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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.
M. Stadermann, C. Aracne-Ruddle, J. Florio, S. Felker, J. Bigelow, S. Johnson, B. Lairson, J. Betcher
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 2 | March 2018 | Pages 273-278
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1372989
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Capsules in National Ignition Facility targets are conventionally supported by thin polymer films. Recent experiments have shown that these films add significant perturbations to the implosion. Here, we evaluate stiffer polyimide composite films for use in a new target design that has been predicted to reduce these perturbations. The films are evaluated by their contact radius to the capsule for different deflections and the force they generate at those deflections to center the capsule. We find that a composite film with a single-sided coating of carbon produces the best results and show the performance of these films in target assemblies, highlighting the importance of the indentation depth.