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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|Panel|Sponsored by THD
Monday, November 16, 2020|1:00–3:10PM EST
Session Chair:
Richard B. Vilim
Session Organizer:
Alternate Chair:
Thomas Esselman
Staff Producer:
Janet Davis (American Nuclear Society)
The opportunities for application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to nuclear power for securing the energy future of the U.S. are legion. While applications to the existing fleet are currently underway, it is the advanced reactors operating in the future energy landscape that present the greatest opportunity. AI/ML can potentially transform the use of nuclear power and improve its economic competitiveness. This panel will focus on the staffing problem and the related competitiveness problem, which are already manifest in the current fleet. The challenge is to transform the human from a labor-intensive role to an overseer of technology that operates autonomously, safely, and fits into a dynamic energy network composed of an array of production and storage technologies.
Thomas Roettger
Northrop Grumman
Raghu Avali
Carnegie Mellon Univ.
Richard Wood
Univ. Tennessee, Knoxville
Ken Thomas
INL
Alison Hahn
Office of Nuclear Energy, DOE
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