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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|Sponsored by RPD|Cosponsored by THD
Wednesday, November 18, 2020|2:40–4:20PM EST
Session Chair:
Benjamin R. Betzler
Session Organizer:
Alternate Chair:
Pavel V. Tsvetkov
Staff Producer:
Jay Bogardus (American Nuclear Society)
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Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis of Core Criticality for the Transformational Challenge Reactor
Jianwei Hu (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Brian J. Ade (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Benjamin R. Betzler (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Paper
AI Optimization of the Reactor Unit Cell to Support TCR Optimization
Briana D. Hiscox (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Vladimir Sobes (University of Tennessee Knoxville), Emilian Popov (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Richard Archibald (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Benjamin R. Betzler (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Kurt A. Terrani (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Design and Modeling of Regulating Control Elements for the Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR)
Joseph R. Burns (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Phillip Chesser (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Peter Wang (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Eliott Fountain (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Ben R. Betzler (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Brian J. Ade (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Aurelien X. Bergeron (Argonne National Laboratory)
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