BARNWELL, S.C. - Before EnergySolutions can generate fuel for electricity through a nuclear energy partnership, its task is to generate public interest in bringing the program to the Barnwell County region.

Company officials from EnergySolutions finished a tour of the area this week, conducting meetings in Yemassee in Hampton County, New Ellenton in Aiken County, and Barnwell in Barnwell County to explain the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership - a plan to recycle spent nuclear fuel through a reprocessing facility. The recycled fuel would then be used in advanced burner reactors to generate commercial electricity.

The partnership has three purposes:

- Recycling spent nuclear fuel to generate further reactor fuel.

- Reducing the amount of spent fuel being buried in Yucca Mountain, Nev.

- Rendering volatile nuclear waste into inert glass forms.

On Jan. 20, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $10 million in site study grants to review 11 possible sites around the nation for the placement of GNEP facilities.

Two of the 11 sites being considered are in the Barnwell County region.

The Allied General facility was a commercial nuclear reactor site until it was closed in the 1970s.

The other site is Savannah River National Laboratory at Savannah River Site.

A Global Nuclear Energy Partnership facility has the potential to create roughly 10,000 jobs as it is built, then about 5,000 permanent jobs when it becomes operational. The surrounding area also would benefit from the creation of industries to support the operation.

The DOE likely won't choose a site until June 2008, said Alan Dobson, the senior vice president of fuel cycle and spent fuel management with EnergySolutions.

Even then, it would take at least five years for the proper design work and permitting to be completed. Construction wouldn't begin until about 2013. Building the facility would take between seven and nine years, he said.

Industry backers consider support of the project vital now.

In Barnwell, an area hit by economic downturns and factory closings in the past few years, the interest was not whether to have the facilities here, but when.

"What would make Barnwell the site of choice over the other sites? I want to see it come here," said Jackie Ramsey, a former Barnwell County Council member.

The site near SRS has the benefit of meeting much of the criteria needed for a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership site, said Richard Smalley, a technical director for EnergySolutions from the Aiken office.

The Barnwell site has favorable points to it, such as the availability of water, Mr. Dobson said.

Two of the other sites of the 11 on the site study list don't have the water availability needed, he said.

But local public support must become political clout to land a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in Barnwell, he noted.