Wyoming Loses Radiant’s Nuclear Factory Bid — Tennessee Wins on “Clear Rules, Fast Timeline”

Oil City News, Bloomberg, Casper Star-Tribune, K2 Radio, and Cowboy State Daily contributed to this report.

Radiant Industries is taking its first micro-reactor factory to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, after deciding Wyoming’s rules around used nuclear fuel were just too murky to make a fast start. The California startup — building truck-portable generators aimed at military bases and other remote sites — had eyed a site north of Bar Nunn, talked up local hiring, and even pitched the idea of using Wyoming-mined uranium. But the hinge on the whole plan was what happens when those reactors come home for refueling.

Here’s the rub: Radiant’s model requires bringing spent fuel back to the factory and parking it — safely and temporarily — in above-ground casks while units are refueled and redeployed. Wyoming law only allows spent fuel to be stored where a reactor is operating. A summer hearing at the Legislature’s Joint Minerals Committee explored carving out room for nuclear manufacturers, then punted. And the state’s Freedom Caucus made clear it wouldn’t support broader exceptions, framing the issue as a hard “no” on out-of-state waste. That combination left the company with what it called “regulatory uncertainty” — the enemy of an aggressive production schedule.

Radiant insists the politics weren’t local so much as legal. Company reps say their polling and door-to-door outreach found Natrona County broadly supportive of the investment. Bar Nunn’s mayor publicly backed the project, and county commissioners even green-lit an application for a $25 million infrastructure grant before it was withdrawn. Still, with critics hammering the fuel-storage plan at town halls and key lawmakers signaling an uphill grind in Cheyenne, Radiant decided it couldn’t bet its launch on a statute that might never move.

Tennessee offered a turnkey alternative. Oak Ridge brings a deep nuclear bench, a workforce fluent in the field, and regulators the company believes will give quick, predictable answers. Radiant says it will break ground in early 2026 on the “R-50” factory — on a Manhattan Project site, no less — ship its first mass-produced Kaleidos microreactor by 2028, and then ramp to 50 units a year. Internally, that timeline only works if the rules are plain and the permits flow.

The fallout in Wyoming is immediate and a little raw. Economic-development leaders who spent months courting Radiant argue the state just told advanced manufacturers they’re not welcome, at least if their business model touches fuel logistics. Local supporters worry the episode will spook other nuclear outfits weighing Wyoming sites; some already point to pressure building on projects elsewhere in the state. Freedom Caucus members counter that the line they drew is exactly the point: develop nuclear, fine — but not as a backdoor to long-term waste storage.

For Natrona County, it’s also a tangible loss of jobs and momentum. Radiant’s first phase would have started with dozens of high-paying positions and scaled above 200 as production matured. Senior staff were preparing to move families to the area. Now, the company’s executives are issuing polite thank-yous while loading their plans onto a different truck headed southeast.

Zoom out, and the episode reads like a policy stress test. Wyoming wants to be an energy state in the next wave as much as the last one; it has the uranium, the skilled trades, and a get-it-done culture. But advanced nuclear is a factory business as much as a power-plant business, and factories live or die by supply chains and statutes. If the state wants another shot at hosting that ecosystem, lawmakers will have to decide whether — and how — to write rules that let manufacturers refuel and briefly hold what they’ve built, without violating the bright lines voters care about.

Radiant, for its part, is already moving on. Tennessee gets the first crack at a brand-new slice of nuclear manufacturing. Wyoming gets a debate about whether “open for business” includes the fine print.