American Energy Hub coming to Ohio’s Portsmouth Site

This part of Ohio again is going to be leading us into the digital future. These generations here, I hope they understand that projects like this will change lives. We need to move fast because we're in a race. It's a global race for super intelligence. Welcome to EnergyCast. I'm Marissa Sarback. Today we're taking you to DOE's Portsmouth site in Piketon, Ohio, where thousands of people are working to transform the site. It'll play a vital role in our nation's energy future by creating the largest energy generation project in the United States. Thirty-seven billion dollars of investment is coming right here to this site to build Still 9.2 gigawatts of new gas powered generation. Assistant Secretary Tim Walsh touring the site where this new American energy hub will be for the first time since it was announced in March. But really the credit goes to President Trump and his vision for bringing jobs back to America, to restarting coal-fired power plants to provide the energy that we need, building new gas generation, rebuilding our electric grid. So this project also includes over $5 billion of investment building on the grid that was already here to support the gaseous diffusion plant to bring in more power and ultimately to lower the cost of electricity for the Ohioans in this part of the region. When the Portsmouth site began operating in the 1950s, it exemplified American energy dominance. It was one of three former gaseous diffusion plants in the country, enriching uranium and solidifying the nation's position as the global leader in nuclear energy. Families in southern Ohio have been a part of that history since the very beginning. My dad used to come home from work and he would draw process equipment on a piece of paper thinking that when I was eight years old that I would know what he was talking about. So in 2002, I was able to come up and do some training on site. I started here in 2005. So to be able to see the pictures, kind of like what he drew on paper versus the actual size of the equipment that they were working with was, you know, it was great. Andrea Tipton is proud of her family's legacy. I'm a third generation. My mom and dad worked here. My grandfather watched the 326 building from dirt. to being built in the 50s then when he passed before he passed away when he was 93 it was back down to dirt so he watched the full life evolution so I have blood literally on site so passion for keeping jobs here in a local community is on my forefront. Tipton is no doubt making her family proud in return, now the president of the local steelworkers union. These members work on deactivating and decommissioning the old infrastructure at the site, which is a long process, removing hazardous and radioactive materials. We are the nuts and bolts that hold the place together. The building and trades union members then come in for demolition. We clean up, remediate chemical hazards, radiological hazards. And turn over a clean site for development, which is where we're at today. Jody Crabtree is the building trades representative for the site. We started out with just an idea. You know, what are we going to do? They're going to shut the plant down. Well, we're going to work towards cleaning it up, make it as developable as possible. We don't know if that development is going to come or not, but we're going to work towards it. That careful and deliberate cleanup all falls under Joe Saltzman, including demolition of the 66-acre X333 building, That enriched uranium during the Cold War. There's kind of three phases to demolition. You have the structural demolition, actually bringing the building down to the ground. And then the second phase is you do size reduction. And this all goes in parallel. And then you load out the debris into trucks and it's taken to the on-site waste disposal facility. So right now, you know, we're in the five to six year range from start to finish. So we're just in getting into, you know, kind of year two here of the structural demolition of it. Having a plan for what comes next after demolition brings hope and anticipation. I've always kind of said, kind of jokingly, that when my group comes to a facility, it's probably not good news if you've worked in that facility because we're going to tear it down, right? So the thought that now we're going to. Tear something down, but build right back on top of it. Sure, it brings a lot of excitement. Clean Up With a Purpose is making space for projects like SB Energy's new privately funded 10 gigawatt superintelligence data center. It will be the largest one in the country. Expected to create 30,000 construction jobs during the building phase over the next few years. And then thousands more to operate the data center and maintain the facilities. SB Energy is also launching upgrades to the grid and constructing new energy projects to power the campus without raising costs for local businesses and residents. This is a Manhattan-era scale project. Not since this project was built back in the 1950s have we seen a construction. of this magnitude in the United States. Expansions via private industry have already proven successful on the Portsmouth site. Centrus is an American-owned nuclear power company that enriches uranium inside one of the Cold War-era buildings on site. We are the only HALEU enrichment facility in the entire world in the United States. HALEU, or high-assay low-enriched uranium, is used to power next-generation nuclear reactors. The company also produces standard low-enriched uranium, which powers current nuclear reactors. In essence, this brings domestic enrichment capacity back to the United States. Historically, for the last few years to decades, this has all been imported from overseas, and so we will be restoring this to a domestic capacity right here in Piketon. Centrus has been operating on DOE's Piketon site since 2023. Currently employing more than 400 people in southern Ohio, with plans to continue expanding as the need for clean and affordable energy continues to grow. The fact that this is being restored right here in southern Ohio is extraordinary. The future is wide open, and really the start of the next nuclear generation really starts right here in Piketon. Those on the front lines are looking forward to the possibilities. The old timers around this area talk about. When the plant was built in the 50s and the boom that they experienced and how excited they were about it and how it changed their lives and now we're going to get to experience that for ourselves. There's a lot of positive things that have come out of Jobs here at this site, being able to provide for our families, put our kids through college, live in a great community, it's very community oriented. What these job opportunities mean for them and for the next generation. I've got a 14-year-old that's a freshman and I've got an 8-year-old. I want them to stay around here. I don't want to have to travel hours to see my grandkids one day, so it's exciting. Cleanup with a purpose is reinvigorating the Rust Belt and giving Southern Ohio something new to be proud of. All of that infrastructure is here. It just needed to be brought back to life. Thank you for watching this episode of EnergyCast and learning about the future of DOE's Portsmouth site here in Piketon, Ohio and the people who are making it happen.