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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.
Didier Perrault
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 5 | July 2019 | Pages 339-344
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1594538
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The decree authorizing the creation of the ITER facility was published on November 9, 2012, with the provisions adopted having been considered mostly acceptable. However, it is the first fusion facility of this kind to require a creation decree and the design of some of the systems had not yet been finalized. Moreover, while some equipment, with their associated safety requirements, are indeed classic and well known, others are uncommon and their safety requirements, although considered acceptable, are requesting justification.
Therefore, the decree was supported by about 200 requests, which have to be met during the facility startup schedule. This paper takes stock of the current situation and presents the current status of the main expected answers, taking into account the design evolution which has been further proposed by the operator (e.g., the new vacuum vessel pressure suppression system, etc.).
Some safety issues have already been considered as solved (the tokamak support design, accident within the neutral beam cell, etc.). Others are estimated not to be completely satisfactory (e.g., explosion within the vacuum vessel). Before moving on to commissioning, a few issues are still pending (detritiation system efficiency, radiation protection, etc.) and additional studies regarding the final design are expected (hot cells, tritium and waste buildings, etc.).