East Tennessee leads US energy innovation in 5 key ways that will extend into 2024

The U.S. Department of Energy's sites in Oak Ridge are phasing out aging Manhattan Project infrastructure and pouring millions into new construction in a push to keep the U.S. out front on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and small nuclear reactors.

At every turn, the department's engagement at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, both of which it owns and which celebrated 80 years in 2023, continue to reflect the Biden administration's vision of a new clean energy economy.

It also reflects the administration's emphasis on competing with China in industries like electric cars and computing.

When she visited Oak Ridge to see TVA's Clinch River Nuclear Site, the possible location of some of the country's first small modular reactors, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said the country was reversing trends she saw as governor of Michigan during the Great Recession.

"We used to stand by the side of the road and watch all these jobs leave," Granholm told Knox News. "We allowed China to take us to the cleaners. And we're not doing that anymore. We're standing up and we're saying, no, we're going to get those jobs and those businesses in the United States."

Through major pieces of legislation that funded clean energy, like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, the DOE said it had made more than $103.6 million available to state and local governments in Tennessee in the past year for energy efficiency and grid resilience.

The funding included $1.1 million to Knoxville's Carbon Rivers to improve recycling of wind turbine blades and $3.4 million to Knoxville's Electric Power Research Institute for solar energy research.

Some $36 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest federal investment in clean energy infrastructure in U.S. history, went to support DOE projects. The department said the act would invest $900 million in large-scale clean energy projects and job creation in Tennessee between now and 2030.

Here are 5 takeaways from the DOE's big moves in 2023, and what they say about where the federal entity is headed in Oak Ridge.

Department of Energy goes all in on new nuclear power

When U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tennessee, was named chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development subcommittee in January, he made clear that nuclear energy was one area of shared interest between him and the Biden administration.

“There's a lot I disagree with this administration, but Secretary Granholm has made her commitment to nuclear - not only existing nuclear but new nuclear - very clear, very strong and in an agreement with us who promote nuclear," Fleischmann said in an interview with Knox News.

Granholm's visit to the TVA Clinch River Nuclear Site highlighted the central role new nuclear generation will play in the Biden administration's goal of a net-zero carbon emissions economy by 2050.

The visit came shortly after Oregon-based NuScale Power terminated its long-term project to demonstrate small modular reactors in November, described as a blow to Biden's clean energy agenda. Granholm said NuScale encountered problems with consistent power demand from companies in Utah, and that TVA would not encounter that same problem.

Biden's support for nuclear power is notable given the lower support for nuclear power in his own party. Though a majority of Americans support building more nuclear power plants, only half of Democrats support expanded nuclear, compared with two-thirds of Republicans, according to Pew Research Center.

Having Fleischmann, a pro-nuclear representative of Oak Ridge, at the top of the powerful House subcommittee was another star aligned in the department's vision for East Tennessee as a capital of the coming "nuclear renaissance."

Just two days after Granholm's visit, the DOE announced it had signed an agreement with TVA to power ORNL and Y-12 with completely local carbon pollution-free electricity by 2030 as part of the Biden administration's goal to power federal facilities with local clean energy.

TVA leans on its three nuclear plants for 42% of its power generation, a larger percentage than any of its other forms of generation. As demand for electricity increases in the Tennessee Valley, the utility aims to grow its nuclear fleet in partnership with DOE sites.

In 2020, Kairos Power became one of 10 next-gen nuclear companies to receive funding through the DOE's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The company's Hermes demonstration reactor in Oak Ridge received a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Dec. 12.

Kairos has a cooperative agreement with TVA, which has assisted the company with licensing and engineering services.

What it means for the future: Oak Ridge and Knoxville have long been pioneers of nuclear energy, testing out new kinds of reactors and pushing the limits of what can be accomplished by splitting the atom. By partnering with the DOE and with private companies, TVA is set to make the region central to a future when nuclear reactors are smaller, more numerous and more flexible.

The utility said it could build its first small modular reactor, based on a design from GE Hitachi, in the early 2030s.

Manhattan Project cleanup reaches new milestones

A multi-billion dollar effort to clean up legacy sites dating back to WWII and the Cold War notched several milestones in 2023, particularly tearing down a decommissioned nuclear reactor at the heart of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and preparing Y-12 sites for demolition.

The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management is the local effort of the DOE's Office of Environmental Management, the largest environmental cleanup program in the world. It prides itself on the ability to get cleanup projects done on time and under budget, a rarity for federal programs.

Alongside contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge, the office tore down the Low Intensity Test Reactor at ORNL, which operated between 1949 and 1968, and prepared the Oak Ridge Research Reactor for demolition. ORNL has operated 13 reactors in its history, including one that still operates today, the High Flux Isotope Reactor.

The office also created a new base of operations at Y-12, from which it will plan the upcoming demolition of Alpha-2, Alpha-4, Beta-1 and dozens of other deteriorating buildings over the next few decades. It made progress on a Mercury Treatment Facility at Y-12 that must be built to ensure the water of nearby East Fork Poplar Creek is not contaminated when buildings full of mercury are brought down.

Where large gaseous diffusion plants once stood, the office is cleaning soil and returning former DOE land to private companies in the Heritage Center Industrial Park, formerly known as the East Tennessee Technology Park.

In August, the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management broke ground on a $550 million on-site disposal facility scheduled for completion in 2029. Because its current on-site landfill is getting full after 20 years in operation, the new site will allow the cleanup project to extend its work for several more decades.

What it means for the future: OREM expects it will not finish cleanup of ORNL and Y-12 until at least 2050. When it brings buildings down, it clears the way for new ones to go up, enabling a broad shift away from Manhattan Project buildings, some of which are crumbling. Both DOE sites have ambitious modernization plans that include building state-of-the-art facilities.

In October, Y-12 broke ground on a new Lithium Processing Facility made possible because OREM and UCOR completed demolition of the Biology Complex in 2021 and prepared the site for future construction. Y-12, part of the National Nuclear Security Administration, is both the nation's Uranium Center of Excellence and Lithium Center of Excellence, two critical materials for maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

DOE's largest Oak Ridge construction project bloats

Y-12 celebrated the opening of a new fire station on Jan. 26, less than a month before a fire broke out at a uranium processing area of Building 9212. The fire was contained without any injuries or contamination reported. A nuclear oversight board had shared safety concerns with the DOE months before the fire, Knox News reported in March.

The fire highlighted the potential dangers of continuing uranium processing operations in legacy Manhattan Project buildings, some of which turned 80 this year. Building 9212 has been scrutinized many times in recent decades by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board for its vulnerabilities and safety violations.

For nearly 20 years, Y-12 has been at work on the Uranium Processing Facility, one of the largest construction projects in state history which will replace Building 9212 and will employ 2,000 workers at peak construction. Even the cranes above the construction site were among the tallest in the Western Hemisphere.

Y-12 said three of the first four phases of the project were completed on time and under budget. Now, the complex is working on the last three structures, including the 240,000-square-foot main processing building, which were approved by the DOE for construction in 2018.

Initially proposed in 2006 with a $650 million budget, the project budget soon grew to $6.5 billion. Along the way, DOE officials have touted that the massive project is on time and projected to remain on budget. But this year's budget request of $760 million, the largest single chunk of money the project has gotten, could push the facility beyond its $6.5 billion budget.

The U.S. House and Senate approved the defense spending bill on Dec. 14 and passed it to President Biden to sign.

The Uranium Processing Facility is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

What it means for the future: The Uranium Processing Facility will be central to Y-12's mission, which includes refurbishing the highly enriched uranium in nuclear weapons and providing fuel for the U.S. Nuclear Navy. By replacing an outdated WWII-era building, it will extend the lifetime of Y-12's operations.

It's also a test of whether a massive federal project can be finished on time and on budget, a goal that may have become less likely this year.

Private companies share in DOE spending

When the DOE gave a $192 million, five-year contract in April to Management Solutions, a woman-owned Knoxville business, it empowered the company to bring on 70 additional people to help clean energy startups manage their operations.

The department also renewed funding to the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation, a public-private partnership between the DOE and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. The institute is set to be a tenant of Innovation South, a new 85,000-square-foot facility that began construction this year at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm.

Piedmont Lithium received a $141.7 million grant from the DOE in October 2022 for an East Tennessee plant in McMinn County, a site the company chose largely because of TVA. The plant is scheduled to begin construction next year and will add 120 jobs to boost the domestic EV battery supply chain.

In addition to grants, the DOE also frequently licenses technology developed at ORNL to private companies who further develop and bring innovations to market. That was the case for Safire Technology Group, which creates an additive that makes EV batteries safer and announced it would create a lab at the UT Spark Innovation Center in January.

What it means for the future: As the DOE returns some of the land seized from landowners for the Manhattan Project back to the city of Oak Ridge, private companies are moving in to fill the space and develop clean energy technologies.

The department is also strengthening its network of partners in Knoxville and Oak Ridge and will continue to do so in 2024. Private companies have always had a place in Oak Ridge as management contractors, from Union Carbide during the Cold War to the nonprofit UT-Battelle today.

But as history moves further away from the Manhattan Project, the DOE is paving the way for private companies to wield great influence on energy and technology.

DOE tries to spur sluggish EV adoption in Tennessee

If there's one thing Secretary Granholm and the DOE showed passion for in 2023, it was expanding EV charging stations and EV adoption across the country. In September, she embarked on a four-day EV road trip from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Memphis to rev up support for electric cars through a region she has called the "Southern battery belt."

Her team encountered some difficulties with crowded or broken charging stations along the route, including a confrontation with a driver who called the police on them for reserving a spot with a gas car.

Concerns over a lack of charging stations, called "range anxiety," have kept consumers from buying electric cars, even in states were EV manufacturing is booming, like in Tennessee.

Tennessee has around 1,700 EV charging ports and will receive over $18.8 million in the next year to build more, the DOE said. In 2022, Tennessee had 28,300 registered electric cars, a 53% increase over 2021. Still, EV adoption in Tennessee trails other powerhouse manufacturing states in the Southeast like Georgia.

In the second quarter of 2023, new light-duty EV sales were under 4% of the vehicle market share in Tennessee, compared with over 7% in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, according to a report from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. Nationally, the figure was over 9%.

What it means for the future: The DOE does not want the U.S. to be in a situation where it's producing electric cars that no one is buying. In a state like Tennessee, where the DOE has given hundreds of millions to plants like Ford's BlueOval City in West Tennessee and GM's Ultium Cells in Spring City, the lack of EV adoption is a special concern.

What will it take for more Tennesseeans to want to drive electric cars? Will more charging stations and subsidies fix the problem, or not? These are questions that will follow into 2024 and beyond.

Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Oak Ridge, Knoxville continue to lead US nuclear energy 2024