Five states, including Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Idaho, have agreed to accept nuclear waste from around the country in exchange for federal help developing nuclear energy to create thousands of jobs.

Nuclear Energy Development

The states, all with Republican governors, say they welcome the chance to help America reclaim its leadership in civilian nuclear energy. If built, the storage sites would represent significant progress in a multi-decade effort to store more than 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.

Spent fuel is currently stored at nuclear plants and former nuclear sites nationwide and is piling up. New storage sites would move the radioactive material away from population centers, fault lines, and flood plains. Experts say the plan also should help officials gain consent from communities that will host the repositories.

Economic Benefits

The Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses, which could be hosted by the states, have the potential to attract up to $50 billion in private investment and generate as much as $10 billion in state and local tax revenues, according to the Energy Department. Eligible projects could access federal loans worth billions of dollars.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement that the proposed campuses are an “innovative concept” that will “get America’s nuclear industry growing again.” Tennessee is home to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which enriched uranium during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project, while Idaho hosts the Idaho National Laboratory, a key research site for nuclear energy and national security.

Utah was a source of raw uranium for the Manhattan Project and a training site for crews that dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. “As the global epicenter of nuclear energy, Tennessee is honored to be selected as a potential host for a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus,” said Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.