This story was originally produced by the New Hampshire Bulletin, an independent local newsroom that allows NHPR and other outlets to republish its reporting.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte has indicated interest in collaborating with the federal government to expand nuclear development in the state.
The state submitted a statement of interest on April 1 in response to a federal request for information regarding potential “nuclear innovation lifecycle campuses,” according to documents obtained from the New Hampshire Department of Energy.
In a letter prefacing the response, Ayotte signaled openness to additional nuclear development in the state, pointing to New Hampshire’s existing nuclear infrastructure and saying the state saw the power source as a way to reinforce the electric grid and lower costs.
“We are confident that these goals align with the administration’s Energy Dominance strategy and look forward to opening a dialogue,” she wrote.
Read the state's response here.
The federal request for information comes after a series of pro-nuclear executive orders from President Donald Trump. The campuses are envisioned as “a new effort to modernize the nation’s nuclear fuel cycle,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy said in an email earlier this month.
The spokesperson said the campuses could house facilities related to “fuel fabrication, enrichment, reprocessing used nuclear fuel, and disposition of waste,” and identified them as part of a potential new national strategy for handling nuclear waste. Previous attempts to identify long-term storage pathways for spent fuel, which is dangerously radioactive for thousands of years, have failed.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s description of their request for information says any nuclear lifecycle campus “must support functions such as fuel fabrication, enrichment, reprocessing used nuclear fuel, and disposition of waste,” and “could” support other facilities, including advanced nuclear reactors.
But in their letter, the New Hampshire Department of Energy said they were mainly interested in the latter category. The department stated that New Hampshire has “low” interest in several other forms of development identified by the federal government as possible aspects of a campus — including spent fuel storage, fuel processing or reprocessing, data center construction, advanced manufacturing, and more.
Any campus would come with an infusion of federal funding, but would also require state investment, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
But whether, or when, those would become a reality is unclear. “Dozens of states” responded to the federal request for information, the U.S. Office of Nuclear Energy spokesperson said. And some of the technologies highlighted as potential parts of the campuses are still hypothetical. Advanced nuclear reactors are years to a decade or more away from commercial deployment in the U.S., experts say, while fuel reprocessing, another activity imagined for the campuses, does not currently occur commercially here
Critics of nuclear development say that investing in the technology takes resources away from immediately available sources of renewable energy that could lower greenhouse gas emissions sooner. It’s an “opportunity cost,” said Seabrook Anti-Pollution League President Doug Bogen earlier this month. Bogen is also concerned about radiation and health impacts from a potential plant.
But nuclear energy has taken the spotlight in New Hampshire in recent years, where some say it will help bring down the state’s high electricity bills.
Ayotte’s letter and the New Hampshire Department of Energy’s response include references to recent pro-nuclear policies and resolutions from the New Hampshire Legislature, including last year’s House Bill 672, which charted a path for off-grid energy generators. The department wrote that the legislation is “widely viewed as enabling dedicated nuclear projects … to serve large loads like data centers or industrial users,” and added that New Hampshire is the only state in New England without a moratorium on new nuclear development.
The response identifies Seabrook, where New Hampshire’s existing nuclear power plant is located, as a potential site for development, noting that the site was designed for two reactors but only one was built. The second was abandoned after cost overruns brought the Seabrook Station project billions over budget.
A letter of support from the Seabrook Select Board was included in the response. Also included were letters of support from nuclear companies with ties to New Hampshire, including NextEra, which owns and operates Seabrook Station, and StarCube, a “micronuclear” startup based in Portsmouth that said it intends to construct a pilot facility in the state.
Other letters of support came from the California nuclear engineering company Deep Fission, whose modular reactor pilot in Kansas has sparked local protests, New Hampshire utility Eversource, Concord engineering firm Nobis, and others.
New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com.
