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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.
L. Begrambekov, A. Gordeev, Y. Ma, G. Vayakis, P. Shigin, Ya Sadovsky, A. Zakharov, M. Walsh
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 1 | January 2020 | Pages 1-12
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1589206
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
High-quality tungsten coating deposition on sintered aluminum nitride ceramic substrates (both of thin flat chips and structural boxes) was realized using an adapted plasma-aided coating deposition rig. The tungsten coating produced using this technique and the accompanying apparatus setup are of high-purity, strong adhesion, and controlled three-dimensional uniformity (<20% thickness variations). The coating also exhibits well-structured and smooth (Ra < 1.0 µm) microscopic surface landscape with densely clustered tungsten granulations. The coated samples were tested under load conditions expected during ITER operation, including thermal cycling and superheated (up to 500°C) steam. Exposure to thermal cycles and hot steam made no apparent changes to the coating’s microscopic structure with no sign of cracks, blistering, or exfoliation seen under electron microscopy. These successes validated the microwave shield design for the ITER high-frequency magnetic sensor, which is based on this concept, and laid a solid foundation for the production of this component in the forthcoming procurement phase. Besides, a failure test was conducted for the tungsten coating in the temperature range of 500°C to 1500°C. Surface smoothing, pores, delamination, and mass loss in substrate were observed when temperature exceeded 1000°C, possibly due to the evaporation of aluminum atoms. These findings unveiled the changes of tungsten coating properties under extreme conditions that are of both academic and practical values.