Gas carries 80 percent of ONE Nuclear's 5 GW Louisiana plan for data centers

Somebody on a siting team will read the phrase "binding letter of intent" this week and have to decide what it justifies in a board paper. At Project Cayman it means site control, which ONE Nuclear says it has secured, and it is the firmest procurement fact in the portfolio. Development would then proceed in phases set by customer demand, fuel availability, utility requirements, environmental reviews, permitting and financing ^[8].

The roles are stated plainly. Gas supplies dispatchable electricity, batteries help manage demand and storage, and nuclear provides steady longer-term generation ^[15]. The weighting is less even than the three-way framing suggests. Cayman and Barracuda together account for about 4.08 GW of gas against up to 1 GW of nuclear at Amberjack ^[6], so gas is roughly 80 percent of the 5.08 GW of combined planning targets ^[1].

The storage numbers are where an operator should slow down. Barracuda's batteries are specified at 300 MW/1.2 GWh ^[3], which is four hours at full rated output ^[2] and a quarter of that project's own gas nameplate ^[4]. The same energy park is meant to support up to 1 GW of critical data-center IT capacity ^[3]. Against a load that size, 1.2 GWh runs for about 72 minutes ^[3]. Cayman is described as natural-gas generation and battery storage with no storage figure attached ^[17].

Amberjack is the part with no equipment behind it. The company has site control but still needs technical and environmental studies before it determines the reactor technology and final plant configuration ^[5]. Planned work includes geotechnical and environmental studies, cooling-water and logistics assessments, transmission analysis and discussions with potential technology vendors, plus continued engagement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ^[13]. Chris Hansmeyer, ONE Nuclear's Chief Development Officer, said: "These projects are complementary, but they are not dependent on one another." ^[12]

That is the useful sentence for a buyer, and it works in both directions. The gas can advance while the reactor studies run, and nothing in the plan requires the reactor campus for the gas customers to be served. Richard Taylor, ONE Nuclear's CEO, said "Cayman delivers scale, Barracuda connects dedicated power with digital infrastructure, and Amberjack creates a disciplined path toward advanced nuclear power" ^[11]. The report gives no projected in-service date for any of the three, and the only date it carries is a public information meeting in October 2026 ^[16].

So the test to apply to any of these megawatts has three parts: is the site secured, is the generating technology chosen, and is a customer signed. Cayman clears the first two and leaves the third to phasing ^[8]. Barracuda is being planned in stages, with generation, storage and data-center components expanded as customer demand develops ^[9]. Amberjack clears the first only ^[5]. ONE Nuclear says the totals are not yet guaranteed generation capacity and still depend on final engineering, grid interconnection, permits, customer agreements and financing ^[7]. No commercial power generation has begun ^[14].