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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.
Hakim Benabderrahmane (Andra), Johan Holmen (Golder Associates), Olivier Stab (Ecole Nationale des Mines de Paris), Jacques Brulhet (Andra)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 156-163
Safety assessment of a deep geological repository for radioactive wastes (IHLLW) requires identification of potential flow paths and the associated travel times for radionuclides originating at repository depth. The planned French repository will be located at great depths in the Callovo-Oxfordian clay formation of the multi-layered system of Paris Basin. Hydrogeological performance of the planned radioactive waste repository relies on analysis and assessment of the geodynamic evolution impact on groundwater flow behaviour in the multi-layered aquifer system through the next million of years. Numerical simulations coupling the geodynamic evolution and the groundwater flow describe how the tectonic uplift and erosion/sedimentation processes affect (i) the long term transient flow behaviour and (ii) the hydrogeological performance measures. Hydrogeological performance assessment of the potential repository site is performed by the use of particles transport model using a 3D transient flow field induced by: (i) deformation of the multi-layered aquifer system resulting from the differential tectonic uplift, (ii) evolution of the outcrop zones governed by erosion and incision of the geological layers and (iii) the climate changes. Outlets of the hydrogeological system are located and the associated transit times from the repository are estimated.