Project Cayman: A 2.88 GW Gas Plant In Bayou Country

The company is selling investors a gas-to-nuclear bridge. In Louisiana, it has put the gas end of that bridge under contract.

ONE Nuclear Energy has told Wall Street it is building a bridge: natural gas now, nuclear later.

For its biggest project yet, it wants to put the nuclear aside and bring the gas.

In a securities filing dated Aug. 31, ONE Nuclear said it had signed a binding letter of intent with a Louisiana landowner group for site control on “Project Cayman”—a 2.88-gigawatt natural-gas plant, a 700-megawatt battery system and a co-located, high-capacity data-center campus.

It is the company’s first announced site in Louisiana. At 2.88 gigawatts, the planned power plant would be more than twice the size of the one-gigawatt projects ONE Nuclear has described in East Texas and New Mexico.

The company placed the project near RiverPlex MegaPark, the 17,000-acre industrial megasite in Ascension Parish that has already landed Hyundai’s $5.8 billion steel mill and a $4 billion CF Industries ammonia plant. ONE Nuclear said the site is northeast of SpaceX’s recently announced Louisiana expansion and aligned with Entergy’s regional transmission buildout.

The binding letter covers site control. The filing identifies no capital cost, no customer and no signed power-purchase agreement. It does not address permitting, financing or a construction timeline.

One week earlier, on Aug. 24, shareholders of Hennessy Capital Investment Corp. VII approved the company’s roughly $1 billion SPAC merger. The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year and list ONE Nuclear on Nasdaq under the ticker ONEN.

ONE Nuclear was formed in February 2025. At the time of its investor presentation, it had no operating history, no revenue and no projects under construction.

Project Cayman is its leadoff hitter.

“Project Cayman, with its 2.88 GW power capacity, demonstrates that ONE Nuclear is committed to supporting the future economic development of one of Louisiana’s most important industrial regions,” Chief Executive Richard Taylor said in the release attached to the filing.

Taylor said the project would “deliver the reliable energy needed to support new investment, create jobs, expand the local tax base and generate additional funding for community priorities.”

Louisiana’s entire grid operates on the order of 24 gigawatts. Project Cayman, by itself, would equal roughly 12 percent of that generating base.

For comparison, Entergy Louisiana’s buildout for Meta’s Richland Parish data center—seven new gas units on top of three already approved—totals roughly 7.5 gigawatts. Regulators have said that equals more than 30 percent of the state’s current generating capacity.

That is why data centers have become the central fight in Louisiana energy policy.

The Meta project has drawn sustained scrutiny at the Public Service Commission over who pays if the technology company’s demand falls short of the 15-year contracts supporting gas plants expected to run for 40 years. Advocates have also pressed for more disclosure about permanent jobs and how costs will be divided.

ONE Nuclear is proposing a different structure. Project Cayman would place the generation and the data center behind the same fence, keeping the load largely behind the meter instead of pushing the full cost onto the public grid. It is the model the company has marketed to investors at about $95 per megawatt-hour.

No contracts have been announced.

Louisiana has built its economic-development case around scale. The state has booked more than $150 billion in announced corporate investment and roughly 16,000 jobs, with officials targeting $200 billion.

MORE READING: ONE Nuclear Is Selling a Gas-to-Nuclear Bridge for Data Centers. It Wants to Go Public.

Data centers complicate that argument. They can bring enormous construction spending and expand a local tax base, but they typically employ comparatively few permanent workers for the amount of electricity they consume.

ONE Nuclear said community outreach is already underway and will continue from September through December. The company plans public-information meetings for local parishes, government agencies and other stakeholders.

Then there is the nuclear question.

ONE Nuclear’s stated business goal is a fleet of small modular reactors. Its near-term product is gas—specifically, reciprocating engines the company says can be delivered in roughly a year, compared with multiyear waits for large turbines. The reactors are supposed to follow when licensing and the technology are ready.

In other words, gas is the product investors can see, while nuclear remains the destination for the company.

Project Cayman, as filed, is about gas and batteries, despite ONE Nuclear’s name.

It arrives as Louisiana is trying to make itself a nuclear hub. The state has adopted a new regulatory framework, received $45 million in federal funding and was designated in July as a possible site for a federal nuclear “lifecycle” campus.

But the industry’s cautionary tale remains fresh. NuScale canceled its Idaho small-reactor project after roughly $183 million in federal spending.

For ONE Nuclear, Project Cayman is the first real test of whether the bridge it sold to investors can be poured in concrete.

For Louisiana, it is one more multi-gigawatt bet landing in a state whose power system is already being rebuilt around the AI boom.