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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.
Malgorzata Karpow Sneve, Katarzyna Siegien-Iwaniuk (Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority), Natalya Shandala (Federal Medical Biological Agency of Russia), Anatoly Grigoriev (ROSATOM), Graham Smith (GMS Abingdon Ltd.)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 976-981
Spent fuel from Russian nuclear powered submarines has been stored at shore based facilities for more than 20 years, notably at Andreeva Bay in the Kola Peninsula. The storage facilities were for some years poorly maintained and a significant fraction of the fuel that is still in store at the site is damaged or otherwise in a poor condition. Over the last ten years or so, much work has been done to improve the technical infrastructure and prepare for recovery of the spent fuel from the temporary stores and to provide for its further management. This paper presents progress with projects for improved technical and safety infrastructure and preparation for its recovery prior to transfer to Mayak PA for long-term management. In is shown that all this work has been done under special regulations and regulatory procedures that were developed with support from the bi-lateral cooperation program between the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority and Federal Medical Biological Agency of Russia. This regulatory work was necessary to address the abnormal condition of the spent fuel and other conditions at the site. The next stage of work is to carry out the main spent fuel recovery operations during 2017 – 2018 and its subsequent transfer to Mayak PA. Lessons learnt from this work are being used in support of improved international recommendations and guidance on how to address legacy issues including management of spent fuel following major disruptive events such as the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
