Nuclear fuel supplier to create nearly 430 jobs, invest more than $560 million in Oak Ridge
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WVLT) — Centrus Energy plans to create nearly 430 new jobs and invest more than $560 million in Anderson County over the next several years as part of a major expansion in East Tennessee.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Deputy Gov. and Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter and Centrus Energy President and CEO Amir Vexler announced the expansion today. The company will transition its Oak Ridge facility to a high-rate manufacturing plant.
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“An announcement like this changes families’ lives in this community,” Lee said.
The investment will support workforce growth and production of thousands of advanced centrifuges. The expansion supports Centrus’ recently announced plans for a major expansion of its Ohio uranium enrichment plant to meet America’s commercial and national security requirements.
Lee said the expansion will boost the city and the U.S. to the top of nuclear energy.
“We are the global epicenter of this nuclear renaissance that’s happening in this country right now, and frankly, in the world,” Lee said.
Vexler said the company will expand its Oak Ridge facility to build more centrifuges that will help enrich uranium at its Ohio location.
“It has room for 10s of thousands of centrifuges, which we intend to build here and install in Piketon and enrich there,” Vexler said.
The expansion will create high-paying jobs requiring advanced education and expertise.
“These are jobs that rely on PhDs, on researchers, R&D, people that know and understand the most cutting edge of manufacturing that exists in the world,” Vexler said.
Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank said the community deserves recognition for its nuclear energy legacy.
“These families built Norris Dam. They accomplished the Manhattan Project. They won the Cold War. Our people know how to meet national missions, and we’re still doing it today,” Frank said.
Vexler said the company is hiring now and started the hiring process last summer.
The first new Tennessee-made centrifuges are expected to come online in Ohio in 2029.
Centrus’ Technology and Manufacturing Center in Oak Ridge is the only uranium enrichment centrifuge manufacturing facility in the U.S. The company recently received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to expand its uranium enrichment plant in Ohio with centrifuges produced in Tennessee.
McWhorter said Oak Ridge has seen more than 600 new jobs and over $2 billion of capital investment just in January.
Centrus is the eighth company to utilize funding from Tennessee’s Nuclear Energy Fund. The $50 million fund was in Gov. Lee’s recommended 2023-2024 budget and approved by the Tennessee General Assembly. An additional $10 million was allocated and approved in the state’s budget during both the 2024 and 2025 legislative sessions, bringing the fund’s total to $70 million since its inception.
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