Oak Ridge Multibillion Dollar Nuclear Project: Largest Investment in Tennessee History

Industry Discussions Nuclear Power
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OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — In a landmark decision announced last week, Orano USA has selected Oak Ridge for the site of a new multibillion dollar uranium enrichment facility, representing the single largest investment in Tennessee’s history.

Gov. Bill Lee announced the news during a press conference at the Oak Ridge Enhanced Technology and Training Center. He was joined by city, state and federal officials who praised the project’s scale and significance.

The new facility, spanning 750,000 square feet, will become one of the largest uranium enrichment plants in North America, solidifying Oak Ridge as a hub for nuclear technology and innovation.

The ambitious endeavor, known as Project IKE, will be located on a 920-acre site on the Roane County side of Oak Ridge. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) land will be transferred to Orano USA.

The project will lead to the creation of more than 300 jobs, offering a substantial boost to the local economy. Lee emphasized the importance of these jobs.

Orano is a leading player in the nuclear industry. The French-owned company specializes in uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, used nuclear fuel management and recycling, decommissioning, site cleanup, and nuclear medicine.

Project IKE will be the second major project in Tennessee to benefit from the state’s Nuclear Energy Fund, an initiative that helps nuclear-related businesses establish or expand operations in the Volunteer State. The fund also supports Tennessee’s universities and research institutions in furthering their nuclear education programs.

Orano USA will begin the licensing process with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and anticipates the facility could begin production in the early 2030s, according to Palayer.

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDOEOEM/bulletins/3b31172#link_7

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OMG…do we really want Tenn to have nuclear power? That kinda thing needs a strong gov’t, regulation, safety controls, and lots of oversight. Not sure I can be happy that Tenn became the bidding winner for something this big…
This would impact other states, so shouldn’t that mean it’s Federal oversight? Hopefully?

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Oak Ridge was selected for its role in the Manhattan Project for good reason. Tennessee Valley Authority had abundant electric power. Far from the coast making it more difficult to attack from the sea.

A good place to continue uranium enrichment. But tailings from uranium processing for Oak Ridge remains a problem in St. Louis. We have multiple waste sites and cancer clusters.

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Both of those items were under Roosevelt right? Politics in the country were different, and Tennessee looks to have been mostly blue back then…

…in this political environment that thinks there are magic weather directing machines (that are only use on Florida) I am MUCH more leery of this move.

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I can’t tell if you are joking, but as mentioned by pauleckler, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a long history, going back to the Manhattan Project. It is where they first developed large scale uranium enrichment. The highly enriched uranium eventually went into the Hiroshima bomb.

For peaceful nuclear generated electricity, Tennessee has four operating nuclear power reactors. Sequoyah Units 1 and 2 began operating in 1980 and 1981 respectively. Watts Bar Unit 1 began operations in 1996 and Unit 2 in 2015, after construction was shut down for several years and the plant mothballed until TVA decided to finish construction.

TVA has plans to install at least one small modular reactor near Oak Ridge at Clinch River. They recently approved $150 million for further development.

_ Pete

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Nuclear power is regulated by the federal government - not state government. Nuclear Regulatory Commision is a federal agency that regulates nuclear power. The Oak Ridge Facilities are regulated by the Department of Energy which is a federal agency.

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I posted a book review on the history of TVA a while ago.

https://discussion.fool.com/t/ot-origins-of-the-tva-the-muscle-shoals-controversy-1920-1932/92623

It’s origin is a plant the govt built at Muscle Sholes AL to make nitrates for the military during World War I. After the war it took Congress years to decide what to do with it. Finally they realized dams to make the Tennessee River navigable and dams for hydropower were best uses. Yes, several bills were vetoed before FDR decided to go ahead.

Providing electricity to aid development of the area was controversial. But first trial proved successful. Residents got homes wired and bought appliances like refrigerators.

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The TVA has been wildly successful, eradicating the malaria in the region which often reached 30% of the population (mosquitos & standing water), turning flood prone rivers into recreational and industrial waterways, and providing hydro power to 7 states which prior had been industrial wastelands for lack of access to energy. So successful, in fact, that people began clamoring for more, and TVA opened coal, gas, and even nuclear plants to provide electricity across the southeast.

Sadly, the anti-government ethos ran (runs) so deep in this part of the country that despite the benefits the TVA was mired in political brawling for nearly all of its early years, and what could have been a model for similar programs in the Northwest and Midwest were never pursued; the political angst and fights were just too much for any politician to bear. (Think: the ACA, aka Obamacare).

It’s a shame, because we have among the lowest energy costs in the country, coupled with hundreds of miles of previously unnavigable waterways.

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[quote=“dlbuffy, post:2, topic:109314”]
OMG…do we really want Tenn to have nuclear power?
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TN has had nuclear power for some time. Unit One came online in '81 and Unit Two in '82 just north of Chattanooga.

(Sequoyah Nuclear Plant - Wikipedia)

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The Watts Bar Nuclear Plant is a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) nuclear reactor pair used for electric power generation. It is located on a 1,770-acre (7.2 km²) site in Rhea County, Tennessee, near Spring City, between Chattanooga and Knoxville. Watts Bar supplies enough electricity for about 1.2 million households in the Tennessee Valley.

The plant, construction of which began in 1973, has two Westinghouse pressurized water reactor units: Unit 1, completed in 1996, and Unit 2, completed in 2015.

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Tennessee, as other have mentioned, has had nuclear power since 1945. 1943, if you count the early stages of the Manhattan project. Not only was Oak Ridge the place where fissile U-235 was separated into the bomb components that were used at the Trinity site in Arizona, but also the Little Boy bomb for Hiroshima. And where much of the theoretical engineering was done to design the Hannaford plant and processes which were used in the Fat Man plutonium bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki.

There has been “nuclear power” at Oak Ridge almost continuously since then, including the separation of U-235 for much of America’s early nuclear arsenal. It has led to lots of lawsuits about contamination and local problems of remediation, among other things. TVA also has some nuclear plants in the region, so “nuclear” is well known around here. Heck, one of the local bank chains is the Y-12, with a spinning atom as its symbol at one time.

Tennessee was Democratic, true, but it was a holdover of the conservative - and racist - Old South, not the Democratic Party of today. Indeed, Al Gore’s father was huge here, which led to Jr. being elected and continuing in office even as the state turned Republican (along with much of the South.) Tennessee was - and is - the land of God, Country, and Guns, and only the debacle of the Great Depression and FDR’s populist coalition brought it some semblance of “big and responsible government.”

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A few corrections…
The Trinity site is in New Mexico, not Arizona. Also, the Trinity test was a plutonium bomb, not uranium. The plutonium was produced at the Hanford site in Washington state.

https://www.nps.gov/mapr/hanford.htm

In summary:
Trinity test: Plutonium fuel, implosion type device
Hiroshima: Uranium fuel, gun-type device
Nagasaki: Plutonium fuel, implosion device

_Pete

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Yes, and it’s not the first time I have made that mistake. New Mexico, not Arizona.

I keep thinking “uranium” because it came first, except the first explosion was plutonium. And while it’s true the plutonium was produced at Hanford, the preliminary engineering and technology for it was done in Oak Ridge.