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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
Tuesday, May 6, 2025|10:00–11:40AM CDT|Atlantis/Discovery/Columbia (Marriott)
Session Chair:
Gregory Fedor (NASA Glenn Research Center)
Session Organizer:
Alternate Chair:
Mark Lefebvre (NASA Glenn Research Center)
Track Organizer:
Harold Gerrish (Marshall Space Flight Center)
Space fission power systems are new and upcoming. They present both technological and legal/regulatory challenges. This technical session will offer insight into system concepts/trades for Fission Surface Power components and applications along with a consideration of the liabilities of such applications. Presenter bios: Dr. Clarence H. Tolliver III is a USPTO Registered Patent Attorney and an Associate in the Energy practice group at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP. His practice involves licensing, export control, international business, and regulatory matters in service to clients across the fission, fusion, renewables, hydrogen, aviation and aerospace, and space and satellite industries Lee Mason is NASA’s Senior Technologist for Aerospace Power Systems stationed at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland Ohio. His primary area of expertise is space nuclear power & propulsion systems and has made major contributions to projects that included SP-100, DIPS, Prometheus, JIMO, ASRG, FSP 1.0, and Kilopower Sung Nam Lee is a researcher of KAERI from 2011. He was on secondment in IAEA as consultant in 2012 and was research resident in ANL in 2023. He is the Korea representative of VHTR CMVB from 2020. His research area is thermal hydraulic analysis in the gas cooled reactor and heat pipe cooled reactor and fission product transport in HTGR.
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U.S. Commercial Launches of Space Nuclear Systems - Insurance and Indemnification Considerations
10:00–10:25AM CDT
Clarence H. Tolliver (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), Sidney L. Fowler (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), Jeffrey S. Merrifield (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman)
Attachment — Paper
Paper
Advanced Thermal Lunar Atomic System (ATLAS)
10:25–10:50AM CDT
Steve Sullivan (Univ. Rhode Island), Ryan Macaulay (Univ. Rhode Island), Jeffery Hahn (Univ. Rhode Island), Sami Akcakil (Univ. Rhode Island), Bahram Nassersharif (Univ. Rhode Island)
Key Design Trades for a Near-term Lunar Fission Surface Power System
10:50–11:15AM CDT
Lee Mason (NASA Glenn Research Center), Lindsay Kaldon (NASA Glenn Research Center), Sebastian Corbisiero (INL), DV Rao (INL)
Thermal Transport Analysis on Heat Pipe Reactor for Space
11:15–11:40AM CDT
Sung Nam Lee (KAERI), Sung Hoon Choi (KAERI), Hong-sik Lim (KAERI), Nam-il Tak (KAERI), Chan Soo Kim (KAERI)
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