Tennessee has awarded an $11 million grant from the state’s dedicated nuclear fund to TRISO-X, an Amazon-backed nuclear fuel company, to help build a new fuel and research facility in Oak Ridge expected to create more than 1,100 jobs, newly published reporting shows.
TRISO-X, a wholly owned subsidiary of Maryland-based, Amazon-backed X-Energy, announced the expansion July 15 alongside Gov. Bill Lee and Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart McWhorter. The new facility, to be built at Oak Ridge’s Horizon Center Industrial Park in Roane County, will bring the company’s total Oak Ridge footprint to three facilities — two dedicated to nuclear fuel fabrication and one to related research and development.
The company first broke ground on a Tennessee fuel facility in 2022 and earlier this year received a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a commercial plant producing a type of highly enriched nuclear fuel used in some advanced reactors. TRISO-X’s estimated 1,140 new positions mark the largest jobs announcement in Roane County history; the figure covers only direct TRISO-X jobs and does not include indirect work such as construction tied to the project.
The $11 million award is the second-largest investment made from Tennessee’s nuclear fund, trailing only a grant to Oklo, which plans to build a fuel-reprocessing facility in Oak Ridge. TRISO-X’s total investment in Tennessee has not been finalized but is expected to reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and a federal filing made June 2 put the company’s total assets at more than $1 billion.
Why it matters for Knoxville: Oak Ridge sits at the edge of the Knoxville metro, and a 1,100-job nuclear expansion backed by state grant money and Amazon-linked capital represents one of the largest economic development moves in East Tennessee this year.
