Governor: Four Wyoming Communities In Running For Nuclear Power Plant

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon says Rock Springs, Gillette, Glenrock, and Kemmerer are in the running to be the location of a Wyoming nuclear power plant once it is built.

The governor, speaking with Glenn Woods Wednesday on the 'Wake Up Wyoming" program, said Rocky Mountain Power will make a decision by the end of the year which of the four will host the plant. The nuclear facility will be housed in what will be a retired coal-fired power plant. It will be built by Rocky Mountain Power and the Bill Gates company Terrapower.

Gordon says no state money will be used to build the facility, although the federal Department of Energy will contribute funding. Gordon told Woods that the DOE will pay for half of the cost of construction, with Bill Gates' foundation paying for the other half.

The governor says the reactor will be sodium-cooled "so no water." Gordon says the small reactor "will produce about one-third" of the nuclear waste that a traditional nuclear reactor does.

Gordon says the jobs provided by the project will be "pay well, they will be highly skilled jobs, and from the view of the workforce, they will keep the workforce employed." The governor said the plant will be fueled by converted uranium, adding that Wyoming has the largest uranium reserves in the country. "We think a domestic supply (of uranium) is important," he told Woods.

Gordon said the alternative sources of uranium for the U.S. are Kazakhstan and Russia, which he said lack this country's environmental regulations and are not friendly to the United States.

You can hear the governor's entire interview with Woods in the file below.