PIKETON – Jobs are being created in Piketon following the announcement that the U.S. Department of Energy is partnering with Leidos and The Conductive Group to develop a new facility that will recycle surface-contaminated nickel in Piketon.
US Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced this on Tuesday.
The Department of Energy and Leidos and The Conductive Group will collaborate on a multi-phase project to develop a commercial-scale processing facility at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS).
“Together with the Piketon community and Ohio Steelworkers, we worked to make this partnership a reality because we knew it would create good union jobs, grow the local economy and advance environmental cleanup at PORTS,” Brown said in a press release. “By working together, we are building a stronger future for Piketon.”
There are approximately 6,400 tonnes of nickel in PORTS. Nickel recovered from PORTS could be used to produce high-purity nickel for products such as grid-scale batteries, according to the press release.
“We are very excited to hear about the ministry’s announcement that they have selected a company to extract some of the nickel from the PORTS site. I know that this has been in the works for years and that it is of great concern to the committee. This announcement is a big step toward attracting a talented remote workforce and providing good jobs for the talented people here in Pike County. We hope this first step will be successful and lead to further nickel mining and possibly more production on site, ultimately bringing more jobs to Pike County and the surrounding community,” Pike County Commissioner Tony Montgomery said in the release.
This project does not require federal funding and will employ local United Steelworkers (USW) members.
The Portsmouth gaseous diffusion plant operated from 1954 to 2001.
This article originally appeared in Chillicothe Gazette: USDOE partnership to create jobs at PORTS in Piketon
