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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.
J. Mishra, R. Gangradey, P. Nayak, S. Mukherjee
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 3 | April 2022 | Pages 211-219
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1985905
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Based on the ideal gas gun theory (IGT) approximation, an analytical study of solid hydrogen pellet motion in a gas gun–type pellet injector has been performed. A parametric investigation has been conducted to study the pellet speed dependence on the gun characteristics and the propellant conditions. The calculations have been verified by applying various experimental data reported from the literature. Experimental results are within 70% to 90% of the ideal IGT and are in line with global predictions. Calculations indicate that the speed of the pellet has a strong dependence on the propellant pressure and its mass, and a weak dependence on the length of the gun barrel. In addition, the effects of shock waves due to the sudden opening of the propellant valve and some nonideal effects, such as the effect of friction at the propellant pellet–wall interface, have been studied. The results of the calculations have been verified by applying them to the experimental results.
