US to turn Cold War era atomic bomb sites into clean energy production arenas
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The largest solar power generation site in the US could be built on land which once was home to atomic bombs during the Cold War era, Reuters reported. The lands owned by the Department of Energy (DOE) are slowly being made available for clean energy projects.
During the Cold War, the US built up massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons and distributed them across various states. Some of these sites remain active to this date and were recently under scrutiny from a Chinese surveillance balloon.
Many sites are no longer functional but occupy large tracts of land which can be repurposed, especially for land-intensive projects such as solar and wind farms. The US government has cleared the roadmap for a few sites.
Cleanup to Clean Energy
As part of its goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the US government has unveiled its Cleanup to Clean Energy plan. The details of the plan are still scanty, but the plan unveiled in Washington, DC, last week said that the country aimed to power the grid with clean energy by 2035.
To achieve this target, the DOE has now identified 70,000 acres (283 square km) of land across five states that can host clean energy projects. Most of this land was used as a buffer for national security purposes but will now be made available for power generation. The sites already have power customers and workforces, DOE officials told Reuters.
The sites identified for potential redevelopment are
- Hanford Site, Richland, Washington
- Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho
- Nevada Nuclear Security Site, Nye County, Nevada
- Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina and
- Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Carlsbad, New Mexico
Sites like Hanford were built in the 1940s to produce plutonium and uranium for atomic bombs but have now been decommissioned, and billions of dollars have been spent to decontaminate leaks of highly radioactive material.
“These sites are all safe now, they are completely clean and ready for redevelopment,” said US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm at the event.
Race with China
In addition to meeting its goals of clean energy, the US is also wary of how China is leading in clean energy generation. The eastern country is also already home to some of the world's biggest solar and hydel power plants and has been pushing to use expanses of the Gobi desert for energy gains.
Industry members with China have also been commissioning nuclear power plants to overcome the intermittency of renewable energy sources and currently lead the world in constructing them. The US plan for clean energy also includes nuclear plants in the power generation mix. The recently concluded event also involved members from the industry that had experience in generating clean energy at capacities of 200 MW and above.
The exact locations of the energy plants or the likely timelines for the execution of these projects have not been revealed for now. But the US will have to move quickly if it wants to keep up with China.
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