Tennessee could take more nuclear waste through federal partnership

Tennessee could take more nuclear waste through federal partnership

Mariah Franklin

Knoxville News Sentinel

April 1, 2026, 5:07 a.m. ET

Tennessee's leaders are weighing a plan that could mean more nuclear waste is stored in the Volunteer State.

State lawmakers might ask Gov. Bill Lee to answer a federal request for information about hosting what the U.S. Department of Energy is calling Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses in Tennessee.

The campuses, or sites, could mean a few things in practice, according to the energy department:

• They could be used for nuclear fuel fabrication. That's something TRISO-X in Oak Ridge is working on with a new facility.
• The sites could be used for enrichment. Orano, which announced a major East Tennessee investment in 2024, has federal support meant to help it fuel its enrichment work.
• The campuses could be used for reprocessing work. Oklo, a firm with East Tennessee ties, aims to build the country's only nuclear fuel reprocessing center in Oak Ridge.

And the sites also could be used for nuclear waste disposition. Tennessee is historically a leader in nuclear development. Nuclear waste is also a part of that history.

The sites could create "safe and compliant disposal solutions" on temporary nuclear fuel storage or reprocessed nuclear fuel, along with "permanent final disposition," the energy department said in its request for information.

Managers would be required to plan for what happens after the site is taken offline.

"This action marks the first step towards potentially establishing voluntary Federal-State partnerships designed to advance regional economic growth, enhance national energy security, and build a coherent, end-to-end nuclear energy strategy for the country," the federal department said in a January announcement. "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 plans that states produce for these sites, the department hopes, will be led by private businesses. But Tennessee's plans might come too late for the energy department.

Why Tennessee lawmakers are interested in the federal government's request

Tennessee state senators on March 30 were set to ask the Lee administration to make the state's case in the form of a resolution from Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, an Oak Ridge Republican.

Lee would need to include in the state's response Tennessee's level of interest in hosting a campus, potential sites, potential private partners and public concerns, among other information.

"Tennessee is, by any measure, the most prepared state in the Union to host a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus," McNally said in the resolution. Knox News reached out to McNally's press secretary about the proposal but did not receive a reply.

If Tennessee got the nod from the federal government, the new site - or sites - could generate $50 billion in private investment and create thousands of jobs, according to state Sen. Ken Yager, a Republican who represents counties including Campbell, Morgan, Roane and Scott. Yager, who's listed as a co-sponsor on the resolution, said during a March committee meeting that a new federal partnership would mark a victory for a state with a long nuclear history and a strong interest in moving forward with new nuclear projects.

It could also boost employment numbers for the nuclear industry, according to the energy department.

Tennessee is home to a multibillion-dollar private nuclear industry and the headquarters for the nation's largest public utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority. TVA operates two nuclear plants in Tennessee, and both store nuclear waste on-site.

There's also low-level radioactive waste buried in Oak Ridge landfills.

New nuclear projects slated for East Tennessee include Oklo's reprocessing plant and next-gen reactors from TVA and companies like Kairos Power.

More nuclear reactors mean more nuclear waste. But Tennessee can handle the full nuclear fuel lifecycle, according to McNally. Government officials, from individual legislators like Yager to Lee in the governor's mansion, have routinely expressed support for Tennessee's nuclear development. No lawmaker in the meeting at which Yager discussed the resolution commented on it during the hearing, and the committee voted unanimously to send it to the full Senate.

McNally's plans prompt pushback

McNally's ask hit what could be a temporary roadblock March 30.

His resolution was set to move through the General Assembly as part of the Senate's consent calendar ‒ a list of items that aren't expected to spark debate or disagreement. But Sen. Heidi Campbell, a Nashville Democrat, requested that the resolution be pulled from the consent calendar. The resolution is now due for a reset April 2, a day past the federal deadline for a response.

Campbell said she asked for a vote on the resolution because the possibility of a new nuclear waste site in Tennessee alarmed her and prompted questions she felt needed answers.

"It slipped through without a lot of conversation," she said by phone.

She's concerned, she said, that Tennessee is being asked to take on the burden of dealing with the nation's nuclear waste and that the benefits of nuclear development might not truly improve life for Tennesseans.

It's unclear whether McNally will move forward with the resolution, which wouldn't pass until after the deadline for a response, or if the state will seek to work with the federal government on the sites in some other form.

And the state legislature isn't required to sign off if Lee were to submit a response. A spokesperson for Lee did not respond to questions about the administration's interest in the proposal.

The nuclear enthusiasm of many state lawmakers is a mirror image of the federal government's. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2025 saying he aims to quadruple U.S. nuclear power by 2050.

But the nuclear lifecycle campus proposal has raised alarms among some environmental groups.

Stephen Smith is the executive director of the Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. He said there've been too few details released about a proposal for what could include a dumping ground for toxic and radioactive waste. Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is associated with a huge waste stream, he said.

Smith said his organization would "strongly encourage" the governor to decline the Senate's request.

If they don't, he said, the nuclear lifecycle innovation campus site "will become a high-level radioactive waste dump, and this waste will likely never leave."

"I don't want to be a student at that campus," he said.

In the U.S., federal law requires that the government consider only Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel. So, if Tennessee were selected to gain a site responsible for nuclear waste, it would in theory play host temporarily. The government selected Yucca Mountain as a permanent storage site decades ago, but Nevada officials have opposed the move politically and through litigation. No permanent storage site yet exists.

So power plants store spent nuclear fuel on-site.

The idea for the nuclear lifecycle innovation campus is similar to a plan the energy department put forward decades ago, Smith said.

The Monitored Retrievable Storage Facility system was designed as part of the government's plans for permanent disposal of the United States' high-level radioactive waste.

The facility would have accepted spent fuel from commercial nuclear plants and stored the fuel above ground before it was sent away for permanent disposal.

Mariah Franklin reports on technology and energy for Knox News. Email: mariah.franklin@knoxnews.com. Signal: mariahfranklin.01