Oklo speaks about HALEU, progress at A-Plant site

Stephanie Howe, Director of Energy Programs, Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service hosted a webinar featuring industry leaders who spoke on the importance HALEU and small modular reactor (SMR) technologies and how it affects the projects at former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site.

Pike County Commissioner Tony Montgomery who also sits on the SODI (Southern Ohio Diversity Initiative) board said at a commissioners meeting on Monday, June 17 that this is a great time for SMR technology.

“This is the perfect storm for SMRs because their fuel is this HALEU and they want to get their energy out on the grid and its all in one spot,” Montgomery said. “No place else in the nation has the fuel you need to put it on the grid and it’s right there. For us its a great thing.”

“The companies that are producing these small nuclear reactors, the law states they have to buy domestically produced HALEU,” Montgomery added.

Everett Redmond, Senior Director of Fuel Affairs for Oklo spoke during the webinar of the steps Oklo and plans for development at the A-Plant site.

“We’ve announced the signing with SODI,” Redmond said. “It’s an agreement to deploy two commercial Oklo power plants in Southern Ohio. And then this year we announced the signing of an option and write a first refusal to purchase real estate with SODI .

“Why SODI? Why that area? Why are we interested in it? They have a huge nuclear background, good infrastructure at that facility out there and a good workforce,” Redmond said. “So we’re interested in continuing to pursue opportunities there. As I said, we have MOUs.with them so we’re kind of looking into that in terms of other opportunities.”

Montgomery agreed with Redmond saying that the DOE site in Piketon is the optimal place for this kind of project.

“When the real estate comes available at that site, it’s the only site in the country of that kind, that has that kind infrastructure and capability,” Montgomery said.

All three industry leaders of the webinar talked about how help from the community is crucial for these projects to be successful. Redmond spoke about the southern Ohio community.

You know, looking at SODI, for example, in southern Ohio, you’ve got a community that’s interested in nuclear energy,” Redmond said. “They have a lot of history there. They’re interested in continuing to build out that infrastructure, which is great. The community support and state support, county support are all very important and that has to be maintained over the life of the project.”

Oklo is aggressive right now,” Commissioner Montgomery said. “They are really pushing to get started, to get property, to get their projects started, which is good. Oklo just went public a couple months ago and that gave them a big push. What Oklo is talking (about) and what they are trying to get done is good for Pike County. I like the fact they are aggressive.”

Howe, who served as the Director for the PORTSfuture Program a multi-year, multi-disciplinary grant funded by DOE Office of Environmental Management Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, talked about the reindustrialization of the A-Plant site.

Montgomery interest in the site is very high.

“There is a lot interest (in the site),” Montgomery said. Montgomery also said that Kevin Shoemaker (attorney for SODI) fields several calls and emails every week from people with interest in the site.

Howe said her group is focused on being responsive to the community input of what the community would like to see happen to the site post clean up.

“We engaged with folks at community events, We did speaking engagements.We did interviews with key stakeholders. Whether they were folks from the environmental community or economic development leaders or people that work at the site,” Howe said. “There’s a four county area of focus over there and each county held their own focus groups. We were asking people what they know about the site, what their hopes for the future are with the site and any concerns they might have.”

Howe said that there are three developers that are under land contracts right now with SODI, at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. One, she said, is a decarbonized hydrogen project. The second tenant would be a renewable energy utility and the third is an advanced molecular reactor.