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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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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|Fission Surface Power/Nuclear Electric Propulsion
Wednesday, May 8, 2024|1:00–2:40PM MDT|Sweeney B
Session Chair:
Randy Bell
Alternate Chair:
Andrew Zillmer
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Regulatory Readiness Level (RRL) as a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) Parallel for Gauging Holistic Technology Maturity for Space Nuclear Technology
1:00–1:25PM MDT
Christopher Morrison (Independent Researcher)
Paper
Expanding the Price-Anderson Act (PAA) to Cover Private Sector Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion (SNPP)
1:25–1:50PM MDT
Clarence H. Tolliver (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), Sidney L. Fowler (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), Jeffrey S. Merrifield (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman)
Roles of Nuclear Electric Propulsion and Nuclear Thermal Propulsion in Cislunar Space
1:50–2:15PM MDT
Robert Schleicher (General Atomics), Christina Back (General Atomics), Gregory Burgess (General Atomics)
NASA's Interest in Radiation Tolerance and Requirements of Candidate Technologies for Fission Surface Power and Further Relevance to Dynamic Radioisotope Power Systems
2:15–2:40PM MDT
Tyler R. Steiner (NASA Glenn Research Center), Robert J. Bruckner (NASA Glenn Research Center), Scott D. Wilson (NASA Glenn Research Center)
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