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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.
Steven Oleson (NASA Glenn Research Center), Elizabeth Turnbull (NASA Glenn Research Center), Paul Schmitz (Power Computing Solutions), Kirby Runyon (Johns Hopkins APL), Anthony Colozza (HX5), Thomas Packard (HX5), John Gyekenyesi (HX5), Brandon Klefman (NASA Glenn Research Center), Brent Faller (NASA Glenn Research Center), Natalie Weckesser (NASA Glenn Research Center), Onoufrios Theofylaktos (NASA Glenn Research Center), Christine Schmid (NASA Glenn Research Center), Christopher Heldman (NASA Glenn Research Center), James Fittje (Science Applications International Corp.), Ben Bussey (Johns Hopkins APL), Paul Ostdiek (Johns Hopkins APL), Cassandra Chang (NASA Glenn Research Center)
Proceedings | Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2022) | Cleveland, OH, May 8-12, 2022 | Pages 36-43
