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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.
B. P. Chock, D. R. Harding, T. B. Jones
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 2 | March 2018 | Pages 237-247
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1378013
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Surfactant-containing water droplets were produced using a 75-Vrms pondermotive force operating at 10 kHz. Heat from a 30-V direct-current source, applied to a 2 × 0.1-mm region of the fluid, was instrumental in rupturing a low-surface-energy liquid membrane and forming the droplet. The low voltage allows quick and accurate dispensing of droplets without dielectric breakdown. Nanoliter-sized (~7.6-nL) butanol-styrene droplets were formed using 133 Vrms at 900 Hz. Microliter-sized oil droplets (~0.6 to 10.5 μL) were formed using high voltage (460 to 672 Vrms at 100 Hz). Oil-water emulsions were formed and moved horizontally, overcoming frictional and surface tension forces. Large oil droplets were also moved to a wider electrode spacing, where the emulsion can take the spherical shape of a target. This was only achieved by transporting the emulsion down an inclined slope (45 deg) using gravity to augment the electric force. All the steps are in place to form targets from oil-water-oil and water-oil-water emulsions; only the dielectrophoretic centering and polymerization processes, which were demonstrated previously, must be added.