Pike County and the Scioto Valley — The gradual demolition of the Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon, and its conversion into new industrial sites – as well as employment possibilities – was outlined in an open house last week.
The community open house was offered to inform the public and job seekers about the redevelopments and potential jobs. It showcased displays by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE, which owns the site), the Ohio University Voinovich School of Leadership, the Oklo “advanced fusion technology” company, and Trillium H2 Power.
I spoke with three of the participants, and you can hear them in their own words (in the noisy room!) in my video interviews.
The spokesman for DOE outlined the ongoing process of decommission and demolition. Jeffrey Davis said demolition has finished on one of the two largest buildings, number 326, and polluted on-site earth was used to help bury most of it in the landfill created on the facility.
He said they continue to deal with steel tanks of depleted uranium hexafluoride, and they are ready to start the demolition of building 333, with about 14 years left in their procedural timeline.
Learn more on their demolition-specific website.
The Oklo (pronounced “OH-kloh”) spokesman said they plan to build two small powerhouses there to generate 15 megawatts of electricity each.
John said their first powerhouse is on-track to be built in Idaho and go online in 2027, and their Piketon plants will follow.
He said their metal-fueled, metal-cooled, low-pressure, passively safe technology is based on an experimental test reactor that ran for 30 years.
John said the Piketon site has several good features for them:
- A great infrastructure with the power lines coming in that they can use to send out power.
- A great symbiotic partner with the Centrus centrifuge facility there that will sell them fuel and buy their electricity.
- And a history of nuclear power there, with a potential workforce that already has experience with it.
Oklo has a website and Facebook page.
Representatives of Trillium H2 Power spoke with the Ross County Commissioners recently, and at the open house they said they did not have anything new to report.
The event in Pike County was held at the Twin Lakes Resort just east of Piketon. Another open house was held the next day in the Scioto County Welcome Center in Portsmouth.
A “virtual museum” website on the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is also available.
