CAMDEN, N.J. On a bright, humid afternoon last September, Allen Hickman made the rounds on the floor of a factory that embodies the past, present and future of the nations atomic energy industry perhaps more than any other site in the United States.

Founded the same year as the Soviet Unions Chernobyl catastrophe the only major nuclear energy accident in history with an established death toll Hickmans employer, Holtec International, built a business helping utilities from New York to Ukraine to Japan manage nuclear waste.

Inside the cavernous, warehouse-like facility on the eastern bank of the Delaware River, sparks flew as welders turned sheets of steel into cylindrical containers designed to seal and store spent fuel from nuclear reactors until the radioactive material can be recycled or buried. In fact, Holtec recently became a customer for its own storage casks as the company bought up four shuttered nuclear power plants, taking over the decommissioning process.

The market for managing and disassembling defunct nuclear plants is growing; the U.S. has closed 13 reactors in just the past decade.