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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.
Teruya Tanaka, Hiroyuki Noto, Fuminobu Sato, Yoshimitsu Hishinuma, Hiroyuki A. Sakaue, Masahito Yoshino
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 8 | November 2019 | Pages 1076-1083
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1658039
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To examine the impact of nuclear transmutation in K-type and N-type thermocouples on temperature measurements in a fusion reactor, thermocouples with altered compositions were fabricated, and their responses were obtained at up to 800°C. The compositions of the thermocouples were altered according to transmutation calculations simulating the 3.5-, 4.6-, and 7-year use at the first wall and 40-year use at the front surface of the radiation shield. Comparison of the responses with commercial thermocouples at 800°C showed that the K-type and N-type thermocouples with altered composition simulating the 7-year use at the first wall indicate 20% to 25% lower temperatures. In this condition, the weight ratio of additive powders for simulation of transmuted elements was ~3%. The differences of responses between the commercial thermocouples and thermocouples simulating transmutation are dependent on the weight ratio of the additive powders. The present data could be used for estimation of response degradation of thermocouples used for long-term operation in a fusion reactor.