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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.
Xueyou Ding, Qinglong Wen (Chongping Univ), Cheng Cheng (Southeast Univ), Hongyang Wang, Shenhui Ruan, Zhiqiang Chen (Chongqing Univ)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 277-290
Helical-Coiled-Type once through steam generator (HOTSG) is considered as the first choice for its advantages in compactness and increased heat transfer in Small Modular Reactor (SMR). In this study, mathematical models of void fraction, pressure drop, and heat transfer for different boiling flow conditions in helical coil tube were presented and a computer code (OTSG-TH) for thermal-hydraulic analysis of the HOTSG was developed. Firstly, calculations were carefully validated and verified with steady-state results of ONCESG (Once Through Steam Generator) code and MRX (Marine Reactor X) experiment. Then, postulated scenarios, such as flow rate step changed in secondary side, were also calculated in this study. The results show that helical coiled tubes have higher heat transfer coefficient and fast temperature responds. Furthermore, the investigations on steady and transient states of thermal hydra-ulic analysis lay a foundation for the further study on HOTSG.