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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.
Robert Pawelko, Lee Cadwallader, Masashi Shimada
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 1 | January 2019 | Pages 18-23
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2018.1502033
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Safety and Tritium Applied Research (STAR) facility provides the capabilities and infrastructure to support tritium research activities important to fusion research and development. Atmospheric tritium emissions are an expected byproduct of STAR laboratory operations and are monitored in accordance with federal regulations. This paper describes the STAR facility Stack Tritium Monitoring System, presents and discusses the annual STAR facility tritium emissions from 2004 to 2017, and briefly describes ongoing efforts to reduce atmospheric tritium emissions from the facility stack. Modeling calculations indicate that STAR facility atmospheric tritium emissions do not pose any health threat to the maximum exposed individual member of the public.