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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
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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.
Technical Session|Sponsored by NCSD
Tuesday, June 18, 2024|10:00–11:45AM PDT|Jasmine G
Session Chair:
Catherine M. Percher
Alternate Chair:
Walid A. Metwally
Session Organizer:
Benjamin Martin
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How to Safely Build a Criticality Experiment with 100-plus Kilograms of Weapons-Grade Plutonium
10:00–10:20AM PDT
J. Hutchinson (LANL), T. Cutler (LANL), M. Grosskopf (LANL), D. Hayes (LANL), I. Michaud (LANL), T. Smith (LANL), N. Thompson (LANL), N. Wynne (LANL)
Paper
Criticality Safety Calculations for Inadvertent PuF6 Formation
10:20–10:40AM PDT
Brindley Wade (TAMU), Tracy E. Stover (Savannah River Nuclear Solutions)
Nuclear Criticality Safety Co-Analyst Guide
10:40–11:00AM PDT
Zachary Jaczesko (Y-12 National Security Complex)
On Estimating Uncertainty in Integral Benchmarks due to Inconsistencies in Geometrical Measurements
11:00–11:20AM PDT
Kathryn Worrell (Univ. Tennessee, Knoxville), Vladimir Sobes (Univ. Tennessee, Knoxville), William Marshall (ORNL)
Zirconium Sludge Criticality Calculations in Large Process Tanks
11:20–11:40AM PDT
Brindley Wade (TAMU), Nathan Devine (Savannah River Nuclear Solutions)
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