NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby Remarks at DOE/NNSA Nevada National Security Site Clean Energy Project Information Day
National Nuclear Security Administration
February 14, 2024
minute read time
On February 13, 2024, NNSA held a Clean Energy Project Information Day at the Atomic Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. It offered interested parties the opportunity to learn about potential projects for carbon-free solar energy production at the Nevada National Security Site. Learn more about the Department of Energy’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative here.
Good morning, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here representing the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA.
Although many of you are probably familiar with NNSA and our predecessor agencies, let me quickly run through what we do as a refresher. NNSA was established by Congress in 2000 with three enduring missions: designing, delivering, and maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile; reducing global nuclear risk through robust nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and counterterrorism programs while promoting the safe and peaceful use of nuclear energy; and providing naval nuclear propulsion capability for the U.S. Navy. To fulfill these missions, NNSA maintains headquarters in both Washington, DC and Albuquerque, New Mexico along with a distributed enterprise of eight labs, plants, and sites. This enterprise is staffed by a highly trained, talented, and dedicated workforce of about 2,000 federal employees and over 65,000 contract employees.
We’re here today for an exciting project at one of those facilities in our distributed enterprise, the Nevada National Security Site, or NNSS. This place has a long and fascinating history. In 1950, President Truman authorized the establishment of a 680-square mile section of the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range as the Nevada Proving Ground, to be managed by the Atomic Energy Commission. A little over a month later, the location was renamed the Nevada Test Site and became the primary location for U.S. nuclear weapons tests. Between 1951 and 1963, nearly 100 atmospheric explosive nuclear tests were conducted on site. After the passage of the Partial Test Ban Treaty, testing moved underground. Between 1963 and 1992, another 828 underground explosive nuclear tests were carried out here before President George HW Bush signed a unilateral moratorium halting the program. That moratorium has held ever since, and we commemorated the 30th anniversary of the final test, Divider, in November 2022.
When these tests were conducted, they were necessary to provide confidence in the performance, safety, and reliability of America’s nuclear weapons stockpile. However, thanks to over 30 years of investment in our Stockpile Stewardship Program, the scientific advances made have provided us a much better understanding of our nuclear stockpile. In fact, today we have a better foundational understanding of our stockpile than we had during the test era. As a result, we currently have no plans to conduct nuclear explosives test again.
After the 1992 moratorium, the renamed Nevada National Security Site underwent a mission transformation. Today, the 1,355 square-mile Site employs over 3,000 people and plays a critical role in our nuclear deterrent and nonproliferation missions. It supports our science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program through subcritical experiments at the U1a Complex. A subcritical experiment is an experiment that does not generate a sustained nuclear chain reaction and no nuclear explosion occurs. Through subcritical testing we can study plutonium properties and behavior. Today, for example, we are interested in understanding the properties of aged plutonium.
The Site also makes key contributions to our nonproliferation, arms control, and counterterrorism initiatives. For example, a few months ago we conducted a test using only chemical explosives to generate seismic response to simulate the seismic signature of a low yield nuclear explosion. Our objective in this test was to improve our ability to detect low yield nuclear explosions anywhere in the world. We informed others of this test before it occurred so they could collect data as well. Additionally, the people working here at NNSS are also among the world’s top experts in detecting and locating so called “dirty bombs” or other dangerous nuclear or radiological sources. They also provide and train law enforcement and first responders around the country on specialized detection equipment.
So why are we here today talking about renewable energy?
Well, from its inception, NNSA has been concerned with nuclear war as an existential threat. However, more recently, we have also come to recognize a second potential existential threat in climate change. Most of NNSA’s work in addressing climate change is centered on the peaceful expansion of civil nuclear power. The United States and countries around the world are looking to nuclear energy to provide zero-carbon baseload power. At the recent COP28 climate talks, 25 nations signed onto a pledge to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. This growth will challenge our ability to safeguard nuclear materials and sustain the nonproliferation regime, and we will work closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency and others to do this well. And while nuclear power is an important ingredient to combat climate change, it alone is not enough, we also need renewables.
As part of the Department of Energy, NNSA wants to make contributions to reduce climate change. With an enterprise that spans over 2,100 square miles we have the capacity, and really, the obligation, to incentivize the growth of clean energy, energy efficiency, and CO2 reductions.
Today’s project is not NNSA’s first foray into clean energy. In 2013, we broke ground on an 11.5-megawatt wind farm, the Pantex Renewable Energy Project, or PREP in Amarillo, Texas. Five turbines began producing electricity in 2014 and were quickly able to generate more than 60 percent of the Pantex Plant’s annual electricity needs. This is the equivalent of taking over 7,000 cars off the road, or planting over 850,000 trees. In 2022, PREP supplied almost 39,000 megawatt hours of electricity to Pantex and the local electric grid.
We also have a utility-scale solar array on a site. In January 2015, NNSA finalized an agreement with Juwi Solar to build a 3-megawatt array on a 10-acre piece of land at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The agreement called for Juwi Solar to sell the power to the Western Area Power Administration through a 20-year contract while NNSA bought the power from WAPA. Power generation at the array commenced just over a year later. In its first year of operations, the array produced over 6,200 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power 600 homes and representing NNSA’s largest ever purchase of solar power.
These projects show we can make this initiative work here in Nevada, and we take our obligation to be good stewards of our sites and good neighbors to our local communities seriously.
We are excited by the potential here in Nevada. Secretary Granholm was here at the beginning of the month and emphasized the important role this state will play in meeting national clean energy goals, pointing out that Nevada is the number one state in the nation for solar potential. I fully agree with the Secretary, capitalizing on the potential here is a big opportunity!
This will be the largest-scale clean energy project we’ve undertaken on NNSA property so far, delivering up to 200 megawatts of clean, reliable solar power to communities around the Nevada National Security Site. This will provide good paying jobs, improve the resiliency of the local grid, and strengthen our already deep bonds with the people of Nevada.
To wrap up, I’d like to give a quick rundown of where the project is right now. Last December a Request for Information, or RFI went out to solar energy producers which closed on January 12th. We received responses from a half dozen potential developers. A Community Engagement Round Table was held on January 16th. For next steps, we anticipate a Request for Qualifications, or RFQ, to go out on March 1st. The RFQ will include feedback from today’s event, the RFI responses, and the January 16th Round Table.
As Secretary Granholm likes to say, the Department of Energy is the “Solutions Department” and we at NNSA are proud to be a part of that. As this project moves into its next steps, NNSA and the Nuclear Security Enterprise look forward to working with you on this important effort to build a more sustainable future.
Thank you.