Piketon cool to nuke plan | Cincinnati.Com - 0 views
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Energy Net on 27 Jul 09Despite the promise of thousands of jobs in this hard-hit part of Appalachia, some community members are skeptical as Duke Energy considers building a nuclear power plant at a former uranium enrichment plant here. Advertisement "Myself and a few other members are disillusioned and upset," said Lorry Swain, a South Shore, Ky., resident who serves on a 20-member community panel formed last year to give the Department of Energy environmental cleanup advice at the site. She said the panel, created under federal law to increase local input around decisions at the 3,700-acre Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant, didn't learn about Duke's proposal until a few days before it was announced on June 18. With a great deal of fanfare, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich and Duke Energy Chairman James Rogers announced the formation of the Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park Alliance to pursue development of the Midwest's first nuclear power plant in decades. The plan comes under an Energy Department initiative to convert former government weapons sites to clean-energy alternatives.