ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
Thomas F. Fuerst, Chase N. Taylor, Paul W. Humrickhouse
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 79 | Number 1 | January 2023 | Pages 77-94
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2022.2090784
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Permeation is investigated for the introduction of hydrogen isotopes into lead lithium (PbLi) for the Tritium Extraction eXperiment (TEX). TEX is a forced-convection PbLi loop under construction at Idaho National Laboratory that will test the vacuum permeator (VP) method of tritium extraction from PbLi. The source permeator (SP) delivers atomic hydrogen (H, D, and T) from a gas-phase reservoir into the PbLi via a permeable dense metal membrane. A modular system and a fixed SP system are presented. In the modular design, PbLi flows through the inside of a tubular membrane, and gas-phase hydrogen is introduced on the outside of the membrane. Atomic hydrogen permeates radially inward through the membrane into the PbLi. In the fixed design, PbLi flows into an expansion chamber with closed-ended tubular membranes inserted. Gas-phase hydrogen is introduced on the inside of the closed-ended membranes, and atomic hydrogen permeates radially outward into the flowing PbLi. Hydrogen transport models based on steady-state mass transport through PbLi and permeation through the metal membrane were developed to assess the operation of the SP relative to experimental variables and to allow understanding of uncertain parameter effects, such as PbLi hydrogen transport properties and the effective hydrogen permeability of the VP. This modeling effort considers iron as the SP material and vanadium as the VP material.
