{"id":667613,"date":"2026-09-13T01:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T01:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=667613"},"modified":"2026-09-13T01:35:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T01:35:00","slug":"west-virginia-joins-nuclear-campus-race-with-waste-storage-in-focus-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=667613","title":{"rendered":"West Virginia Joins Nuclear Campus Race With Waste Storage In Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Virginia Joins Nuclear Campus Race With Waste Storage In Focus<\/span><\/p>\n

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West Virginia\u2019s Governor Patrick Morrisey announced<\/a> that the state had signed a memorandum of understanding with the DOE, joining Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah as the sixth contender for a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC).<\/p>\n

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West Virginia\u2019s energy future will cover all the bases! \ud83d\udd0c<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve heard me talk a lot about coal. You\u2019ve heard we talk a lot about gas. And I said, just you wait, nuclear is coming.\u201d \u2014Gov. @MorriseyWV<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/J4LkLT8wmW<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 West Virginia Prosperity Group (@wvprosperity) September 9, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The state was not included on July\u2019s initial shortlist, which postured itself as the final roster that the DOE would downselect from. Morrisey\u2019s took to “working the phones” to\u00a0emphasize<\/a>\u00a0their abundance of\u00a0skilled workers and industrial capabilities, but the state\u2019s willingness to accommodate spent nuclear fuel is likely all it took for the DOE to open the door to further discussions.<\/p>\n

Marla Morales, the acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and high-level waste disposition at the DOE\u2019s Office of Nuclear Energy, recently made it explicitly clear what we had already come to the conclusion on in our previous coverage<\/a> of the NLIC program: it’s all about handling the used nuclear fuel.<\/p>\n

At the NECX conference, Morales stated<\/a>, \u201cOne of the things we knew from the beginning of this was that we had to be open and transparent with what we were talking about. We had to make sure that everyone understood: You can want all the fancy reactors you want; you’re going to have waste at the end of this. It has to go somewhere. So, by the fact that we started the conversation with waste, it really helped frame our narrative to begin with<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly, any state that started getting uncomfortable when the DOE started asking about what they intend to do with all the used nuclear fuel that would be produced by their programs,\u00a0was simply asked to stop pretending and please leave.\u00a0This brings to a close the suspicions for why states like Texas and New Mexico are not included.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The DOE\u2019s initial<\/a> selection followed 28 applications from 26 states. NLICs would combine enrichment, fuel fabrication, recycling and waste disposition, potentially alongside reactors, manufacturing and data centers.<\/p>\n

An individual campus could attract up to $50 billion in investment and create nearly 25,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

The expanding NLIC list stands alongside an expanding Nuclear Energy Launch Pad (NELP) program. The NELP is one of the many other programs under the DOE intended to speed up nuclear development.\u00a0The program recently saw a dramatic expansion<\/a> from an initial four projects to now\u00a0over 15 projects\u00a0across over a dozen companies\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSat, 09\/12\/2026 – 21:35<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Virginia Joins Nuclear Campus Race With Waste Storage In Focus West Virginia\u2019s Governor Patrick Morrisey announced that the state had signed a memorandum of understanding with the DOE, joining Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah as the sixth contender for a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC). West Virginia\u2019s energy future will cover all the… Continue reading West Virginia Joins Nuclear Campus Race With Waste Storage In Focus<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-667613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-empowerment","category-national-security","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=667613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=667613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=667613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=667613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}