A nuclear fuel manufacturing company explained Wednesday why it required nondisclosure agreements with Gillette city officials before discussing a proposed facility that could bring more than 200 jobs to Campbell County.
Joshua Parker, director of business development for BWXT Advanced Technologies, said the company needed confidentiality agreements to protect commercially sensitive information about the size and scope of its proposed TRISO fuel fabrication facility.
TRISO fuel consists of tiny uranium particles covered in protective layers of silicon carbide materials and formed into spheres or rod-like compacts for use in advanced nuclear reactors. Demand for this fuel, according to BWXT, will likely surge in the coming years.
"What we're seeing is the market's going to take off in 2030, 2031. And we actually have to have a dedicated facility for it,” Parker told Cowboy State Daily.
When scouting Gillette as a preferred site to build a manufacturing facility, said Parker, "We needed to talk about some things — size of the facility — those types of things that are sensitive from a business perspective.”
"We do have competitors in this market,” Parker added. “And we had to be a little careful of that."
Parker said making certain details public like water and power consumption could compromise BWXT’s efforts to gain an edge in the TRISO fuel business.
"My competitors could actually figure out what size my facility is from those types of questions," he said.
The secrecy around early discussions between BWXT and Gillette officials drew criticism in late August, when state Sen. Troy McKeown, R-Gillette, accused the Gillette City Council of making closed-door nuclear deals and called for more transparency in the process.
Parker said there are other secrecy requirements designed to protect U.S. nuclear technology and prevent nuclear proliferation.
"Nuclear technology is special. The United States controls it. And we needed to make sure that they were appropriately handling that information, and it just wasn't getting out to the public because there are other actors in other nations that we have to protect ourselves from,” he said.
BWXT hasn’t selected a final location, but it’s considering sites in Gillette to manufacture TRISO fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. (BWXT) 
BWXT hasn’t selected a final location, but it’s considering sites in Gillette to manufacture TRISO fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. (BWXT) 
BWXT hasn’t selected a final location, but it’s considering sites in Gillette to manufacture TRISO fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. (BWXT) 
BWXT hasn’t selected a final location, but it’s considering sites in Gillette to manufacture TRISO fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. (BWXT)
Public Invited
At the same time BWXT continues to protect information it deems competitive, there is a lot the company said it wants to share with the public.
BWXT will host a public information session about the proposed facility on Tuesday at the Cam-plex Heritage Center Theater in Gillette. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. with food provided, followed by a presentation at 6 p.m. and a poster session with company representatives answering questions.
"This is our first engagement," Parker said. "We've had discussions with community leaders and stakeholders about this, but it's now real enough that we're able to talk at a public level and invite the community out to engage, so that it's an open discussion."
The company chose a poster session format rather than an open town hall after observing other community meetings around Wyoming's emerging nuclear industry, Parker said. The format allows attendees to have one-on-one conversations with around nine BWXT representatives on hand.
Facility Details
BWXT envisions a manufacturing complex of 150,000 to 250,000 square feet that would fabricate TRISO fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. The facility would include an office building, manufacturing space, wastewater treatment, and chemical storage facilities.
Construction would begin around 2027 following an 18-to-24-month permitting process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Parker said. The facility could be operational by late 2030 or early 2031.
"We're looking at over 200 direct jobs in the facility," Parker said. About 20% would be four-year degree positions including engineers, business professionals, finance, legal and accounting roles. The remaining 75-80% would be technicians and operators, many requiring only associate degrees or certificates from community colleges.
Parker said BWXT has been working with Gillette College on workforce development, noting that many existing programs for the oil and gas industry are "90% applicable to the things that we're going to do in this facility."
The company has identified potential sites in Gillette but hasn't made a final selection, Parker said.
What About Waste?
Parker emphasized that the proposed facility would not create, store or handle nuclear waste — a concern that has dominated public discussions about nuclear projects across Wyoming.
"This facility will not create spent fuel or high level waste. And it will not store spent fuel or high level waste," Parker said. "It's on the front end of the fuel cycle in the value chain, where we're fabricating fresh nuclear fuel that goes off to power reactors for the U.S. energy security."
When asked about community debates over nuclear waste storage, he said, “We're not going to weigh in on that. That is not something we want to do. That is a community decision.”
TRISO Boom?
John Kotek, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nonprofit trade group, said TRISO fuel represents a growing market opportunity as advanced reactor companies seek safer fuel options.
"That type of fuel is being considered for a very wide range of advanced reactors," Kotek told Cowboy State Daily. "Companies like X-Energy and Kairos and a very long list of other companies that are developing next generation reactors are looking to this fuel type because it's even safer than what we use today."
Kotek noted that Amazon has made significant investments in X-Energy partly because of TRISO fuel's safety advantages.
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires security at facilities like this,” said Kotek, explaining, “The enrichment of the material that we're talking about is below 20%. So it falls below the threshold of what they call weapons material. It’s not a proliferation safety risk from that perspective."
Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund put $500 million toward a TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, according to World Nuclear News.
The industry news site also reported Amazon aims to deploy up to 5 gigawatts of X-Energy's small nuclear reactor capacity across the U.S. by 2039 to power its data centers and support AI infrastructure needs with nuclear energy.
These kinds of bold moves into the nuclear marketplace are made easier the closer a country gets to settling questions about waste.
That’s Craig MacBride’s take. He’s a spokesman for Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization, who said resolving nuclear waste storage can stimulate growth across the entire nuclear industry spectrum.
"Once you have disposal up and running, that cycle is sort of complete," MacBride told Cowboy State Daily. Canada recently selected a site for its deep geological repository, expected to be operational in 2045.
"It gives people something they can point to and say, ‘Look, we figured out we have the solution to nuclear waste. And we're moving forward on. I think it makes it easier," MacBride said, adding that in Canada, as the country continues to develop its repository, the process is "making people more comfortable with the idea of new nuclear."
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
