LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For several years now, nuclear power has been trying to make a comeback in the U.S. The Biden administration liked nuclear's low-carbon footprint, and President Trump has cited nuclear as part of his plan to, quote, "unleash American energy." All of this is adding pressure to the decades-long effort to find a place to store the radioactive waste U.S. nuclear power plants produce. Scott Franz with member station KUNC has more.
SCOTT FRANZ, BYLINE: The Wild Goose is a cozy coffee shop tucked inside an old grain elevator in the tiny town of Hayden in sparsely populated northwest Colorado. A coal-fired power plant towering over this community is closing soon, and people are urgently pondering Hayden's future.
TAMMIE DELANEY: There's a lot of great minds working together to figure some of the impacts out because the impacts are huge.
FRANZ: Tammie Delaney and her husband, Patrick, own this gathering spot, and they're trying to help their town transition. They recently converted old grain warehouses into short-term rentals and a hip wine bar. But last fall, the Delaneys started hearing about a much bigger idea - replacing the dying coal industry with nuclear energy. Patrick is intrigued.
PATRICK DELANEY: There's a lot of great things about nuclear power. It's efficient. It's on. I mean, a pellet the size of your thumbnail has the same energy content as a thousand pounds of coal. It's amazing.
FRANZ: But they also have concerns. To help facilitate the push for nuclear energy, an economic development group here is floating the idea of building a temporary storage site for the radioactive spent fuel produced by U.S. nuclear power plants. Large concrete and steel canisters of the spent fuel would be loaded on specially reinforced trucks and trains and brought to a warehouse far from people. It wouldn't be in Hayden, but the Delaneys fear regional impacts.
P DELANEY: Obviously, a lot of concerns with transporting nuclear waste by rail.
FRANZ: Right now, nuclear plants store their waste on site. The federal government has been trying to find a single place for them to send it since 1970. In 2021, Congress set aside money to identify places that might be open to building a temporary storage site. An economic development group here looking for something to replace the coal industry responded. Last fall, it introduced the concept at a series of low-key meetings. Matt Solomon is the project manager.
MATT SOLOMON: There's an opportunity to set up a whole new energy-related industry in this region of our state and secure some of the jobs, some of the homes and the families in this area.
FRANZ: A few months ago, Solomon's group won a federal grant to start local discussions about maybe siting an interim waste storage facility here.
SOLOMON: It's not "The Simpsons" with bubbling green fluid. It's concrete casks with eraser tip pieces of metal that are cooling down.
FRANZ: Other grantees include Oak Ridge, Tennessee, eastern Kentucky and Carlsbad, New Mexico. It's early. Solomon's talks are just getting started, but the waste storage idea is getting mixed reactions deep in Colorado's coal country.
Sasha Nelson is driving me around her small hometown of Craig that's also losing a coal-fired power plant. Her job is to help the area transition away from coal. She calls the talks about nuclear development critical to assess the options for the future, but...
SASHA NELSON: It would break my heart if because of our remoteness, we're a, you know, waste disposal area.
FRANZ: The U.S. Department of Energy is asking communities that want to keep talking about hosting a temporary waste site to say so this fall. It hopes to open a facility by 2038.
For NPR News, I'm Scott Franz.
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