ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
Li Gao (China Nuclear Power Eng Co., Ltd), Yusheng Liu (Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center), Jiqiang Su (China Nuclear Power Eng Co., Ltd)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 926-936
As an important means of safety research in nuclear power plant, thermal hydraulic test verification has attracted the attention of many countries such as United States, Russia, France, Japan, South Korea and other advanced countries in nuclear field. In the 30 years of research and development of nuclear power plants in China, a large number of thermal hydraulic tests have been carried out. This article investigated the thermal hydraulic test facilities and China's thermal-hydraulic overall effect tests. China's three major nuclear power groups have built and operated several thermal hydraulic verification test facilities, but the objects and contents of these test facilities are targeted only for specific reactor types, and there are deficiencies in the systematization and universality of thermal hydraulic verification capabilities. Some universities in China have also carried out thermal hydraulic verification of some nuclear power plants. However, these types of test facilities are small in size and are not suitable for engineering verification. Therefore, in terms of test facilities in China, we still need to design and construct test facilities that can both meet the need of the active and passive systems, and make up the inadequacies of the thermal hydraulic verification of the primary loop system and the safety system.