MCCRACKEN COUNTY, Ky. — A first-of-its-kind uranium enrichment facility is on track to be built in McCracken County, which would position the county as a national leader in nuclear energy, employing hundreds and boosting the economy.

Global Laser Enrichment founded an advanced uranium enrichment process and plans to relocate to a 665-acre plot of land adjacent to the Department of Energy Paducah site. The construction of the facility would take approximately one to two years and employ 1,000 construction workers. Once operational, GLE would employ about 400 skilled workers in the area.

The Paducah Department of Energy site used to house the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP), which first produced enriched uranium for military reactors and the nation’s nuclear weapons program, then for commercial power plants.


The DOE leased the PGDP to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) from 1993 to 2024. The plant ceased uranium enrichment operations in 2013. The DOE now oversees environmental cleanup activities at the site.

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Although the uranium enrichment plant is no longer active, there are still 44,000 canisters of depleted uranium left over at the DOE Paducah site. GLE plans to use its one-of-a-kind process to enrich the depleted uranium, producing highly concentrated U-235, which can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons, and nuclear reactors.

“They’re going to reuse those depleted cylinders out there … to bring it back to life,” said Keith Murt, who has worked on GLE’s test facility in North Carolina for almost four years. "This will be the first time that anything like this has been done … laser enrichment.”

McCracken County Judge Executive Craig Clymer said the work GLE plans to do at the site will put the county on the global map as a nuclear resource.

“We want to turn [the uranium] from a hazard to a useful commodity to supply the needs of our entire nation for 50 to 80 years, and it's going to be amazing for our community,” Clymer said. “The fact that our country no longer has to go to … China, Russia, other places where they mine this uranium. We have it sitting in a parking lot, and we have a vendor that's going to come in, clean it, and put it to use, eliminating that hazard and making it a valuable asset.”

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With a large supply of nuclear energy, Clymer said it is “likely” that a nuclear power plant would eventually be constructed at the DOE Paducah site.

“It will be several years off yet, we're not poised just yet for a nuclear power plant, I don't believe. I'm told that it's not on the forefront right now,” he said.


In addition to GLE’s investment, there are other avenues for economic development at the DOE Paducah site.

The U.S. Department of Energy rescinded several guidance materials on May 12, including a moratorium on the free release of volumetrically contaminated metals, which has been in effect since 2000.