The mayor and airport chief of Denver, Colorado, chose the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima to host a news conference proposing to spend $1.5 million on a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) at the Denver International Airport.
Plans were then paused amid the uproar from local city council members, area residents, reporters, and environmental advocates. The community was not consulted before the decision to launch the feasibility study. Constituents questioned the huge expenditure on a technology that: is not commercially operating anywhere; has a track record of enormous cost overruns; has no assessment of the draw on local water or other resources; and is guaranteed to generate radioactive waste that must be stored on site for eons with no long-term solution.
The nearby Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge and Superfund site represents one toxic legacy already carried by this community.
Local officials and the airport CEO expressed hopes an SMR would move tech giants to build data centers near the airport and create a “Silicon Valley of nuclear technology,” an goal that is blind to the environmental threats to local community.
⸺ The Colorado Sun online, Aug. 20; Denverite online, Aug. 11, 2025
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