Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Tim Walsh and other EM leaders concluded a multisite tour highlighting recent accomplishments across the U.S. Department of Energy complex with a stop at the Paducah Site.
Office of Environmental Management
November 10, 2026
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Paducah Site Safety System Oversight Brad Pont discusses the gaseous diffusion process with Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management (EM) Tim Walsh and EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Joel Bradburne at the Paducah C-333 Process Building. Walsh and EM leadership recently visited the site to spotlight the Paducah American Energy Hub.
PADUCAH, Ky. — Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management (EM) Tim Walsh and other EM leaders concluded a multisite tour highlighting recent accomplishments across the U.S. Department of Energy complex with a stop at the Paducah Site.
The visit showcased a $100 billion planned investment to establish the Paducah American Energy Hub, emphasizing its potential to drive regional job growth, economic development and affordable energy generation.
Paducah joins other EM sites in hosting American Energy Hubs, including Portsmouth, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with $650 billion in private investments announced in total so far. New reactors, enrichment facilities and the nation's first privately funded commercial nuclear fuel recycling facility are being constructed on land EM spent years making safe.
“Where there’s energy, there’s prosperity. We are all in on driving down the cost of electricity for American consumers while revitalizing historic communities like Paducah,” Walsh said. “Projects like the American Energy Hub are turning what were once liabilities into productive assets that bring long-term jobs, economic growth and affordable energy right back to western Kentucky.”
Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management (EM) Tim Walsh, center, and other EM leaders gather with members of the United Steelworkers Local 550 during a trip to the Paducah Site, which highlighted recent reindustrialization successes.
During the visit, the EM leaders engaged with private-sector partners supporting the new energy hub, including representatives from General Matter, which plans to build a new domestic uranium enrichment facility to produce reactor fuel, and Brookfield and NextEra, which announced plans earlier this summer to develop a high-performance computing innovation campus powered by new affordable energy infrastructure.
The future tenants provided updates on development timelines to the EM leaders.
“Paducah was the last place in the United States to enrich uranium, and it is the values, community and skilled workforce here that brought us back,” General Matter Founder and CEO Scott Nolan said. “With site preparation underway and construction beginning next year, our goal is to bring domestic enrichment back at scale — taking America from less than 1 percent of global enrichment back to self-sufficiency by 2029.”
While at Paducah, the EM team met with members of the United Steelworkers workforce and viewed a portion of the C-333 Process Building. Earlier this year, workers segmented 497 converters inside the building as part of ongoing preparations for demolition.
“Touring the C-333 Process Building is a reminder of what American workers accomplished here with slide rules and grit in the 1950s,” Walsh said. “Today, our United Steelworkers workforce is carrying that proud legacy forward — clearing the way so their children and grandchildren have high-tech, good-paying energy jobs right here at home.”
-Contributor: Zachary Boyarski
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