Guest Column: Jim Campbell writes that East TN is a destination for those seeking opportunities in the energy space
He has enjoyed a unique opportunity to see much of the "sausage made" as a newspaper Editor and later President of the East Tennessee Economic Council.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Campbell is a former newspaper person who served as Editor of The Oak Ridger from 1989 to 1994. For the next 26 plus years, he led a very unique organization named the East Tennessee Economic Council before retiring in March 2022. What makes it so unique is that from 75 to as many as 200 people rise to attend its standing 7:30 a.m. Friday meetings to hear speakers talk about what makes the Secret City so special. Campbell has had a true insiders perspective on what makes the area so attractive as nuclear energy emerges as a priority for the nation, state and region. In this guest column, he talks about two events – one that happened and one that starts on Wednesday – that are helping advance the region’s visibility for national leadership in the energy landscape.)
A week ago, one of the largest energy events in the southeast was hosted by the East Tennessee Economic Council (ETEC) at the Airport Hilton in Alcoa. Over 600 people attended, including over 100 students looking for places to start their careers in the energy business. On Wednesday, the Howard Baker School at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville will hold a major event focused on energy policy. Both events are focusing on the critical problem before us: How can we meet surging energy demands without ruining the environment around us?
There is an enormous amount of talent in energy in the greater East Tennessee area. The national lab, TVA, the University of Tennessee and even the folks at the Y-12 National Security Complex have tremendous talent pools in every part of the energy discussion. EPRI is an important contributor. Our private businesses, like newcomers Kairos Power and Type One Energy, bring innovative ideas to the table. National and international leaders understand that here in East Tennessee we have the tools and the know-how to find good solutions to energy challenges. And they are showing up to work with us.
ETEC’s NOW event – Nuclear Opportunities Workshop – started as a small thing. The idea was to work on opportunities around the big subject of nuclear science. Carbon neutral energy was certainly in mind even then. Starting with the MPower small modular reactor project of the early 2000s to the growing number of companies exploring small modular reactors, micros reactors and fusion energy devices, ETEC wanted to build public-private partnerships with the big institutions of East Tennessee—the Tennessee Valley Authority, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the University of Tennessee. The first event, pre-COVID, drew around 80 people, 55 of which were invited speakers. Then with the years missed because of the pandemic, the workshop grew and in fact doubled both last year and this.
What we learned over the years at these workshops is simple: It is time to build one of these SMRs (small modular reactors) and the place to do that is East Tennessee.
The TVA Clinch River SMR project is key to putting these new energy products in play. TVA, with its partner GE-Hitachi, is working through the process of how to deploy at its Clinch River site in Oak Ridge a first of a kind SMR onto the power grid without passing an excessive burden onto its rate payers. That’s complicated. When it happens, a whole new manufacturing center will need to be created to build these machines around the country, indeed the world. There is a good reason to build that manufacturing industry right here in Tennessee.
Kairos thinks so. Just before this year’s workshop started, they began construction on the Hermes I demonstration reactor at the ETTP (East Tennessee Technology Park). They are already working on Hermes II, which will go at the same site, and more to come.
Nuclear fuel is a huge opportunity at present, and clearly the region is staged to be the major player in whatever new initiative emerges. A new type of fuel that burns more efficiently and leaves less waste is in development for these new nuclear products. Centrus Energy, which has its manufacturing base in Oak Ridge, is well prepared to take up that challenge, as are others.
But energy isn’t the only opportunity. Nuclear medicine was and is a big opportunity. Nuclear medicine was the first tech transfer out of ORNL, and it is still a huge player in supporting the nation’s need for radioisotopes. The second major tech transfer was the development of small reactors to create the nuclear navy. Transportation and nuclear…. hmmm. The next opportunity, an isotope to help us get to Mars. That’s not far away. And then the ongoing question, how to reuse and repurpose what was nuclear trash into useful products?
And perhaps the most intriguing topic at ETEC’s NOW event was a discussion of non-linear ways to create the workforce of the future which was led by Omega Technical Services President Bill Tindal. Tindal made the audience think with his eclectic panel.
The second goal ETEC set when it started the NOW event was to bring new emerging technology companies to East Tennessee. Oak Ridge had two industrial parks that were fairly empty—the brownfield East Tennessee Technology Park and the newer Horizon Center. How do you market a nuclear enrichment site? A few years ago, Kairos Power decided to buy a big chunk of ETTP and soon thereafter TRISO-X did the same at Horizon Center. Others have followed. At this year’s NOW conference, a San Diego, Calif., company, LIS Technologies Inc. (which does laser enrichment of nuclear fuel), announced it is buying property at ETTP. Progress!
The good news keeps coming, and there is certainly more on the way.
One thing both events are focusing on is the tremendous impact artificial intelligence (AI) and big data is causing to change the electric grid. Private companies like Dow and others are looking to build their own power sources behind the meter with strategies that will have huge impacts on the way utilities operate. It is an interesting time to be in the energy business.
The Baker School event will have some good panels on decarbonization, government policies to draw new investment into the industry, and a keynote by Daniel Poneman, former Deputy Secretary of Energy and more recently Chief Executive Officer of Centrus Energy. Poneman is a longtime energy insider, and a thought leader on the subject. The Baker School’s Charles Simms and his team have put together a nice agenda, and I hope they draw a strong crowd.
East Tennessee is a destination for those looking for opportunities in the energy industry.
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