Nuclear power plant planned for Piketon

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By Tom Beyerlein, Staff Writers Updated 10:19 PM Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A coalition of energy companies will announce plans Thursday to build a new nuclear power plant on the site of the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, and negotiations for a second plant are under way, according to a source close to the negotiations.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, are to attend a 10 a.m. press conference Thursday, June 18, where they will join CEOs from Areva, a French nuclear reactor company, and Duke Energy.

Officials from USEC Inc., which would provide fuel for the plant, also plan to attend.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu has been invited, and is scheduled to be in Cincinnati that day.

USEC released a statement saying there would be a “major announcement” of a plan to convert part of the 3,700-acre Piketon site into a “21st century clean energy production center.”

Piketon is located in southern Ohio’s Pike County, one of the state’s poorest areas. The plant would bring some 4,000 construction jobs into the state, but could take more than a decade to build because of the lengthy regulatory process, the source said.

Some of the licensing is already in place, although the plant would still be subject to other regulatory approvals.

There has not been a new nuclear power plant in the United States in more than two decades, although several are in the planning pipeline.

FirstEnergy owns the two existing nuclear power plants in Ohio — the Perry plant in Lake County near Cleveland and the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo. Davis-Besse went on-line in 1978; Perry in 1987.

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