The Environmental Journal of Southern Appalachia

Feds seek comment on proposed nuclear-fuel site in Oak Ridge

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OAK RIDGE — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public input on the scope of its environmental review of TRISO-X LLC’s proposed nuclear fuel fabrication facility to be built in Oak Ridge (as reported by Hellbender Press already last April in the context of the decade-long struggle to prevent environmental damages from a proposed power line that would also have degraded the recreational experience of the North Boundary Greenway). 

Comments are due Feb. 14. TRISO-X has proposed the facility for the Horizon Center on the western side of Oak Ridge. The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of X-Energy LLC, has applied for a license to construct and operate the facility to manufacture high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel for advanced reactors. Along with a safety and technical review, the NRC staff will develop an environmental impact statement to analyze the proposed facility’s potential impacts.

See the TRISO-X review, as well as non-sensitive parts of the license application, on the NRC website. A notice of intent to develop an environmental impact statement was published Dec. 16 in the Federal Register.

Related article: Oak Ridge environmentalists successfully lobbied to reroute intrusive power lines

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