Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant

The D&D work on the older facilities to prepare the site for future use is expected to continue through 2024 and is being conducted by Fluor-B&W Portsmouth LLC.

[1] In August 1952, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) selected Scioto Township, a rural area occupied by family-owned farms, as the site for a new gaseous diffusion plant to produce highly enriched uranium, Uranium-235, for use in military reactors and nuclear weapons production.

Two railroad lines, financing their own work, built spurs into the area to haul in building materials and heavy equipment, including 22 miles (35 kilometers) of track on site.

Water came from well fields installed at the Scioto River, supplying 40 million gallons per day when operating at full capacity.

To support operations, the AEC entered into a contract to become the largest single consumer/customer in the history of the electrical utility industry at that time.

The plant set new records for single customer site usage with 18 billion kilowatt-hours annually, and demand peaking at more than 2,000 megawatts.

Although USEC had nine years' time and had received the funding, it ceased the Portsmouth enrichment cascade in a dirty power-down, without purging the diffusion cells.

The DOE originally began developing gas centrifuge technology for mass production uranium enrichment in the early 1960s.

USEC began working with the DOE in 2000 to resume gas centrifuge enrichment operation activities at the Portsmouth site, including use of previously constructed portions of the plant and the former GCEP facilities.

The license permitted to facility to possess up to 250 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) and consist of up to 240 operating, full-scale centrifuge machines arranged in a cascade configuration.

[15][16] Lead Cascade operations using prototype machines commenced in August 2007 at the facilities located southwest of the gaseous diffusion process buildings.

[17] The prototype centrifuges, facility and equipment were used for development and testing; other than minimal chemical samples, no enriched UF6 was withdrawn from the cascade.

The department said at the time that if USEC withdraws its application, it would receive $45 million over the next 18 months to conduct further research and development of the centrifuge technology, which the DOE viewed as promising.

[21] The 2009 decisions by DOE and USEC effectively ended the commercial scale American Centrifuge Plant project as envisioned in that timeframe.

[22] Centrus ceased enrichment development operations at the Portsmouth site and began decontamination and decommissioning work at the facility, including removal of the centrifuges and process piping.

Senator Rob Portman announced that the Trump administration had earmarked $115 million to open the Centrus centrifuge facility again, employing 60 people.

On June 11, 2021, the NRC issued the revised license to Centrus for approval to operate 16 centrifuges to demonstrate production of HALEU until May 31, 2022.

In September 2010, the DOE awarded the $1.2 billion follow-up contract to Fluor-B&W Portsmouth LLC, which continues to serve as the prime D&D contractor as of the early 2020s.

[40] In a multi-year effort in the 2010s, the DOE worked with stakeholders to understand the community’s future use vision for the Portsmouth site after cleanup is complete.

With the assistance of the PORTSfuture Project and interaction with the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI), the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board, elected officials, economic development professionals and others, the community has expressed a consensus vision to reindustrialize[41] appropriate portions of the Portsmouth site property.

On April 28, 2020, the DOE announced that a team led by SODI had been selected to receive $4,956,589 in cost-shared funding for a project titled Generic Design Support Activities for Advanced Reactors.

Per the DOE announcement, the team is to "initiate characterization, permitting, and decontamination and decommissioning studies to support potential advanced reactor deployment at the Portsmouth, Ohio Site.

Notably, the project does not seek to identify, approve, license or construct any facility at the site, but to prepare information that might be useful to future decision makers.

[43][44] A DOE air monitor adjacent to Zahn's Corner Middle School – which is located in Piketon, Ohio, just two miles (3.2 kilometers) from the plant – detected airborne Neptunium-237 and Americium-241 in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

The team of radiation safety experts collected 44 surface samples over the 2019 Memorial Day weekend, including specific areas requested by the community to be tested, such as above ceiling tiles.

As reported by the DOE, "Results from sample analyses conducted by experts at Savannah River National Laboratory show no radioactivity detected above naturally occurring levels, and no cause for public health concern.

"[45][46] This event has resulted in a class-action lawsuit that was filed on behalf of area residents by a group of attorneys led by toxic tort specialist Stuart Smith.