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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.
Robert C. Bowden, Casey Tompkins, Sun-Kyu Yang (CNL)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 751-764
In this experimental investigation, mean liquid velocity fields were investigated for turbulent flow within a horizontal 7-rod bundle geometry using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). PIV measurements were conducted at two axial locations, near the bundle inlet and also near the mid-plane, and at four Reynolds numbers ranging from approximately 8400 to 21000 based on a hydraulic diameter of 7.636 mm. The axial velocity fields in three different gap regions of the 7-rod bundle were reported, including rod-rod gaps and rod-channel gaps. Statistical techniques were used to describe the velocity fields, including mean and turbulent velocity components. The instantaneous and ensemble-averaged velocities in the gap regions are shown to be aligned in the axial (horizontal) flow direction, with a negligible mean vertical components. It was found that the maximum velocity profile was between 20 to 25% higher than the average velocity, while measured axial turbulent velocity typically ranged between 10 to 20% of the corresponding mean velocity. Profiles of local mean and turbulent velocity components in the gap regions were found to be self-similar when normalized using the maximum velocity, and local velocity, respectively.