian uranium imports with the intent to “jumpstart new enrichment capacity in the United States and send a clear message to industry that we are committed to long-term growth in our nuclear sector,” then-U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement at the time.
Enriched uranium gas is already traveling through Salt Lake City on its way to a fuel fabrication facility in Washington, DeWalt said. “The benefit of Salt Lake City is that it’s in the middle of a lot of things.”
DeWalt said the proposed facility will not endanger surrounding communities. “The major risks are not to the public, but to our employees,” he said.
“Inherently,” DeWalt continued, “what we do is very safe, on top of the fact that we will be one of the most regulated things there is.”
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission would oversee the facility, if built. President Donald Trump last month ordered the NRC to “to reform its culture and realign its organization” by promoting nuclear power and speeding up its approval process for new nuclear reactors.
The Trump administration also recently greenlit the reopening of a uranium mine in southeastern Utah, the first project approved under a new 14-day environmental review process.
Thursday’s announcement comes on the heels of a string of agreements between Utah and nuclear energy companies. The surge in nuclear power projects aligns with “Operation Gigawatt,” a plan announced by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox last fall to double the state’s energy production within the next decade. The Utah Legislature this year approved $10 million for developing nuclear power infrastructure as part of that plan.
Cox last month announced a partnership with California nuclear startup Valar Atomics to bring a test reactor to the San Rafael Energy Research Center in Emery County. The Utah Office of Energy Development, since April, has signed memorandums of understanding with Battelle Energy, NuCube Energy, Hi Tech Solutions and Holtec International to potentially bring a host of nuclear projects to the state.
