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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.
J. A. Fooks, L. C. Carlson, P. Fitzsimmons, E. Giraldez, D. N. Kaczala, M. Wei, N. Alexander, M. P. Farrell, J. Betcher, A. Harvey-Thompson, T. Nagayama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 3 | April 2018 | Pages 423-433
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1389605
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion experimental campaign conducted at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics has evolved significantly since its start in 2014. Scientific requirements and OMEGA Extended Performance (EP) system technology both have progressed, resulting in necessary and available updates to the target design. These include, but are not limited to, optimizing target dimensions and aspect ratios to maximize survival at desired pressures; coating target components to improve physics diagnosis; precision-machining diagnostic windows along the axis of the target for enhanced diagnostic views; improving fiducial placement reproducibility and reducing subsequent assembly time by 50%; and implementing gas-pressure transducers on the targets. In addition, target fabrication techniques have changed and advanced, allowing for better target reproducibility and decreased assembly time. To date, 11 variations of targets have been fabricated, with successful target fielding ranging from 1- to 20 atm internal pressure and a maximum survivability of 33 atm.