The South Carolina Department of Commerce has submitted a fanciful proposal to the Department of Energy that the state “host” what DOE calls a “Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus.” This citizen-subsidized “campus” – possibly at the Savannah River Site – would be where any kind of subsidized nuclear facility you can think of would be located. That would include the expensive, dirty, and unneeded “reprocessing” of imported commercial spent fuel, with dumping of waste in South Carolina.
In DOE’s January 28, 2026 “Request for Information” from the states, many states responded and publicly released their submissions . South Carolina submitted a proposal but has kept it secret from the public. Based on a presentation by the SC Department of Commerce on April 13, 2026 to the South Carolina Nuclear Advisory Council, the proposal is just a checklist of mostly imaginary things, like “advanced reactors” (that only exist on paper), an AI data center, reprocessing and radioactive waste dumping.
As we believe the March 31, 2026 proposal from South Carolina should be made public, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request for it with the SC Department of Commerce on July 9, 2026. The FOIA request was acknowledged on the same day.
Here’s our FOIA request: FOIA SC Dept Commerce nuclear campus proposal July 10 2026
We will publicly release any document we receive as the citizens of South Carolina need to know what their government is proposing yet keeping secret. The cost and environmental and health impacts must be openly discussed and not hidden from view.
As many as 25 or more states submitted RFIs to DOE, so competition for this imaginary scheme will be fierce. In large part, submission of a proposal appears to be a political loyalty test to unregulated, costly nuclear projects which only exist on paper.