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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.
Alexey V. Golubev, Valentina N. Golubeva
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 6 | August 2020 | Pages 731-738
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1777671
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fusion reactors are considered an almost unlimited source of power for the future, with tritium [deuterium-tritium (D-T) mixture] being the most convenient fuel for these facilities. Due to tritium-specific features and its self-radioactivity there are a number of issues when handling a large amount of tritium for long-term operations of fusion reactors. This paper presents research results of tritium behavior in the D-T mixture and in the environment during operations at tritium facilities. The results provide the basis for an assessment of the future environmental effects of long-term operation of a fusion reactor/tritium facility. The results of experimental and modeling studies include tritium reactions with carbon oxides under radiolysis, radiolysis of DTO, tritium dispersion in atmosphere under rough terrain, tritium oxide washout from atmosphere, tritium oxidation in soil with soil bacteria, tritium oxide migration in the unsaturated soil layer, and tritium uptake by plants, crops, and lichens. Both experimental and observational data have been used to develop models to predict tritium behavior in the environment under similar conditions. The models have been verified and validated.