Engaging Wyoming Communities in an Environmental Justice Approach for Advanced Nuclear Energy Facility Siting: Public Participation and Stakeholder Engagement Milestone Report
Budowle, Rachael Stubblefield, Nicholas Lewis, Nora Duba, Alyssa W. Djokić, Denia Smutko, L. Steven
Budowle, Rachael
Stubblefield, Nicholas
Lewis, Nora
Duba, Alyssa W.
Djokić, Denia
Smutko, L. Steven
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
In November 2021, the private company, TerraPower, in partnership with electric utility, PacifiCorp, and the United States Department of Energy via its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, announced plans to site its Natrium advanced nuclear reactor near the retiring Naughton Power Plant in Kemmerer, located in southwest Wyoming. This marks the first commercial advanced nuclear energy facility to begin construction in the United States. Our research explores this case and aims to inform an adaptable community engagement process for advanced nuclear energy siting and development, as proposals to develop similar facilities are rapidly increasing. Public participation processes often receive critique for establishing only cursory informative or consultative opportunities for notice and comment rather than deeper opportunities for procedural justice. In July 2025 in Kemmerer, we hosted two public participation and stakeholder engagement meetings called Community Conversations on Natrium and Kemmerer’s Energy Future. This public participation and stakeholder engagement process focused on eliciting and documenting community members’ questions about and perspectives on opportunities and challenges related to the development and operation of the TerraPower Natrium advanced nuclear energy facility with an overall aim of community capacity-building. This document reports our methods for developing and implementing the Community Conversations meetings, findings from those meetings, and a suggested protocol for potential use in other advanced nuclear energy facility siting processes.
Description
Date
2026-01-09
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Wyoming Libraries
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Advanced Nuclear Energy,Community Engagement,Nuclear Facility Siting,Affinity Process,Community-Based Facilitation
Citation
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International