The US to turn a Manhattan Project nuclear site into a 1 GW solar farm

The US Department of Energy (DOE) plans to build a 1 GW solar farm on a former top-secret Manhattan Project nuclear site in Washington State.

The DOE’s plan is to work with Hecate Energy to repurpose the Hanford Site, an 8,000-acre federal land site, as part of the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative launched in July 2023. The program aims to repurpose parts of DOE-owned lands – parts of which were previously used in the US’s nuclear weapons program – for clean energy generation.

Hecate Energy was chosen through a competitive qualifications-based process for evaluating and ranking proposals. DOE and Hecate Energy will undergo a negotiation process for a realty agreement, and DOE notes that it may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during that time.       

The future-solar Hanford Site in Washington State, established in 1943, was a top-secret location for the Manhattan Project during World War II, where nuclear reactors produced plutonium for the world’s first atomic bombs. It sits in a section of semi-arid desert along the Columbia River.

US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said, “… DOE is transforming thousands of acres of land at our Hanford site into a thriving center of carbon-free solar power generation, leading by example in cleaning up our environment and delivering new economic opportunities to local communities.”

Under the Biden-Harris administration, nearly 90 GW of solar capacity has been added to the grid, enough to power roughly 13 million homes.

Read more: California achieves 100 days of 100% electricity demand met by renewables

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