Nuclear candidate sites in Colorado

17 sites in Colorado that Voltane screens for new nuclear: former and retiring coal plants, nuclear plant sites and federal sites, each matched to the microreactor, SMR and large reactor profiles. Ranked by SMR match; every match is out of 100.

Candidate sites in Colorado, ranked by SMR match

Rank	Site	Type	Micro	SMR	Large
1	Rawhide	Retiring coal plant	89.4	89.5	71.0
2	Fort St. Vrain	Shut-down nuclear site	86.7	86.9	59.3
3	Craig (CO)	Retiring coal plant	71.9	83.5	87.8
4	Hayden	Retiring coal plant	72.2	82.9	87.9
5	Cherokee	Former coal plant	80.3	77.3	58.0
6	Comanche (CO)	Former coal plant + retiring coal plant	69.1	75.0	71.4
7	Lamar Plant	Former coal plant	72.9	74.8	60.0
8	Ray D Nixon	Retiring coal plant	82.9	74.0	63.1
9	Arapahoe	Former coal plant	79.1	69.9	56.7
10	W N Clark	Former coal plant	69.0	68.0	55.5
11	Trinidad (CO)	Former coal plant	63.7	67.5	65.1
12	Valmont	Former coal plant	75.5	62.9	26.1
13	Buckley Space Force Base	DOE / federal site	65.4	62.5	50.9
14	South Plant (CO)	Former coal plant	76.0	62.0	38.7
15	National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly NREL), Flatirons Campus	DOE / federal site	65.4	60.6	34.3
16	Nucla	Former coal plant	66.8	57.3	67.3
17	Cameo	Former coal plant	54.2	54.1	61.4

Match out of 100 to each reactor class's default profile. Screening only — not a site suitability determination.

Get the full screening

Signed-in Voltane Nuclear shows what each match is made of:

The factor-by-factor breakdown: transmission, population, seismic hazard, faults, flood, water, airports, dams, pipelines and data-center load
The printable site report and the CSV export
The interactive map with every layer, custom weights and Ask Voltane

Request a demo

Sources

Every match

U.S. EIA, EIA-860M monthly generator inventory — August 2026 inventory (released 2026-09-23/24); preliminary per EIA.
U.S. EIA, EIA-860 annual generator report — 2025 final, released 2026-09-10
U.S. NRC, power reactor status, decommissioning and early site permits — Checked 2026-10-04: List of Power Reactor Units (updated 2026-09-14), Power Reactor Status for the last 365 days (to 2026-10-02), decommissioning list (updated 2026-09-14), ESP pages (updated 2026-09-23)
Federal sites named for new nuclear by an official source — Official announcements 2025-04-03 to 2026-09-28
U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census blocks and population — 2020 Census (P.L. 94-171 counts on 2020 blocks); files dated 2023-01..2023-03
U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 urban areas and gazetteer — 2020 Census urban areas (UACE20), 2023 gazetteer release
USGS National Seismic Hazard Model — CONUS 2023 (R2), Alaska 2023 (R1), Hawaii 2021 (R1), Puerto Rico/USVI 2025 (R1)
USGS Quaternary Fault and Fold Database — Archive dated 2026-02-23 (database edition Qfaults_2020)
USGS National Atlas hydrography — 2014 edition
LBNL harmonized U.S. transmission lines — Published 2026-08-03, updated 2026-09-22
HIFLD electric power transmission lines (final public release) — HIFLD final release, data to 2024-09-30
OpenStreetMap power lines — OpenStreetMap snapshot 2026-09-28
JRC / Copernicus GloFAS river flood hazard maps — v2.1.2 (2026-01-12; tiles 2025-12-18)
FAA NASR airports — NASR cycle effective 2026-10-01
USACE National Inventory of Dams — Data last updated 2026-09-23
U.S. EIA natural gas pipelines — January 2020 update, the latest EIA has published
OpenStreetMap data centers — OpenStreetMap snapshot 2026-09-28
Epoch AI, AI data centers — File dated 2026-09-08

Matches from Voltane Nuclear's screening model of 2026-10-17. Weights are product assumptions, not NRC rules.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration; U.S. NRC; U.S. Census Bureau (not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau); U.S. Geological Survey; Federal Aviation Administration; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Transmission: LBNL (CC BY 4.0) and the SeerAI HIFLD Archive, final public release 2024-09-30 (CC BY 4.0), modified by Voltane. Flood: Baugh et al., Global river flood hazard maps, JRC / Copernicus (CC BY 4.0); contains modified Copernicus Emergency Management Service information.
Data centers: Epoch AI, "AI data centers" (CC BY 4.0), modified by Voltane; and © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0), community-mapped and not exhaustive. Map: U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundaries.

Screening only — not a site suitability determination.

Every state · Every coal plant screened for new nuclear