BRIGHAM CITY — On a cloudy Monday in northern Utah, Gov. Spencer Cox stood in a packed Brigham City event center and announced what he called “a major development in Operation Gigawatt” — the construction of a small nuclear power plant paired with a manufacturing and training hub that state leaders say could help power Utah’s energy future and reshape the local economy.
Hi Tech Solutions and Holtec International are partnering with the state to create what Cox described as “a complete civil nuclear energy ecosystem from start to finish, the first project of its kind,” centered in Brigham City and designed to support a future fleet of small modular reactors in Utah and across the Mountain West.
He added that the project will “create a nuclear hub that manufactures the parts needed to operate and run advanced nuclear technologies, like SMRs, not just here, but all over the world. And a workforce training center that will bring stable, high paying jobs to Brigham City.”
SMR stands for “small modular reactors” and, according to the International Atomic Energy Association, are much smaller than conventional reactors and provide about one-third of the generating capacity.
Who is behind the announced nuclear facility?
The announcement brought together a long list of state, local and industry leaders including Cox, Brigham City Mayor DJ Bott, Senate President Stuart Adams, House Speaker Mike Schultz, representatives from Hi Tech Solutions and Holtec International, and other state officials.
Cox praised the coalition, noting the partnership between private and public officials.
Hi Tech Solutions is a nuclear services and construction company that has spent more than a decade building a workforce across the country — and they now want to anchor their work in Utah.
“From our first 20 people to chasing towards a thousand, we’ve been behind a lot of things, under a lot of different hard hats, in a lot of different places, and all this time, I wanted to be in Utah,” co-founder Chris Hayter said. “I moved to Utah in 2008 to raise my family … and I knew this is where someday, I felt, we will move our company here, and we’ll do something great.”
Holtec International is developing the SMR-300 small modular reactor design and works closely with Hi Tech Solutions. Rick Springman, senior vice-president international programs at Holtec International, said Utah’s political and regulatory posture was vital to the decision to come here.
“It kind of hits me in the face every time I come and start talking to people that this is a state that wants to get things done,” he said. “Holtec’s a company that gets things done. And I want to be in a state that helps us get things done.”
A nuclear manufacturing and training hub
The project, announced as part of Cox’s Operation Gigawatt initiative, has several components:
- A manufacturing hub in Brigham City to produce parts for Holtec’s SMR-300 small modular reactors and other advanced nuclear technologies.
- A workforce training center, developed in partnership with Utah’s universities, technical colleges and even high schools to train a nuclear-ready workforce.
- A longer-term plan to deploy a fleet of SMR reactors in Utah and then across the Mountain West, in what Springman called a “Mountain West crossroads energy initiative.”
“This project aims to build a fleet of small modular reactors, but it will do so much more than that,” Cox said, adding: “The benefits of this project will ripple beyond, of course, just Brigham City, and advancing the goals of Operation Gigawatt, and securing Utah’s role as a leader in nuclear powered generation for generations to come.”
Hayter said Hi Tech and Holtec intend to create “a united manufacturing and workforce pipeline, right here in the Mountain West, led by Utah,” calling it “altogether new. It’s never been accomplished regionally like we’re going to do this.”
As part of that plan, Hayter announced a national veteran-focused hiring initiative, with the goal of hiring 1,000 veterans.
Jefferson Moss, director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, said the project is expected to bring 1,350 jobs, including 650 long-term positions.
Why start in Brigham city?
The project will be headquartered in Brigham City, in Box Elder County — a place Bott and state leaders repeatedly described as both historically and strategically significant.
“In answer to the call, Brigham City is planting its flag to lead America’s nuclear Renaissance by advancing Operation Gigawatt,” Botts said, adding: “Through innovation, collaboration, and a shared vision for reliable, advanced, base load, safe nuclear energy.”
He traced the city’s energy history back more than a century.
“In 1891, our main streets were lit by just a dozen coal fired lamps. By February 1892, Brigham City became one of the first rural towns in Utah to illuminate its streets with electricity — electricity powered at first by water from Box Elder Creek,” he said.
“We won’t wait for the energy future to find us. We’re going to create it,” he said. “We won’t have to export our children and grandchildren to find good careers. They can build their future right here at home.”
Early stages of a multiyear permitting and construction process
Cox and Bott both said that Monday’s announcement is an early but significant step in a multiyear process.
The initiatives website outlines a five-phase timeline and leaders explained that it will likely not be completed until the early-to-mid 2030s.
- Announcement, which occurred on Nov. 17.
- Planning and site studies.
- Approvals and construction.
- Hire and train workers.
- Power on.
“In the coming months, we’ll be announcing more details and project milestones and projects, following a process that will be transparent in public,” Bott said.
Natural Resources Director Joel Ferry, whose department will be involved in environmental oversight, said that the reactors would face rigorous review. He said the SMR-300 units “have the highest environmental safeguards, and every phase undergoes a rigorous review, including NEPA, environmental permitting, transparency, trust, public engagement and public involvement, so that the people ... that will be impacted by a project like this here in Box Elder County … will also be the ones that benefit from this.”
Energy security, AI-driven demand and global competition
State leaders framed the Brigham City project as a response to both local energy needs and global geopolitical pressures — including the race to develop artificial intelligence.
Cox pointed to China and Russia as competitors in what he described as a global nuclear race. “If America is going to remain secure and strong, we have to lead. Not just in ideas, we have to lead in action,” he said.
Adams tied the project directly to AI data centers and national security. “AI needs data centers. Data centers need what? Power. Continuous base load power,” he said. “There’s very little, if any, excess power in Utah or in America. We need more energy production. Energy production is a national security issue.”
He also said Utah is pushing the federal government to let it move faster on nuclear permitting. “We are having conversations with the federal government,” Adams told the Deseret News, adding: “We can do this safely. We can do it more streamlined. We can do it faster than the federal government. So, what I’m asking that the federal government give us, at least an exception. And we can show them how to do this quicker.”
Safety and nuclear waste
Cox and company leaders addressed safety concerns head on. “Safety remains the standard that we always build to,” Cox said. “Today’s Gen 3 and Gen 4 technologies meet the strictest safety and environmental standards anywhere in the world.”
Bott told the Deseret News that discussions about where used fuel will ultimately be stored are ongoing among company partners and federal experts, and said that nothing has been formally proposed to the city. But he said recent research has changed how he thinks about the issue.
“Those isotopes, those things that we thought were just going to be buried in the ground for 1000s of years, are now being able, they anticipate them being mined for critical minerals, isotopes for medical, and future fuel, actually,” he said. “I myself have stopped calling it nuclear waste and just call it future nuclear mining.”
Hayter echoed that view to the Deseret News, noting that current practice is to store spent fuel on site.
He said that used fuel should be seen as an asset, not a liability. “All of the nuclear fuel in the United States of commercial nuclear fuel could fit inside of one NFL stadium,” he said. “We use the words waste … but this is a gold mine. They’re gold mines, is what they are.”
Veterans and the ‘Utah solution’
Veterans advocates said the project’s workforce focus could change lives while also strengthening the grid.
MSgt. (Ret.) Earl Plumlee, a Medal of Honor recipient, said giving veterans high-skill energy careers before they fall into crisis is “a very Utah solution.”
“Everybody wants to help the homeless veteran. Everybody is happy to donate money for the substance abuse programs,” he said. “But it’s a very Utah solution, I think, to skip that process, take that young person who wrote a check up to it, including his life on behalf of this country, and grab him and let him keep his pride and dignity, and give him a new profession. Not a job, a profession.”
Ferry tied it all back to Utah’s broader approach. “Utah is proving — we are proving that we can balance stewardship and progress, we can align defense and energy priorities, and we can lead the nation in responsible, resilient, next generation, energy development,” he said.