Entergy Nuclear's headquarters in Jackson.
Entergy Nuclear’s headquarters in Jackson.

Entergy Nuclear’s headquarters in Jackson will expand its operations in 2019, hiring for 250 new job openings.

The positions will range from engineers to project managers to training and maintenance.

The Entergy Nuclear headquarters monitors nuclear plants around the country, in states such as Arkansas, New York, Louisiana, and Michigan.

Entergy’s presence in Jackson also includes a training facility for all of the corporation’s employees, a transmission control center that employs 300 people, as well as the company’s data center.

The company also announced two other recent investments: a $20-million newly-renovated distribution center in Jackson, and plans to purchase the Choctaw Generating facility in French Camp — a natural gas-fired power plant in French Camp — for $314 million.

Entergy Nuclear’s emergency monitoring room. Staff there monitors safety of all of Entergy’s nuclear plants, looking out for dangers such as approaching storms.

Gov. Phil Bryant touted Entergy’s investment in the state, employing 2,000 workers in Mississippi and serving 449,000 customers across 45 counties.

“The world will look at Mississippi in different ways now, they’ll know that these are not just low-paying, unskilled jobs, that advanced manufacturing is ahead of us,” Bryant said.

The Governor said he hoped to have a power or nuclear academy in Mississippi one day to train students for the industry.

Entergy will also add about 70 new jobs at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Port Gibson, home to the largest nuclear reactor in the country.

Other state officials, including Speaker Philip Gunn and Public Service Commissioners Brandon Presley and Sam Britton, attended a Thursday news conference at the headquarters.

The lobby at Entergy Nuclear.

“Entergy is the utility of the future,” Presley said. “If we worry about the environment, if we worry about affordability, we can’t get away from nuclear power.”

Presley added Entergy had the lowest prices for electricity of any provider in the United States two years ago.

Entergy’s expansion in the state comes after a November announcement of a 1,000 acre solar farm coming to Sunflower County.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story contained incorrect information about Entergy’s nuclear energy production. 30 percent of the world’s nuclear energy is generated by the national industry as a whole. 

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Alex Rozier, from New York City, is Mississippi Today’s data and environment reporter. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Open Secrets, and on NBC.com. In 2019, Alex was a grantee through the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines program, which supported his coverage around the impact of climate change on Mississippi fisheries.