Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and additional officials will unite in Ohio on Tuesday to disclose plans to crate a nuclear plant that will rejuvinate a retired uranium enrichment plant. The uranium plant closed almost ten years ago.
Strickland will be accompanied by George Voinovich, Republican from Ohio and U.S. Representative Jean Schmidt, republican from Cincinnati. They will visit Piketon and will unveil plans of the rejuvenation project. This project wil lbring together Duke Energy based in Charlotte, North Carolina and France's Areva SA.
The new plant will have clean energy technology from the 21st century and will eliminate a enrichment facility in Piketon. The former enrichment plant was a gaseous diffusion enrichment processing plant located in Piketon. In 2001 the site was closed and impacted almost 600 employees.
The replacement facility will require almost a decade to make and will create 4,000 jobs while construction is ongoing and nearly 800 jobs once the site is operational.
Governor Strickland's office refused comment concerning Strickland's upcoming visit to the Piketon facility.
USEC, a uranium supplier, closed the Piketon facility in 2001 stating consolidation with other facilities made the plant redundant and unnecessary. The plant continues to operate at the Kentucky reservation as a American Centrifuge Plant employing 1,200 people. The site is located on 3,600 acres. That facility is slated to go live in 2011 and will be responsible for the creation of fuel for nuclear power plants.
Enriched Uranium
