The American subsidiary of a Canadian firm wants eventually to build a factory here to convert nickel and other scrap metal at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant for commercial use.
"We have a demand for the products now," said Mike Hargett, president of CVMR (Chemical Vapor Metal Refining)-USA. "Ultra-pure nickel is very, very expensive, and in having a greater supply, we would make that available for these new products and the technologies that go with them."
The Paducah plant has 9,700 tons of nickel worth $8 million to $10 million, plus tons of other scrap metal left over from decades of uranium enrichment and Cold War weapons work.
Hargett declined to identify the products, saying his firm is in sensitive negotiations with companies interested in them. CVMR-USA is an American subsidiary of Chemical Vapor Deposition Manufacturing, which has a plant in downtown Toronto where nickel and other metals are converted to gas and recycled.
Hargett also wouldn't speculate how many people the Paducah plant would employ. He said the plant hinges on:
Proving that the radiologically contaminated nickel can be sufficiently cleaned.
Showing it can be safely put into commercial products.
Getting the Department of Energy to lift a ban on the commercial use of the metal here and at other plants.
"The nickel has to be clean or these companies just would not be interested," he said. "The caution is too great."
Hargett spoke Wednesday in an interview after briefing committee members of the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization, a DOE-funded group that is trying to create jobs to offset the closing of the 1,300-employee plant starting in 2010.
PACRO Director John Anderson said he hopes the Kentucky congressional delegation can use the results of the CVMR-USA tests to persuade the Energy Department to lift the 2 1/2-year ban. Initial tests are promising that the nickel can be cleaned for commercial reuse, he said.
CVMR-USA expects to complete the testing in Lynchburg, Va. — the headquarters of partner firm BWX Technologies — by the end of the summer, Hargett said. It will take 12 more months to open a pilot vapor-processing plant there to do limited work for the U.S. Navy, using some scrap nickel from a closed uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
If that goes well, a similar eight-employee plant will be built in Paducah to process annually 2,000 tons of nickel, considered to be much purer than the Oak Ridge nickel, he said. The factory would be able to handle as many as 34 other types of high-value metal.
"You have a significant reserve of material," Hargett said. "This is a very logical place for us to come."
More jobs in Paducah would be needed for a plant to grind blocks of the nickel into finer form so they can be more efficiently converted using the vapor process, he said, adding, "Right now, you have some 4,000-pound hockey pucks out there." Paducah (Kentucky) Sun
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