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.
Mónica Chillarón Pérez, Vicente E. Vidal, Gumersindo J. Verdú, Gregorio Quintana-Ortí
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 2 | February 2024 | Pages 193-206
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2199677
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of iterative algebraic methods applied to the reconstruction of computed tomography (CT) medical images is proliferating to reconstruct high-quality CT images using far fewer views than through analytical methods. This would imply reducing the dose of X-rays applied to patients who require this medical test. Least-squares methods are a promising approach to reconstruct the images with few projections obtaining high quality. In addition, since these techniques involve a high computational load, it is necessary to develop efficient methods that make use of high-performance-computing tools to accelerate reconstructions. In this paper, three least-squares methods are analyzed—Least-Squares Model Based (LSMB), Least-Squares QR (LSQR), and Least-Squares Minimal Residual (LSMR)—to determine whether the LSMB method provides faster convergence and thus lower computational times. Moreover, a block version of both the LSQR method and the LSMR method was implemented. With them, multiple right-hand sides (multiple slices) can be solved at the same time, taking advantage of the parallelism obtained with the implementation of the methods using the Intel Math Kernel Library. The two implementations are compared in terms of convergence, time, and quality of the images obtained, reducing the number of projections and combining them with a regularization and acceleration technique. The experiments show how the implementations are scalable and obtain images of good quality from a reduced number of views, with the LSQR method being better suited for this application.