NextEra updates NRC on Duane Arnold plans

The company presented an overview of the current status and its plans for the proposed restart of the shuttered plant in slides submitted to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ahead of a 7 August Pre-Submittal Meeting.

The 610 MWe boiling water reactor plant, owned and operated by NextEra Energy Duane Arnold, LLC in Linn County, Iowa, commenced commercial operation in 1974. Although currently licensed for operations until 2034, the Duane Arnold plant ceased operations in 2020 and is currently "idled and in decommissioning status", but in January, the company submitted documents including a restart overview and regulatory path to reauthorisation of power operations.

Since it was shut, all the plant's used fuel has been transferred to its Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, and most major plant systems have been drained and deenergised. Training and administrative buildings have been removed, as have the mechanical draft cooling towers, and generator output transformer and in-scope transmission lines, but the main power block buildings remain intact.

Planned restart activities will restore the plant to its previous operating licence condition at 2020 shutdown. Planned plant modifications include new cooling towers, restoration of in-scope transmission lines, new office and warehouse buildings, and upgrades to the sewage treatment system upgrade. Plans also include dredging of the water intake from the Cedar River.

"Under NEPA [the National Environmental Policy Act], it is anticipated that NRC will prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) for this restart," the company said in the slides. NextEra Energy Duane Arnold, LLC will coordinate with the NRC Environmental Project Manager regarding the need for an environmental review document, and the subject areas to cover; and "submit an environmental review document (tentatively in October 2025) that focuses on restart activities useful for the NRC’s NEPA review".

It anticipates that a final EA and Finding of No Significant Impact "will be issued within 12 months of acceptance of an environmental submittal".

NextEra Energy recently filed a request with the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking to reclaim interconnection rights that were previously transferred from the shut down Duane Arnold nuclear power plant in Iowa to a solar energy project: about 40 acres of the Duane Arnold site are now occupied by a solar farm.