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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.
S. D. Bondarenko, I. A. Alekseev, O. A. Fedorchenko, T. V. Vasyanina
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 5 | July 2020 | Pages 690-695
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1766275
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The multifunctional Tritium Removal Facility (TRF) has been designed for the heavy water research reactor PIK in Russia. Along with the extraction of tritium and protium from a heavy water reflector of the reactor, the TRF provides the processing of heavy water waste and the production of tritium-free heavy water. The combined electrolysis catalytic exchange process and hydrogen cryogenic distillation are used at the TRF. A number of investigations have been made to obtain data for the TRF design. At present, the facility is under construction and a detailed design is being completed. The possibility of processing heavy water waste to produce heavy water simultaneously with the extraction of tritium and protium from the heavy water reactor will improve the functionality and economic efficiency of the TRF. The basic technological scheme of the facility and the main modes of its operation are presented along with the progress of the construction of the facility building and engineering systems.