Deputy EnergySec among headline speakers for Hanford clean industry day
Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk is among the federal bigwigs on the agenda for Friday’s ‘Cleanup to Clean Energy’ informational meeting for the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to the Department of Energy.
In addition to Turk, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William “Ike” White and Hanford Site manager Brian Vance, other feds participating will include Narayan Subramanian, a special adviser to the agency on clean energy and supply chains, as well as Jeremiah Baumann, an adviser with the agency’s Office of the Under Secretary for Infrastructure.
Candice Robertson, an Office of Environmental senior advisor for clean energy, will lead a discussion on Hanford’s potential for carbon-free energy projects, according to the recently-posted agenda for the meeting, set to start at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time at the Richland Federal Building on Jadwin Avenue.
The Hanford Site, which for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons, is the first of five Cold War and Manhattan Project sites targeted by the administration of President Joe Biden for development of carbon-free energy.
The White House wants to attract companies capable of developing 200 megawatts or more worth of clean electric power on land largely used for buffers at DOE nuclear sites. Other DOE sites identified as targets in the program are the Idaho National Laboratory, the Nevada National Security Site, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
These first five sites are expected to be followed by others, Ingrid Kolb, director of DOE’s Office of Management, said last week at the National Cleanup Workshop in Arlington, Va.
Factors affecting the project development are likely to include access to tax credits as well as the length of the leases provided to the DOE sites, Kolb and other panelists said last week.
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm formally kicked off the program in late July during a Washington, D.C. ceremony.
