PHOENIX —With the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio making headway in nuclear remediation, feds and locals around the Piketon, Ohio complex are working to attract new industry, including nuclear power.
That was the takeaway from a Wednesday panel discussion on the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site during the Waste Management Symposium conference.
A company, Trillium H2 Power, plans to invest nearly $1.5 billion on land acquired from the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative for a small hydrogen-based power plant that could start up in 2027, said company executive Wiley Rhodes.
Last month, OKLO Power took an option on land from Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative for what could be its second and third small advanced reactors.
Oklo senior director Everett Redmond declined to predict when one of the OKLO nuclear facilities will open at Portsmouth, but said the company is in advanced phases of development for its first unit, which could come online in 2027 at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The company officials said Portsmouth is attractive thanks to its rail access; electric power transmission lines and local residents who are accustomed to the nuclear industry.
The business development comes amid key remediation milestones, DOE officials said during the panel.
One of three big uranium processing buildings is already torn down and the start of demolition at the second could start this calendar year, DOE Portsmouth site lead Jeremy Davis said. The half-mile-long X-326 Process Building was torn down in 2022. The X-330 Process Building is now 92% deactivated, and demolition could start by December, Davis said.
DOE has said 330 and the X-333 Process Building that was used in uranium enrichment, should be torn down around 2030.
Portsmouth should be cleaned up in the next 20-to-30 years, Joel Bradburne, manager of DOE’s Portsmouth Paducah Project Office, said after the panel.
