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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.
Bruce Schmitt, Monte Elmore, Ed Love, Kim Burns
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 4 | May 2017 | Pages 634-638
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1293437
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber Rods (TPBARs) use nickel plated, zirconium tubing for gettering tritium. However, during the development phase of the getter design only protium gas was used to determine getter rate. The verification phase of getter performance (product acceptance testing) also used only protium gas. Thus, isotope mass effects on getter rate were not evaluated. A modified getter rate test using both protium and deuterium gas was performed to determine isotope mass effects. Test procedures were developed to measure isotope effect on getter rate versus temperature while minimizing experimental uncertainties with respect to surface cleanliness and variability of test results between different specimens.