Walsh Sees Nuclear Fuel Life Cycle Taking Shape in Oak Ridge

Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Tim Walsh joins representatives from nuclear companies building facilities in Oak Ridge for media availability during his visit. From left: Brandon Blamer, vice president of engineering, TRISO-X; Matt Wilson, vice president of capital projects, Radiant; Walsh; Jean-Luc Palayer, CEO and president, Orano USA; and Nikki Sizemore, director of government affairs, Kairos Power. Walsh said the U.S. Department of Energy is accelerating the nation’s nuclear renaissance, which is being unleashed across Tennessee.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management (EM) Tim Walsh and other EM leaders received a firsthand look at new nuclear developments in Oak Ridge as part of a recent visit to Tennessee.

“The U.S. Department of Energy is accelerating President Trump's nuclear renaissance, and it's being unleashed right here in Tennessee,” Walsh said.

Much of the new development is due to land being made available at the East Tennessee Technology Park. Cleanup crews demolished more than 500 structures there that supported the nation’s defense and energy needs during the Manhattan Project and Cold War.

“We’re seeing the full nuclear fuel life cycle taking shape in Tennessee,” Walsh said. “There is strong support for new nuclear in the local community and at the state level, which is why we’re seeing so much progress.”

Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Tim Walsh, center, tours the TRISO-X facility in Oak Ridge, one of six nuclear sites he visited during his trip to Tennessee. TRISO-X will make the billiard-ball-size tristructural-isotropic uranium pellets for X-energy's advanced nuclear reactors.

As environmental cleanup at the former enrichment site concluded in recent years, more than 2,500 acres of land have been transferred to the community for economic reuse. The site is now an American Energy Hub, serving as an engine for innovation, affordable energy production and economic growth. Oak Ridge joins the Paducah, Kentucky, and Portsmouth, Ohio, sites as American Energy Hubs.

Walsh toured TRISO-X, which is building North American’s first commercial-scale advanced nuclear fuel facility. He saw Kairos Power, where the company is building the Hermes reactor series, and stopped at Radiant to see where nuclear generators, or microreactors, will be built. Walsh also observed initial tree-clearing activities for Orano USA’s Project IKE plans to construct a uranium enrichment facility.

“Because we are cleaning up with a purpose, these new industries have a place to be,” he said. “It’s paving the way for thousands of permanent jobs for the local community.”

Walsh also visited Centrus, a uranium enrichment centrifuge manufacturing facility, and the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Clinch River Nuclear Site, which recently received a construction permit from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for Clinch River Unit 1, a small modular reactor.

Before departing the state, Walsh delivered the keynote address at the Energy Technology and Environmental Business Association’s Business Opportunities & Technical Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. He encouraged attendees to embrace super intelligence and emerging technologies, expressing confidence in continuing the nuclear renaissance to power the next digital era.

“It's just fantastic to see a former site that once helped us win World War II, led to the end of the Cold War, and then maintains our peace and security throughout the world with Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Lab right here doing the amazing things they do for our weapons production and national security,” Walsh said. “We're bringing that former site back to life for the American people and for the prosperity and security of Tennessee.”

-Contributor: Sarah Marko