RICHLAND, Wash. , August 6, 2024 (ENS) – The U. S. Department of Energy is investigating the U. S. Department of Energy in the United States. The U. S. government is initiating negotiations with a Chicago company to build one of the nation’s largest solar and battery garage projects at the site where plutonium-powered nuclear weapons for the outbreak of the Cold War are located at the Hanford site in southeastern Washington.
“Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, we have added approximately 90 gigawatts of solar capacity to the grid, enough to power approximately thirteen million homes, and we are building on this historic progress with a large solar project,” Energy said. Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
“With today’s announcement, DOE is transforming thousands of acres of land in Hanford into a thriving hub for carbon-free solar power generation, setting an example by cleaning up our environment and offering new economic opportunities to local communities,” said Secretary Granholm. Formation
The Energy Department announced Thursday that it has settled on Chicago, Illinois-based Hecate Energy for a gigawatt-scale allocation on up to 8,000 acres of unused nuclear reserve land near the southeast edge of the Hanford site. Approximately 14,000 acres on the southeast corner of Hanford can be leased for blank power generation.
Formerly called the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the decommissioned nuclear production complex occupies more than 500 square miles of land on the Columbia River, about two hundred miles (322 kilometers) southeast of Seattle. It is controlled through the United States federal government.
For nearly 30 years, the United States Department of Defense and Department of Energy produced tons of plutonium for the United States’ atomic weapons program. The activities at Hanford produced hazardous chemical waste and radioactive materials, totaling 56 million gallons (212 million liters) of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks. Some of those pollutants have seeped into the soil and water, adding the Columbia River.
Nuclear reactors, first built as part of World War II’s top-secret Manhattan Project, required enormous amounts of water to keep the cores cooling. Chromium compounds added to prevent the apparatus from corroding entered the river, destroying fish and wildlife habitat.
Today, it employs about 11,000 more people for cleaning and maintaining the environment, at a cost of about $3 billion a year.
Today, in addition to extensive cleanup operations, Hanford is the only operating nuclear power plant in the Pacific Northwest, the Columbia Power Plant operated through Energy Northwest. It generates about 1. 2 gigawatts of baseload electrical power, or about 10% of the electrical power used in Washington state.
Energy Northwest, a Washington state joint operating company, owns and operates a portfolio of blank power, hydroelectric, solar, wind, battery storage, and nuclear power projects.
The sun allocation could be operational within five to seven years. It would be the largest allocation in the Department of Energy’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative announced in July 2023. This program repurposes amounts of DOE-owned land, adding land in the past. used in the country’s nuclear weapons program, for blank energy allocations.
“We will reclaim the land we have used for decades for nuclear protection and environmental remediation by working intensively with local tribes and communities, as well as personal sector partners, to build some of the largest blank energy projects in the world,” he said Secretary Granholm. Through the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, DOE will exploit spaces that were used in the past to protect our national security and repurpose them for the same purpose: this time, to generate blank energy that will help save the planet and protect our energy independence.
DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Office of Nuclear Energy, and National Nuclear Security Administration know approximately 70,000 acres in progress at five sites:
Expanding blank energy production creates good-paying jobs, protects the environment and supports communities across the country, said Brenda Mallory, who chairs the White House Energy Quality Council. surroundings.
However, when the Clean Energy Cleanup Initiative was proposed, considerations arose that a giant sun allocation at Hanford might not be the most productive use of limited land scheduled for commercial use and upgrade work at Hanford once the environmental cleanup is complete.
At Hanford, up to 14,000 acres have been proposed for a blank electric park.
The Three Cities Development Council, TRIDEC, has called for certain land to be set aside for its vision of a complex blank electric park, adding a north-south land hall that would link Hanford land transferred to the grid in 2015 with land that Energy Northwest leases. This land is included in the negotiations for the Hecate project.
“We appreciate that the DOE responded to the community’s preference to maintain the hall, which is critically important to realizing our vision for the Northwest Advanced Clean Energy Park,” said David Reeploeg, TRIDEC’s Vice President of Federal Programs. an opportunity to remodel this room and make it something truly special, adding the cutting-edge industries and jobs we seek to attract in the future. “
Located at the confluence of the Columbia, Snake and Yakima Rivers in southeastern Washington, the Tri-Cities are: Kennewick, with 84,000 residents, the regional entertainment and retail center, Pasco, Richland and West Richland. The region is known for its more than three hundred days of sunshine a year.
Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats of Washington, and Congressman Dan Newhouse, Republican of Washington, assured that Secretary Granholm is aware of the Tri-Cities network’s interest in preserving the land for a complex blank electric park.
Hecate reached out to TRIDEC to discuss its plans and committed to partnering with Tri-Cities netpaintings to the sun and the battery garage assignment aligns with netpaintings’ plans for a complex blank electric park, said Sean O’Brien, executive director of the Energy. Advanced alliance. The alliance will work with Hecate to maximize opportunities similar to its solar mission, O’Brien said.
An empty energy hub with solar, hydropower, wind, nuclear, and operational power facilities, the Tri-Cities region is home to thousands of workers in energy-related fields and a wide diversity of business leaders. industry, research, education, public service, networking, and Washington State. and become a blank power style for the nation.
Regional leaders created a business environment to help make Washington’s blank energy future a reality by finding answers to existing energy resources and the reserve while transitioning to a reliable and affordable blank powerArray.
Recognizing that strong regional partnerships enable ambitious target energy and carbon relief goals to be achieved, an organization of regional CEOs has committed to a long-term partnership based on a shared understanding of the vision for the region and increased investments.
Most of the 580-square-mile Hanford site now belongs to Hanford Reach National Monument or is designated for conservation once environmental cleanup is complete.
Hecate Energy will have to complete its task and return the land it uses to its current state until the end of the environmental cleanup in Hanford, which could take up to fifty years.
Eleven corporations submitted proposals for blank energy projects on the Hanford land; None of the other proposals addressed are for the remaining commercial land in southeast Hanford.
Hecate decided to rely on its allocation plan, the technical parameters of the plan, the company’s experience and its plan to communicate with residents of the Tri-Cities domain, tribes and other interested parties. His proposal, along with the other 10 proposals, has not been made public.
No resolution has been made on how the solar force would be used, but the Department of Energy would possibly employ the force directly at the Hanford site.
A greater force would also attract new industries to the Tri-Cities. But the task would produce baseload electrical power that would supply electrical power regardless of weather conditions. Now, maximum battery allowances last for a few hours, like at night when the sun is shining, but for days or weeks at a time.
Benton County is proposing four other smaller onshore solar projects and two Energy Northwest solar projects.
Hecate Energy also lists on its website a 100-megawatt solar and battery garage allocation under development in Benton County, but does not indicate the location of this allocation. Founded in 2012, Hecate develops solar and wind plants and electric garage assignments throughout the United States. , many of them in the southeast and along the Atlantic coast. The company has projects underway to generate more than 40 gigawatts of electricity.
Editor’s Note: The Tri-City Herald contributed to this report.
Top image: Hecate Energy led one of the first completed large-scale solar allocations in the Commonwealth of Virginia: managing progress, financing, and construction. This allocation was sold to Dominion Energy at the progression price, which ended in the second quarter of 2017. (Photo courtesy of Hecate Energy)
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