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PIKETON — In one of Ohio’s poorest regions, a jazz combo played “Pennies From Heaven.” Executives from bitterly competitive companies embraced. Politicians of the two parties declared esteem for one another. A Republican senator gave a shout-out to a union leader.
Americans even applauded the French.
The world didn’t come to an end, but there were many stars in alignment Thursday, June 18, as dignitaries announced plans to turn a contaminated Cold War-era atomic plant into America’s first “clean energy park,” home to Ohio’s first nuclear reactor in two decades.
The new Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park Alliance will prepare plans and licensing documents to locate at least one reactor on a 3,700-acre federal complex 100 miles southeast of Dayton.
It’s a partnership between the electric utility Duke Energy, which serves Warren and Butler counties; the French reactor vendor Areva; UniStar Nuclear Energy; and USEC Inc., which leases the Piketon complex from the Energy Department.
Officials said construction of the reactor would employ 1,400 to 1,800 workers on average with a peak of about 3,000, and 400 to 700 permanent workers.
It won’t happen overnight. Construction may not even begin for another six or seven years, and the reactor wouldn’t go on line for a decade or more. But none of that seemed to matter to those in attendance Thursday.
“I think the most important thing about today’s announcement is that it gives people hope for the future,” said U.S. Sen. George Voinovich. “To me, this signifies that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.”
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is it that our senators and leaders are too stupid to see that we are giving our country away day after day. Voinovinch was against gambleing in ohio, which would employ ohio workers, but he takes his hat off to the french , I bet his hat was made in china and the light at the end of the tunnel was probably made in japan. when are the american people going to wake Up, when there are no jobs ?????
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