The city of Richland is considering selling 425 acres of former Hanford nuclear site land for a $4.5 billion project related to advanced nuclear fuel.
The company interested in the project, which is projected to employ 1,000 workers, has not been made public.
It is identified in city documents only under the code name of “Project Spin.”
The proposal is the latest in a series of 10-figure economic development deals pending in or near the Tri-Cities.
Others include Atlas Agro, which is considering Richland for its proposed $1.1 billion carbon-free fertilizer plant, and an unnamed U.S. tech company that plans to build a $4.8 billion data center complex at Wallula Gap Business Park, about 10 miles east of Pasco.
Richland economic development leaders are confident Project Spin is a win for the community and its vision of an economy bolstered by clean energy manufacturing.
“We believe based on conversations this far that the project is very likely to move forward as planned in some form,” Mandy Wallner the city’s economic development director, told the Tri-City Herald.
The identity of the company behind Project Spin should be revealed in January, when executives are expected to make a presentation to the Richland City Council.
The Richland Economic Development Committee voted earlier this month to recommend that the council support an option agreement for the sale of the land, which is part of the Northwest Advanced Clean Energy Park.
The Department of Energy transferred about 1,600 acres of Hanford land north of Horn Rapids Road to the Tri-Cities community in 2015 for development through local government agencies and the Tri-City Development Council.
Hanford land, which now covers about 580 square miles, was seized in 1943 from a patchwork of private and government owners for the secret project to make plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
The acreage, some of which borders Stevens Drive, was never used for nuclear work.
Fuel needs NRC license
City documents say the unnamed company has been awarded a DOE contract to provide nuclear fuel after President Biden signed into law in May a ban on the future import of Russian nuclear fuel.
The effort is in concert with the nation’s investment in advanced reactor technologies, according to city documents.
The proposed project would require a 1 million-square-foot nuclear fuel cycle facility to be built.
The land would be acquired in three phases over six years at a total cost of nearly $27 million, or an average of about $63,200 per acre.
In Phase 1, up to 100 acres would be bought for $35,000 per acre.
In Phase 2, up to 120 acres would be purchased for $40,000 an acre, and in Phase 3 up to 205 acres would be bought for $90,500 per acre.
The lower prices in Phases 1 and 2 reflect the company’s cost to build infrastructure. The land, which is in part of the southern half of the clean energy park, does not have utilities or roads now.
The project will require licensing approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a process the city of Richland called “rigorous” before it can begin development.
Richland will retain the right to repurchase the land if construction has not started within 18 months of NRC licensing approval.
Federal nuclear fuel contracts
In October, DOE announced that four companies — Louisiana Energy Services, Orano Federal Services, General Matter and American Centrifuge Operating — were awarded a minimum of $2 million to enrich uranium to help the nation establish a domestic supply of high-assay, low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, for nuclear fuel
The enriched uranium would support the demonstration and deployment of advanced reactor technologies.
The work will create “new good-pay, high-quality jobs” and reinforce America’s leadership in the nuclear industry, DOE said in its announcement.
DOE has a total of $2.7 billion over 10 years for more awards to the selected companies, subject to Congress appropriating the money.
DOE also announced that it has awarded contracts to six companies to convert HALEU into oxide or metal forms that can be made into nuclear fuel. The companies are Framatome, BWXT, Centrus, GE Vernova, Orano and Westinghouse.
Framatome already has a nuclear fuel production plant in Richland.
And in a third announcement DOE said on Dec. 10 that it has selected six companies to compete for future work to expand the nation’s capabilities for a different type of nuclear reactor fuel using low enriched uranium, or LEU.
They are American Centrifuge Operating, General Matter, Global Laser Enrichment, Louisiana Energy Services, Laser Isotope Separation Technologies and Orano Federal Services, which will build new facilities or expand existing capacity.
Each will receive a minimum contract of $2 million and contracts will last for up to a decade.
Companies with contracts to produce both HALEU and LEU fuel could potentially combine operations at a single site.
Replacing Hanford site jobs
The Tri-City Development Council worked with former U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., to require DOE to turn the excess Hanford land over to the Tri-Cities community, including the city of Richland.
TRIDEC’s goal with the transfer was to replace well-paid jobs lost at Hanford as portions of environmental cleanup are completed or less federal money is spent on environmental cleanup of contaminated portions of the nuclear reservation.
When TRIDEC acquired the land to turn over to local governments, it said the acreage would provide highly sought parcels covering hundreds of acres for new industrial use, with a focus on advanced clean energy projects.
A 300-acre portion will be used as a solar project, which was planned before DOE announced in July that it planned a gigawatt-scale project on up to 8,000 acres of unused Hanford land that the federal government continues to own.
That leaves 1,341 acres of the Hanford land transferred to local governments for industrial development.
Atlas Agro, the green fertilizer company, has a deal to buy 150 acres from the Port of Benton, though it has not yet finalized its commitment to actually build. The Atlas site is at the northwest corner of Stevens Drive and Horn Rapids Road, near the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Most of the 580-square-mile Hanford site is now part of the Hanford Reach National Monument or is designated for preservation and conservation once environmental cleanup is completed.
Hanford was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.
Now the site employs about 11,000 people for environmental cleanup and maintenance of the site at a cost of about $3 billion annually.
