• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
  • Podcast
  • Archives
  • Links

Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Aiken business leaders say – Please, In MY Back Yard

April 2, 2006 By Rod Adams

Aiken, South Carolina is a gentile southern city with amazing golf courses, public gardens, a superior school system and many other fine amenities that make it an excellent place to live and raise a family.

It is also a place where a group of business organizations have gotten together to convince the federal government that the Savannah River Site (SRS), a national laboratory near the town, would make an excellent place for a nuclear fuel recycling plant. In other words, these leaders, people who live and work in a very comfortable American city have shown that they would like the opportunity to take on the challenging task of efficiently recycling used nuclear fuel.

Here is an excerpt from an article supplied by the Knight-Ridder news wire describing the opportunity and the coalition of business groups:

According to plans by the U.S. Department of Energy, communities across the country would compete for a new reprocessing demonstration plant. If that plant works, the government would build a permanent complex somewhere in the United States. That complex would include a reprocessing plant and possibly a nuclear fuel plant to supply new commercial reactors.

Business groups signing off on the notice Friday include the Aiken/Edgefield Economic Development Partnership, the Southern Carolina Alliance, Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness and area chambers of commerce. The cities of Aiken and North Augusta also back the effort. The notice was filed by the Washington Savannah River Co., the site’s chief contractor. Mal McKibben, who directs Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness, estimated SRS could one day land 2,000 to 4,000 jobs from reprocessing facilities. Other estimates place the jobs total in the hundreds.

The effort is certainly worth while – the 40,000 tons of used nuclear fuel that currently reside in either deep pools of water or in dry storage containers at the same reactor sites where the fuel was first used are an incredible energy resource. Only 3-5% of the initial potential energy of the heavy metals has been produced, the rest remains to be harvested.

SRS is also well suited for the endeavor – it has a well educated and experienced work force, a large, secure site, and a significant quantity of underutilized infrastructure. Good luck, Aiken, I hope you succeed in your efforts.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About Rod Adams

Managing member at Nucleation Capital, LP.
Atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience. Financial, strategic, and political analyst. Former submarine Engineer Officer. Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast. Resume available here.

Please subscribe to the Atomic Show RSS feed.

Primary Sidebar

Search Atomic Insights

The Atomic Show

Atomic Insights

Follow Atomic Insights

Recent Posts

Atomic Show #288 – Per Peterson, CNO, Kairos Power

Kenneth Pitzer blamed AEC advisors for slow power reactor development

Why did the US Atomic Energy Commission kill Daniels Pile in 1947?

How did an oil shale investor hamstring his atomic energy competition? (Ancient but impactful smoking gun)

Improved atomic energy offers a pathway that Princeton’s Net Zero America failed to acknowledge

  • Home
  • About Atomic Insights
  • Atomic Show
  • Contact
  • Links

Search Atomic Insights

Archives

Copyright © 2021 · Atomic Insights

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy