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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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NextEra and Google ink a deal to restart Duane Arnold
A day anticipated by many across the nuclear community has finally arrived: NextEra Energy has officially announced its plans to restart Iowa’s only nuclear power plant, the Duane Arnold Energy Center.
M. J. Driscoll, R. K. Lester, K. G. Jensen, B. W. Arnold, P. N. Swift, P. V. Brady
Nuclear Technology | Volume 180 | Number 1 | October 2012 | Pages 111-121
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14523
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of deep boreholes for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste is reassessed, emphasizing key enabling technical features and their strong linkage to national and international fuel cycle policy. Emplacement 2 to 4 km deep in widely available granitic continental bedrock, under a 1-km caprock layer of high-integrity bedrock, is shown in this analysis to have the potential to provide sufficiently low host rock permeability to prevent radionuclide escape by transport in water - the only plausible release mechanism. The modular nature of the concept enables multiregion siting in large user countries and is especially well-suited for small-user nations. Irretrievability can be built-in to better meet safeguards objectives, and the exceptionally high assurance of confinement makes the disposal of minor actinides (and troublesome fission products) an attractive alternative to their destruction by transmutation.