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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.
George Ana, Anisia Bornea, Ciprian Bucur, Alina Niculescu, Felicia Vasut, Ovidiu Balteanu, Marius Zamfirache
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 3 | April 2020 | Pages 321-326
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1711854
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Whether they are based on fusion (JET, ITER, DEMO) or fission (e.g., CANDU type) or are cooled using molted salts [molten salt reactors (MSRs)], nuclear reactors generate significant amounts of waste in the form of low-level tritiated light water or heavy water, which generates risks for the environment and radiological risks for operating personnel. Given the wide range of tritium concentrations of tritiated water waste, processing it efficiently is possible only if the process is based on the combined process of liquid phase catalitic exchange and electrolysis of water. During this process, tritium is concentrated as tritiated water, which reduces the amount of waste and concentrates the water at the isotopic level high enough for further processing in view of tritium recovery, employing isotopic transfer in gas form. This paper reports on the modification of an industrial hydrogen generator in view of tritium compatibility to be used for further processing of tritiated (heavy) water for tritium recovery. Additionally, analysis will be made, and results will be presented on what will be the tritium/deuterium concentration profile in the generator and what influence the water holdup will have on the isotope concentration.