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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.
C. S. Pitcher et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 2 | August 2013 | Pages 118-125
ITER | Proceedings of the Twentieth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE-2012) (Part 1), Nashville, Tennessee, August 27-31, 2012 | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A18065
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The port-based plasma diagnostic infrastructure on ITER is described, including the port plugs, the interspace support structure and port cell structure. These systems are modular in nature with standardized dimensions. The design of the equatorial and upper port plugs and their modules is discussed, as well as the dominant loading mechanisms. The port infrastructure design has now matured to the point that port plugs are now being populated with multiple diagnostics supplied by a number of ITER partners - two port plug examples are given.
