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Hayden, Coloras – for several years, Nuclear energy is trying to return to the US

The Biden administration liked Nuclear’s low carbon footprint and President Trump cited Nuclear as part of his plan to “Unleash American Energy.” This is the addition of pressure to decades to find a place to store radioactive waste that nuclear power plants in the United States produce.

One place discussed is rarely the populated northwestern corner of Colorado.

The conversations happen in places like The Wild Goose, a cozy cafe stowed in an old grain elevator in the small town of Hayden, Coloras.

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“Impacts are huge”

“There are many great minds that work together to understand some of the effects because the effects are huge,” says Tammy Delani.

City authorities claim that the power plant has been Provide more than half of the Hayden school management tax revenueFire Service and other basic services.

She and her husband Patrick own this place to gather and try to help their city transition. They recently converted old grain warehouses into short -term rentals and a hip wine bar. But last fall, Delaneys began to hear about a much more idea: replacing the dying coal industry with nuclear energy.

Patrick is intrigued.

“There are many great things about nuclear energy,” he says. “I want to say that pellets the size of your miniature have the same energy content as £ 1000, it’s incredible.”

Tammy (left) and Patrick Delani posing in front of the Wild Goose Café in Hayden, Colorada, in November 2024 Delaneys have concerns about the idea of using import trains spent nuclear fuel in northwestern Colorado.

But they also have concerns.

In order to facilitate the pressure on nuclear energy, a regional initiative for the development of energy in northwestern Colorado is shopping around the idea of hosting a temporary, consolidated place to store the radioactive fuel produced by the country’s atomic power plants.

Large concrete and steel boxes of exhaust fuel will be loaded with specially constructed crash -resistant trucks and trains and led to a warehouse away from people.

It will not be built in Hayden. Conversations about the storage facility are happening in a handful of neighboring cities in the west bordering on Utah. But Delaneys are afraid of regional impacts.

“It is obvious that a lot of concerns about transporting nuclear waste on a railway,” Patrick said.

Decades

Currently, nuclear power plants store their waste on the spot in 35 statesS The Federal Government is trying to find one place for them to send it from 1970.

In 2021, Congress devoted money to identify places that could be opened for the construction of a temporary storage space until a permanent storage was provided.

Northwest Energy Colorado Initiativewhich focuses on finding a coal substitute in the region replied. Last fall, a series of low key meetings, it introduced the concept of storing consumed fuel.

Craig Station, a coal power plant near Craig, Colorado, in November 2024. Signs of energy transition in the area are already visible, with solar installations in the foreground.

“There is an opportunity to create an entirely new energy -related industry in this region of our country and to provide some of the jobs and some of the homes and families in this area,” says Matt Solomon, the head of the NCEI project.

A few months ago, The group won a federal grant To start local discussions that you may be a temporary waste storage facility somewhere in the region.

“This is not the Simpsons with a bubbling green liquid,” says Solomon about the waste, which will be sent to a temporary storage space. “These are concrete barrels with pieces of metal top that cool.”

Other scholarships include Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky and Carlsbad, New Mexico.

It is early in the process and Solomon’s conversations hardly start in Colorado. But the idea of storage of waste gets mixed reactions deep in the state coal state.

Craig, who is home to about 9,000 people and less than 20 miles west of Hayden, also loses a power plant nearby coal. Resident Sasha Nelson says she understands why conversations are happening.

Nelson’s job is to help the Northwest Colorado move away from coal. She calls conversations about potentially nuclear development “critical” to evaluate the options for the future. But she is worried about the waste component.

How dangerous is it?

“This will break my heart, if because of our remoteness, because of the space we still have available, it becomes a place where every project just ends where we are, you know, she said a zone for waste,” she said.

Nuclear engineers have different perspectives on how safe it is to temporarily store the radioactive fuel consumed.

Anna Erickson, a professor of nuclear and radiological engineering at the Woodruff Mechanical Engineering School in Georgia Tech, says the nation has a good safety record.

“The radiation around these barrels is not really that high,” she says. “These barrels are regularly checked by the people with those Geiger counters you have seen or other instruments. But in the future we are looking to move to a robotics inspection.”

Other experts have concerns. Edwin Liman, director of nuclear energy safety with the Union of Interested Scientists in Washington, Colombia, worries that fuel canists could leak radiation if they were involved in severe transportation or targeted by terrorists.

“The deliberate attack is certainly one of the ways you can maximize the potential harm of the community from this facility,” he said.

In a 2012 report before Congress, the Government Accountability Office Called spent nuclear fuel “one of the most dangerous materials created by humans”.

The US Department of Energy asks communities who want to continue to talk about hosting on a temporary waste site to say it until this fall. He hopes to open a facility by 2038.