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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.
S. C. Xiao, Jing Zhao, X. Heng, X. Y. Sheng, Z. Zhou, Y. Yang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 566-572
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-907
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this paper, an innovative natural uranium-thorium fuel fusion-fission hybrid reactor (FFHR) design aiming at closed thorium-uranium fuel cycle, and which could operate with high energy gain, fast 233U breeding rate and tritium self-sufficiency, is presented. The reactor consists of two main modules, i.e. natural uranium module and thorium module, which are placed alternately in the blanket’s toroidal direction. Uranium module plays the role of energy generation and neutron multiplication at the initial stage. Excess neutrons are then used to drive the thorium module to breed 233U. After the 233U inventory reaches a certain level, the uranium module is then replaced by new thorium fuel module. The system is transition to the all thorium fueled operating mode. With appropriately selected thorium fuel to water volumetric ratio, the system could then be started by the limited bred 233U. The blanket could reach thorium-uranium closed fuel cycle with high energy gain and tritium self-sufficiency. The system could burn up about 90 tonnes 232Th at the end of 60 years operating.
