Helen Arnold, daughter of Duane Arnold, in an April 17, 2015, photo looks into the water pool where spent fuel rods were stored at the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Palo. She was accompanied by Plant Operations Manager Ray Wheaton. Duane Arnold, a power company executive, oversaw the construction and opening of the plant that bears his name as Iowa’s only nuclear power facility. It was closed in 2020. (The Gazette)
Energy expert says it’s a long shot, considering cost and complexity
The owner of Iowa’s only nuclear power plant — which started the decommissioning process in 2020 — would consider restarting the plant to meet the demand of data centers and other customers, according to its chief executive officer.
Emergency managers in Linn and Johnson counties said they haven’t heard anything about resuming nuclear power generation at the Duane Arnold Energy Center, near Palo, which would be costly and would require federal authorization.
But a retired engineer said the plant had top ratings when it closed and, if restarted, could supply far more renewable energy than wind and solar projects.
“If you needed the power, it would be easier to restart a nuclear power plant than building one from scratch,” said Steve Myres, of Palo, who retired in 2020 after 26 years at Duane Arnold, most recently as part of the engineering rapid response team.
John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy, which has owned Duane Arnold since 2005, told Bloomberg on June 12 he had inquiries from potential data center customers interested in the 600 megawatts generated by the Iowa reactor.
“I would consider it, if it could be done safely and on budget,” Ketchum told Bloomberg.
Duane Arnold, which opened in 1974 under ownership of what is now Alliant Energy, employed more than 500 people when it closed in August 2020.
The plant was scheduled in 2019 to be decommissioned in October 2020 when Alliant, Duane Arnold’s primary customer, agreed to a $110 million buyout to end its power purchase agreement. When the August 2020 derecho caused some external damage, NextEra agreed to start the closure process early.
Data centers need juice
But Big Tech companies are keen to secure electricity for massive data centers popping up across the country — including in Iowa.
Google is considering whether to build a $576 million data center in the Big Cedar Industrial Center along 76th Avenue SW and Edgewood Road SW in Cedar Rapids, less than 20 miles south of the Duane Arnold plant. Meta has proposed an $800 million data center in Davenport. These proposals are in addition to other large data centers in Council Bluffs, Altoona, Waukee and West Des Moines.
Ketchum told Bloomberg that tech companies have asked NextEra to find locations that can accommodate 5 gigawatts of demand.
“Think about that. That’s the size of powering the city of Miami,” Ketchum said. He declined to name the companies.
Ketchum said 5 gigawatts would be a challenge, but there are places in the United States that can provide one gigawatt of power. The Bloomberg article did not mention which communities, but Linn County likely would have been one before Duane Arnold was decommissioned.
When The Gazette reached out to NextEra to ask about Ketchum’s comments, the Florida-based company said Duane Arnold is being shut down.
“NextEra Energy Resources is always looking at the needs of its customers and the best use of our assets, including the Duane Arnold Energy Center,” spokesman Bill Orlove said in an email. “The company has not performed a formal study of the feasibility of restarting operations at Duane Arnold.”
A decommissioning plan released in 2022 — which Orlove last week shared with The Gazette — said the plant has ceased operations and its spent fuel was moved to a storage area on the property. The plan calls for buildings to be demolished “within 60 years” to allow time for remaining radioactivity to decay.
How big is a gigawatt?
Renewable energy projects often are measured by the megawatt, which is 1 million watts of energy. A gigawatt is 1 billion watts, or 1,000 megawatts. If you need a more visual example of a gigawatt, here are some from the U.S. Department of Energy:
- 2.47 million solar panels
- 310 utility-scale wind turbines
- 100 million LED bulbs
- Roughly 1.3 million horsepower (Based on horsepower to watts conversion: 746 watts = 1 horsepower)
- 2,000 Chevrolet Corvette Z06s (Corvette Z06 engine delivers 670 horsepower. Two-thousand of those engines would equal 1.34 million horsepower, or 1 GW)
- 9,090 Nissan Leafs (Leaf has a 110 kilowatt motor. So 1 million kW divided by 110 kW = the maximum power of 9,090 Nissan Leafs)
Michigan nuclear plant being restarted
The U.S. Department of Energy announced in March it would loan a Michigan company up to $1.5 billion restart the 800-megawatt Palisades Nuclear Plant, a Western Michigan plant that ceased operations in May 2022.
The money would help Holtec Palisades upgrade and test the plant to operate it for another 25 years.
“The project also highlights President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to support good-paying, high-quality job opportunities in communities across the country while also expanding access to affordable clean energy resources,” the Energy Department reported.
What about Duane Arnold?
Myres, the former Duane Arnold engineer, said he’d like to see the same thing done at Duane Arnold.
“When that plant was shut down, there was nothing wrong with that plant,“ he said.
He thinks NextEra should “absolutely” consider restarting the plant because of the increasing energy demand. He compared powering the electrical grid to riding a bicycle, with all the energy suppliers working together to meet the energy needs of homeowners, governments and corporations.
“When load comes on — like a data center — the bicycle starts slowing down and somebody has to pump harder,” he said. “What’s going to happen here if we don’t get enough power, is they will have to drop some load.”
Getting re-licensed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a complex and expensive process, said Steve Guyer, energy policy counsel with the Iowa Environmental Council. Not only would NextEra have to prove the facility is up to snuff, but there would need to be adequate transmission capacity.
NextEra used some of the transmission lines near the plant for the 200 megawatts of solar energy the firm is building, Guyer said.
Congress earlier this month approved a bill to speed the deployment of nuclear energy capacity, including by streamlining the permitting process and providing incentives for smaller nuclear reactors.
Emergency management
Because an accident at a nuclear power plant can have devastating results, facilities — including Duane Arnold — have multiple layers of security and detailed safety plans for people living nearby.
NextEra in 2022 donated 144 emergency sirens in a 10-mile radius of the plant to Linn County. These siren systems once were the primary way of warning neighbors of potential danger, but now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows phone alerts to be the first warning.
B.J. Dvorak, coordinator for Linn County Emergency Management Agency, said he has not heard anything about NextEra considering restarting Duane Arnold. Neither has Dave Wilson, Johnson County’s EMA coordinator.
“We’ve had no communication from NextEra about potential for restarting the power plant,” Wilson said. For years, Johnson County was listed as a host county to take people displaced by a potential nuclear incident, which makes it even more likely Johnson County would hear about any plans to reanimate the plant, he said.
Source: The Gazette