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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.
Jian Li, Aijing Shen, Jun Chen (SPIC/SNPTC)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 1295-1305
Under the design basis accidents, steam release which is resulted from the rupture of reactor cooling system pipes or the rupture of main steam pipes will induce thermal and pressure impact on the containment, and that will probably destroy containment integrity. The passive containment cooling system (PCCS) can utilize natural force to remove heat and decrease pressure and temperature in the containment. So it can provide protection and cool down steel containment after accident. COSINE is a core and system integrated engine for nuclear power plant design and analysis. It is the first independent research and development nuclear power software in China. In this paper, COSINE containment code cosCont and GOTHIC are applied to evaluate the performance of PCCS of the advanced pressurized water reactor AP1000. Containment and concrete shielding are modeled, considering of steam condensation on the internal surface of the containment and air natural convection cooling on the external surface of the containment. The results show that pressure and temperature in the containment increase and environment side change little after high temperature and high pressure coolant sprayed into the containment. And the pressure in the containment did not exceed the safety design limit. Comparing the results of COSINE with GOTHIC, the calculation deviation of COSINE is within the acceptable range.
