The Tri-City Development Council thinks the best way to spur carbon-free power at the Hanford Site in Washington state is for the Department of Energy to transfer a chunk of buffer land there to local control, a vice president with the organization, David Reeploeg, told Exchange Monitor by phone last week.
Reeploeg responded to the publication’s inquiry on Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) comments last week during a congressional budget hearing on fiscal 2025 spending. Newhouse told Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Granholm local entities want a bigger voice in Hanford land use, including the Cleanup to Clean Energy program.
The congressman was referring to concerns raised by Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC), Reeploeg said March 21.
In December, DOE issued a draft request for qualifications for parties interested in developing 200 megawatts or more of carbon-free electricity on underused acreage at the former plutonium production complex.
Born in the 1960s as the Tri-Cities Nuclear Industrial Council, TRIDEC is the DOE-recognized community re-use organization for Benton and Franklin Counties in Washington.
While not opposed to solar projects, which can be approved and built far quicker than nuclear facilities, Reeploeg said Hanford reservation provides a “unique” opportunity to develop small modular and micro-reactors. This is due to the sprawling Hanford complex itself, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Energy Northwest’s Columbia nuclear plant located on DOE land at the Hanford Site, Reeploeg said.
In support of then-DOE Environmental Management Assistant Secretary Ines Triay’s 2009 plan to set up clean energy parks at DOE cleanup sites, TRIDEC and other local groups got behind what they dubbed the Mid-Columbia Energy Initiative, TRIDEC said in its formal comments last year to the Cleanup to Clean Energy Program.
“We recognize that DOE’s “Cleanup to Clean Energy Initiative” originally envisioned leasing DOE land for clean energy generation projects, but we believe transferring ownership of all or a large portion of the land to TRIDEC could lead to even more transformative success,” according to the TRIDEC comments. It goes on to say the 19,000 acres targeted by DOE are “the only land near the City of Richland that would be suitable for future clean industrial development.”
