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General Matter, a California-based company, said Aug. 5 it will build a $1.5 billion facility in Paducah at the U.S. Department of Energy’s former Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Once operational, it will employ 140 people and generate more than $70 million annually in regional economic impact, according to the company and the Greater Paducah Economic Development Council.

The company has signed a multi-decade lease with the Department of Energy for 100 acres and will begin construction next year.

The facility is about 20 miles as the crow flies from the Missouri border and about 40 from Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

There, General Matter will enrich uranium, a process that makes the heavy metal more concentrated to be a suitable form of fuel for nuclear power plants. The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, built by the federal government in the 1950s and shuttered in 2013, is one of the nation’s first and largest former enrichment facilities undergoing cleanup and other preparation for redevelopment.

In late July, the Department of Energy said it was considering the site to carry out the Trump administration’s plan to build the nation’s artificial intelligence infrastructure, including the energy sources necessary to power it.

Those announcements in tandem, along with support from all levels of government, creation of a nonregulatory board and a number of other policies — including lifting a moratorium on nuclear power plan construction — send a strong signal to data center companies and utility providers the Western Kentucky city is keen to welcome nuclear again.

“Together, we hope to make Paducah not just Atomic City of the past, but Atomic City of the future,� said General Matter CEO Scott Nolan at a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday.

“It’s here that we’re going to end today’s foreign reliance on uranium and enriched uranium from our adversaries. This is going to be a lot of hard work, but it’s going to be something we do this decade.�

Nolan envisions the project to “ultimately power the reactors that power AI (and) manufacturing.�

“All economic growth relies on energy,� he said.

Nolan alongside some of the city’s and state’s elected leaders stood at the site Tuesday in front of a concrete slab with endless rows of dark red and gray steel cylinders holding depleted uranium.

Some of the byproduct from the site’s previous operations will go back into its future enrichment, saving taxpayers $800 million in avoided disposal cost, said Roger Jarrell, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management principal deputy assistant secretary.

Nolan told the Herald-Leader General Matter is in discussions with a number of customers or utility partners. Those partners, Nolan said, could prospectively purchase uranium from General Matter that then does the enrichment service.

Some prospective partners are micro reactors and smaller modular reactors while others are “some of the largest utilities in nuclear,� he said.

Nolan was an early SpaceX engineer who then joined the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Founders Fund. General Matter originated from the firm, which was co-founded by Peter Theil who, Bloomberg reported, joined the General Matter board after the company launched.

Thiel founded PayPal and Palantir and was a prominent supporter of now President Donald Trump.

General Matter evaluated 1,000 sites in almost a dozen states before selecting Paducah for its appropriate infrastructure, available workforce and buy-in from community leaders, Greater Greater Paducah Economic Development President and CEO Bruce Wilcox said.

The investment, which Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear touted as “the largest single investment in the history of West Kentucky,� is personal for many Paducah residents.

“Our parents helped build it, my generation has taken part in the operation and now the decommissioning of it, and now, our children and grandchildren will have a chance to return not just to the site, but to take it into the future,� Wilcox said at a luncheon following the groundbreaking.

“It’s really more than a capital investment. This is about careers with real purpose. It’s about strong wages that support families. And it’s about the kind of life-changing, multi-generational opportunities that will help create and shape wealth for Paducah families for decades to come.�

Beshear said bringing the plant back to life and adding to a list of resources the state can provide is a unique narrative.

“Now, with America looking to supercharge emerging technologies like AI, once again, it’s us. It’s our commonwealth and our workforce that’s being asked to step up for this nation. This is the story of our Kentucky,� the two-term governor said. “The energy produced from our lands and from the sweat of our hard-working people help grow our nation into a global economic powerhouse.�

Kentucky’s Republican U.S. senators, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, said when members of the Paducah community, especially from its chamber of commerce, visit them in Washington, D.C., they’re engaged and often present facts and figures about investment, business strategy and lay out specific asks to make it happen.

The senators and 1st Congressional District Rep. James Comer said that helps move along bureaucratic processes and is what made Tuesday’s announcement possible.

“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,� Comer said. “We support wind and solar, we support obviously electric, but we’ve got to have more. It’s going to take more to fuel the data centers and to provide energy. You can’t have economic development without energy. ... I believe, with all my heart, that West Kentucky is going to be the energy capital of this new energy economy, and today is the first step.�

Comer said the groundbreaking was one of the first events in his time in office he remembers both senators, the governor and local officials gathering at once to celebrate getting a deal done. Beshear, who spoke last, agreed.

“None of this is possible without everybody pulling in the same direction, and that’s just doing right by our people,� he said. “... I really hope that everyone is excited about what we’re accomplishing together right now. There’s another CEO somewhere who’s looking at Kentucky, and with this type of team, one that puts our people first and politics second, third, or fourth, we can land that next investment here.�

McCracken County Judge-Executive Craig Clymer said with General Matter taking hold in Western Kentucky, the community now has answers to what were unanswered questions about what happens when a federal government project makes a town and then leaves it. For Paducah and McCracken County, Clymer said the community, and the site, have a renewed sense of purpose through future-focused, high tech employment, infrastructure investment and community wide economic development.

Paducah Mayor George Bray called the Western Kentucky city the epicenter of a 75-mile radius that includes parts of Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee. The city’s responsibility, he said, is to ensure the more than 150,000 people in Paducah on any given day are visiting a place where the quality of life is maintained and improving.

“We believe in this city that success is creating the environment for the enablement of projects like this,� Bray said. “Nobody can do it by themselves.�