The Nuclear Company announced plans Wednesday for six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors on land owned by Sam Howard, chief executive of Vanceburg-based Trace Creek Construction, which is partnering on the proposal. The units could produce a combined 6.6 gigawatts of electricity — just below the more than 7.2 gigawatts of generating capacity in the entire fleet of Kentucky’s largest electric utility.

The project remains a proposal. The company says it is starting site-development work, including environmental and geotechnical assessments and planning for electricity transmission. It is seeking federal approvals with the goal of beginning site construction by 2028.

The company says the project would bring jobs, a larger local tax base and reliable electricity. Lewis County Judge-Executive? No: Vanceburg Mayor Joseph Billman said he expects the development to help the town’s economy and attract people to the area. “It’s going to do nothing but grow the economy for Vanceburg and Lewis County,” he said.

But some residents have raised concerns about nuclear safety, the project’s proximity to schools and whether the public was given enough notice. Carey Highfield, who lives several miles from the proposed site, said he was worried about nearby schools. Federal rules require emergency planning zones around nuclear plants to prepare for unlikely emergencies.

Vanceburg City Council member Richard Walje, the lone vote against a resolution supporting a county application for “nuclear ready community” status, said residents have not had adequate time to understand the proposal or debate nuclear power. “It needs to be slowed drastically, in my view, and the counter argument needs to be heard,” he said.

The council passed the resolution Oct. 10, a step toward the county applying for the designation through the Kentucky Nuclear Energy Development Authority. The state-created process includes public education about nuclear energy. Local development officials said they had pursued the designation amid broader interest in the Ohio River region, including proposed gas-fired power and data-center projects across the river in Ohio. They said they were not aware of this nuclear proposal when the effort began; Billman also said he did not know about it before the announcement.

The Nuclear Company launched in 2024 with a stated goal of accelerating nuclear plant construction, an industry where permitting delays and cost overruns have been major obstacles. The two newest U.S. reactors, at Georgia’s Vogtle plant, entered service in 2023 and 2024 after years of delays and about $17 billion in cost overruns, according to The Associated Press. The Nuclear Company says Chief Nuclear Officer Joe Klecha held construction and operational-readiness roles on those reactors. The AP1000 design proposed for Lewis County is the same design used at Vogtle; federal regulators renewed its certification earlier this month.

The startup is led by CEO Jonathan Webb, formerly the head of AppHarvest, a Kentucky greenhouse company that filed for bankruptcy in 2023. The proposal’s scale and timeline now leave Lewis County facing questions about potential economic gains, public participation, safety planning and the approvals needed before construction could begin.