US Department of Energy (DOE) converting the site that formerly housed aspects of the Manhattan Project into a 1 GW solar farm. For the uninitiated, the Manhattan Project was a highly secretive and successful effort to develop nuclear weapons in the 1940s.
This particular renovation is being done at the former home of the Hanford nuclear test facility, also known as Site W, located in Washington state. The site housed the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor. Plutonium is made here and the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
The location is certainly interesting, but so is the transformation project. This 580-square-mile stretch of semi-arid desert could house the largest solar project in the country if built to its announced capacity. This record is currently In California, which produces 875 megawatts of solar energy.
The DOE teamed up with Hecate Energy to repurpose the 8,000-acre site. It’s part of the Biden-Harris administration started last year. This program is tasked with rezoning DOE-owned land for clean energy production. The program has already added nearly 90 GW of solar capacity to the grid, enough to power 13 million homes.
This is not a done deal yet. DOE and Hecate Energy still have to negotiate the real estate deal, and the government can cancel those negotiations at any time.
This is good news, but we still have some work to do in Europe. Produces around the US through the sun, but AB . However, trends in both regions are rising.
