Cold War and Manhattan Project locations being cleaned up by the Department of Energy could be viable candidates for new nuclear power plants, a federal official said during an online presentation Wednesday.
About a dozen of the 16 nuclear cleanup properties run by the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) boast “unique characteristics” potentially attractive for new electric power plants, Mark Gilbertson, who heads EM’s office of regulatory and policy affairs, said during the event sponsored by the Energy Communities Alliance: the interest group for localities that host former nuclear weapons production sites.
The organization hosted the webinar titled “Building the Nuclear Energy Future.”
In addition to large tracts of available land, the DOE-managed sites tend to have rail access or water access, which makes it convenient to ship in large components, Gilbertson said. “We are working at major construction projects at several of those sites,” he added.
There tends to be high electric power demand at the EM properties, especially those co-located with the National Nuclear Security Administration and other DOE operations, Gilbertson said. “Because of their large power usage, we have transmission lines that handle over 2,000 megawatts at a time.”
Access to major power lines is typically a must for electric generation units that need to distribute the power near and far, Gilbertson said. Military or industrial sites with significant electric demand are often located near DOE facilities, he added.
But the ample infrastructure found at most DOE nuclear cleanup properties is not the only thing that could make them attractive as a power plant site, Gilbertson said.
“We have a lot of environmental data at our sites,” said Gilbertson. The information can come in very handy when applying for necessary state and federal permits, he said.
The DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory has already been identified as the preferred site for a small modular reactor developed by NuScale Power, which is an affiliate of Fluor. The small reactor plans were mentioned by another speaker at the event, Amy Lientz, the director of energy industry supply chain at the national laboratory.
The federal government has long been a major buyer of electric power, said ECA Executive Director Seth Kirshenberg who believes the Joe Biden administration is interested in tapping the potential of carbon-free nuclear generation. The DOE and Department of Defense could be a potential customer for nuclear power.
One impediment, however, is a policy that discourages the federal government from entering into power contracts lasting longer than 10 years, Kirshenberg said. Nuclear developers typically want a longer-term commitment to justify the investment, he said.
