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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.
The FWDCC is responsible for the preparation and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards as well as standards-related guidance documents, guidance standards, and technical reports supporting the design, operation, maintenance, operator selection and training, quality requirements of new and used fuel transport, storage and related handling facilities; including high level/transuranic, greater-than-Class C, low level, and mixed waste processing and facilities, and for the decommissioning of commercial, educational, research and government facilities. The ANS Standards Committee Procedures Manual for Consensus Committees shall be used to guide the activities of this consensus committee.
The FWDCC oversees the following 3 subcommittees:
Last modified October 14, 2025, 12:02pm CDT
