Feds plan 1.8 GW AI data center, 2 GW gas at Kentucky cleanup site
DOE picked Brookfield to redevelop the Paducah uranium plant into a $100B AI campus with on-site gas and batteries. Central Valley officials are weighing similar pitches.
Feds plan 1.8 GW AI data center, 2 GW gas at Kentucky cleanup site
Key Takeaways
- DOE selected Brookfield to redevelop its Paducah site into a $100B AI data center campus.
- NextEra will build 2 GW of gas generation and 2.6 GW of batteries to support 1.8 GW of computing load.
- Edwards AFB has seven long-term lease parcels available for data centers, four in Kern County.
- A proposed AI data center in Inyokern is under California Energy Commission review, drawing local comments.
Two gigawatts of gas, plus 2.6 in batteries. That package, the Energy Department said Thursday, is slated to support a new 1.8 gigawatt AI data center complex at its Paducah, Kentucky cleanup site.
Fresno’s Henry Perea, a California High-Speed Rail board member, called data centers "going to be a big issue" as the agency discussed private revenue ideas last month. It puts a local frame on a federal plan that’s pairing data centers with their own power to move fast.
Central Valley agencies are hearing versions of the same pitch, from long-term land leases at Edwards Air Force Base in Kern County to a 99‑megawatt proposal in Inyokern now in front of state energy regulators.
What DOE announced
The department picked Brookfield Asset Management to develop the Paducah campus and said Florida-based NextEra Energy will handle the on‑site power plant. Construction is targeted to finish in 2031, with excess electricity sold to the grid, according to the AP. Not cheap.
The Paducah site once enriched uranium for weapons and power reactors. Cleanup is ongoing, and federal officials say redevelopment helps fund that work while courting private investment.
Where this meets the Valley
Kern County sits on a short list of places where large data centers could land quickly if land control and interconnections line up. The Air Force says seven sites at Edwards are available for 50‑year leases, four on the Kern side, near transmission corridors and fiber rights‑of‑way. None are in populated areas.
Inyokern’s separate proposal, filed with the California Energy Commission this spring, has drawn a stack of public comments about groundwater, diesel backup generation, noise, and traffic. The docket shows hundreds of pages already, a sign the review will not be a rubber stamp here.
The flag rope outside Kern County’s admin building clacked in the noon wind.
Power and water questions local boards will ask
Paducah’s model pairs a private data center with its own gas‑fired plant and big batteries, which avoids years in a grid interconnection queue. That approach is appealing to developers, but it moves the power and emissions debate directly into the host community. California boards have already started to parse it in public.
At a June meeting, the High‑Speed Rail board discussed whether to let a private partner lease corridor land and sell excess power, with data centers one option in the mix. "We need to be ready to respond to it," Perea said. Later, he added he wants a full public briefing before any deal that leans on data centers. "I don’t necessarily have a problem with data centers," he said, "but I think we owe the public a very strong presentation of what a data center is and isn’t."
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