A local union leader is optimistic that plans for a nickel recovery facility at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio will go ahead, even though a chief congressional backer lost his reelection bid.
Last month, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) announced the Department of Energy was entering a partnership with contractor Leidos and other parties to recycle surface contaminated nickel at the Portsmouth Site. But on Nov. 5, Brown lost his bid for another term, losing to Bernie Moreno, a Donald Trump-back Republican businessman. Moreno was 50% of the vote to Brown’s 46%.
Leidos is already doing a study on the size of the prospective facility, which would be located inside the perimeter road at the DOE’s former gaseous diffusion plant complex at Portsmouth, Herman Potter, president of United Steelworkers Local 689, said in a Monday conversation with Exchange Monitor. The union local has been pushing the nickel project and other re-industrialization projects at Portsmouth.
Leidos and DOE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nickel can be used in batteries and electric vehicles. In April 2023, DOE sought expressions of interest from parties interested in recycling much of the 6,400 tons of radiologically-surfaced contaminated nickel at Portsmouth.
