PIKETON, Ohio — The U.S. Department of Energy is asking private industry whether it wants to buy surplus critical minerals and rare earth materials sitting at the Portsmouth site here, part of a nationwide push to find commercial uses for leftover Cold War-era nuclear materials.
The department’s Office of Environmental Management released an expression of interest Thursday seeking input on the potential transfer of materials including aluminum, cesium-137, chloride, copper, fluorine, lead, lithium hydride, platinum, selenium, silver, tungsten and vanadium, according to the agency. The materials are located at five EM cleanup sites nationwide: the Portsmouth site in Piketon, Paducah in Kentucky, Oak Ridge in Tennessee, the Nevada National Security Site and Moab, Utah.
The department said the materials are byproducts of past nuclear weapons production and government-sponsored energy research and are no longer needed for planned DOE activities. Officials said they could instead be valuable to advanced manufacturing, alternative energy and national defense industries.
“EM is transforming the legacy of America’s nuclear mission into opportunity,” EM Infrastructure, Disposition and Regulatory Policy Director Rob Seifert said in a statement. “The surplus materials at our sites could help put American resources to work for American industry by supporting jobs, strengthening our industrial base and advancing the administration’s energy and national security priorities. This EOI is the first step in that conversation with the private sector.”
The Piketon site has drawn renewed federal attention as part of a broader push to expand domestic uranium and nuclear fuel production, and previous land transfers at the site have faced scrutiny over what materials remain in areas being handed over for redevelopment.
The expression of interest includes site-specific details on the type, quantity and location of the materials, and the department is encouraging interested parties to review it for more information. Companies interested in the materials would have to provide their own equipment and expertise for any relocation or extraction, and DOE said it will evaluate responses based on technical knowledge and the quality of proposed plans for using the materials.
The department will host a virtual industry day Sept. 30 to walk through the process, answer questions and gauge market demand and industrial capacity to process, recover or otherwise use the materials, according to the release. Questions can be directed to [email protected].
The information contained in this story was obtained from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.
