The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes a provision offering a 10% bonus tax credit to urban areas with significant nuclear-related employment.
Resources for the Future, a Washington D.C.-based research institution, reports that the fine print effectively excludes small cities like Gillette and Kemmerer, Wyoming, from qualifying as “nuclear energy communities,” despite both actively courting significant nuclear industry development.
"Any place that is outside of a metropolitan statistical area will not be eligible for this 10% bonus tax credit, and that includes most of Wyoming," said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future — an independent non-profit research institution in Washington D.C.
"That means that developers looking to build new advanced nuclear reactors or other kinds of energy technologies, including advanced geothermal, probably won't be eligible for that bonus credit even in parts of Wyoming that are active in developing nuclear energy and its supply chains,” Raimi said.
The legislation defines qualifying nuclear energy communities as metropolitan statistical areas with "0.17% or greater direct employment related to the advancement of nuclear power.”
That includes employment in advanced nuclear facilities, research and development, fuel cycle operations and component manufacturing.
Campbell County, home to Gillette, and Lincoln County, where Kemmerer is starting to boom, are not metropolitan statistical areas under federal definitions.
While Casper and Cheyenne qualify as metropolitan areas, it remains unclear whether they have sufficient nuclear-related employment to meet the threshold.
Complicating matters, Raimi noted that federal employment data doesn't exist for many of the job categories the law specifies.
"The law talks about nuclear power plant construction jobs, but there's no federal data that will tell you how many jobs there are in nuclear power plant construction in Lincoln County or Campbell County or any other county in the United States," Raimi said. "So, it's not clear to me how the IRS is going to even decide which places are going to be eligible based on that employment criteria."
Gillette Qualified?
Rusty Bell, CEO of Energy Capital Economic Development in Gillette and an advisory board member of the Resilient Energy Economies Initiative — a program run by Resources for the Future and several universities — sees significant potential for his community in nuclear industry manufacturing and supply chains.
Gillette is home to L&H Industrial, which has announced significant investment and growth in Wyoming’s nuclear industry.
"Makes just tons of sense," Bell told Cowboy State Daily. "The manufacturing, the supply chain of parts and pieces for nuclear, that is an absolute no-brainer."
Bell emphasized that Wyoming's potential in the nuclear industry extends beyond future reactor sites to include uranium mining, along with fuel and reactor manufacturing.
"We have NDAs with different companies that we can't speak about,” said Bell, describing interest in Gillette from companies across the nuclear industry.
“We can't speak about those things. It has to do with property acquisition, with confidentiality of the company that's coming and those kinds of things,” said Bell, who stressed the importance of distinguishing between different types of nuclear enterprises.
For Wyoming residents, he said there’s a big difference between a manufacturing plant and any kind of nuclear waste storage.
"I think it depends on what the definition of nuclear community is, because if it's talking about a nuclear community being (someplace) that stores spent fuel, that might be much different than a nuclear community that hosts a manufacturer that manufactures something like TRISO fuel or manufactures parts and pieces for SMR (Small Modular Reactor) assembly,” he said. “It’s a very sensitive topic for a lot of people.”
TRISO fuel (tri-structural isotropic fuel) is an advanced type of nuclear fuel composed of tiny particles about the size of a poppy seed.
Each particle contains a core fuel kernel, uranium compounds like uranium oxycarbide, which is coated with multiple ceramic and carbon layers.
BWX Technologies continues to explore the possibility of building a TRISO fuel fabrication facility in Wyoming.
Infrastructure Challenges
Mayor Robert Bowen of Kemmerer, where TerraPower plans to build an advanced nuclear reactor, took time from a dinosaur dig in South Dakota last week to discuss his town's infrastructure needs — though he wasn't familiar with the specific “nuclear energy communities” tax credits.
"Any other small community is going to be in the same situation," Bowen said. "All of our infrastructure is aging. We all need help at some level."
The infrastructure challenges are already forcing difficult decisions. One major housing development had to go back to the drawing board due to rising costs.
"The Gateway PUD, the one behind the cemetery — the way the original layout was just wasn't feasible. The lot prices were too high because infrastructure costs were too high," Bowen said. "So, they're considering redoing that one and just kind of start all over, get a new final plat, and finding a way to reduce some costs."
The city is exploring creative solutions, including one in response to the nuclear energy boom that’s putting new demands on Kemmerer.
How the town is going to house the influx of construction workers expected for the TerraPower project is a huge concern.
"The zoning board has had a meeting on making a brand-new zone for tiny homes and changing our ordinance to allow tiny homes,” said Bowen, offering one bit of evidence that his town is transforming into a nuclear energy community.
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
