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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.
Vincent A. Garcia, Justin A. Porto, Patrick M. Donovan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 79 | Number 7 | October 2023 | Pages 914-918
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2192843
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recent experiments conducted on hazardous materials using the Precision High Energy-density Liner Implosion eXperiment (PHELIX) required development of a new containment system for the apparatus. Unlike many containment systems, the PHELIX containment system includes a cylindrical imploding aluminum liner, which is driven via magnetic fields to approximate velocities of 1.4 km/s before impacting a target. The complex design attributes and monolithic geometry of the liner have been driven by both simulations and empirical measurements. The contents of this paper cover the design considerations and requirements for the liner, the efforts made in fabricating the component, and steps taken to verify performance both as the dynamic driver of the experiment and as a containment system component.