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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. J. Meitner et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 52-56
ITER | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-20
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A twin-screw extruder for the ITER pellet injection system is under development at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The extruder will provide a stream of solid hydrogen isotopes to a secondary section, where pellets are cut and accelerated with single-stage gas gun into the plasma. A one-fifth ITER scale prototype extruder has been built to produce a continuous solid deuterium extrusion.Deuterium gas is precooled and liquefied before being introduced into the extruder. The precooler consists of a copper vessel containing liquid nitrogen surrounded by a deuterium gas filled copper coil. The liquefier is comprised of a copper cylinder connected to a Cryomech AL330 cryocooler, which is surrounded by a copper coil that the precooled deuterium flows through. The lower extruder barrel is connected to a Cryomech GB-37 cryocooler to solidify the deuterium (at 15 K) before it is forced through the extruder nozzle.A viewport located below the extruder nozzle provides a direct view of the extrusion. A camera is used to document the extrusion quality and duration. A data acquisition system records the extruder temperatures, torque, and speed, upstream, and downstream pressures. This paper will describe the prototype twin-screw extruder and initial extrusion results.
