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Getting back to yes: A local perspective on decommissioning, restart, and responsibility
For 45 years, Duane Arnold Energy Center operated in Linn County, Ia., near the town of Palo and just northwest of Cedar Rapids. The facility, owned by NextEra Energy, was the only nuclear power plant in the state.
In August 2020, a historic derecho swept across eastern Iowa with winds approaching 140 miles per hour. Damage to the plant’s cooling towers accelerated a shutdown that had already been planned, and the facility entered decommissioning soon after, with its fuel removed in October of that year. Iowa’s only nuclear plant had gone off line.
Today the national energy landscape looks very different than it did just six short years ago. Electricity demand is rising rapidly as data centers, artificial intelligence infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and electrification expand across the country. Reliable, carbon-free baseload power has become increasingly valuable. In that context, Linn County has approved the rezoning necessary to support the recommissioning and restart of Duane Arnold and is actively supporting NextEra’s efforts to secure the remaining state and federal approvals.
C. E. Johnson, A. K. Fischer
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 985-989
Fusion Materials—Properties and Behavior | Proceedings of the Seveth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Reno, Nevada, June 15–19, 1986) | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24862
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Thermodynamic calculations have been made to compare the thermochemical performance of three candidate breeder blanket materials, Li2O, LiAlO2, and Li4SiO4. These calculations were done for the temperature range of 900–1300 K and the oxygen activity range of 10−25 to 10−5. Oxygen activity is an influential variable for these materials and must be considered in the diffusion of tritiated species, determining the chemical form of the released tritium, and retention of tritium in the condensed phase. Surface adsorption may also act as a strong contributor to tritium inventory. In general, LiAlO2 appears better than Li2O and Li2O, in turn, appears better than Li4SiO4.
