Duane Arnold Nuclear Power Plant
| Duane Arnold Nuclear Power Plant | ||
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.jpg) |
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| location | ||
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| Coordinates | 42 ° 6 '3 " N , 91 ° 46' 40" W | |
| Country: | United States | |
| Data | ||
| Owner: |
NextEra Energy Resources (70%) Central Iowa Power (20%) Corn Belt Power (10%) |
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| Operator: | NextEra Energy Resources | |
| Project start: | 1968 | |
| Commercial operation: | Feb. 1, 1975 | |
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Active reactors (gross): |
1 (614 MW) | |
| Energy fed in since commissioning: | 104,033 GWh | |
| Website: | Operator's homepage | |
| Was standing: | March 18, 2008 | |
| The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation . | ||
The decommissioned Duane Arnold nuclear power plant ( English Duane Arnold Energy Center ) with a boiling water reactor is located in Palo in the US state of Iowa .
history
Construction of the power plant began on June 1, 1970, and the plant went into operation on May 19, 1974.
Reactor safety
The reactor was built by General Electric . As with all boiling water reactors of the Mark I type, only a value of 10% was achieved with this one instead of the predicted safety of 90%. This means that in the event of an accident the containment would not withstand and the reactor pressure vessel would literally burst. Hence the core would be in the open air. The scenario described finally occurred during the Fukushima nuclear disaster , when an earthquake followed by a tsunami caused a meltdown in three units of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant .
At the end of the 80s, a "torus direct vent bypass system" was retrofitted to the 18 US American reactors of the Mark I type that were still in operation at that time, with a "butterfly valve" blowing the pressure in the reactor pressure vessel into the environment . The operating license originally limited to 40 years was extended in December 2010 by the nuclear regulatory authority of the United States for a further 20 years, so Duane Arnold could have operated until 2034.
Future of the power plant
In the 2010s, nuclear power in the USA became increasingly unprofitable, the reasons for this being the expansion of renewable energies and the oversupply of cheap electricity from the production of shale gas . The Fukushima nuclear disaster also damaged public confidence in nuclear energy in the United States. Between 2013 and 2016, six nuclear reactors ( Crystal River , Kewaunee , San Onofre 2 and 3 , Vermont Yankee ) were decommissioned. The decommissioning of eight further reactors ( Pilgrim , Three Mile Island 1 , Oyster Creek , Indian Point 2 and 3 , Palisades , Diablo Canyon 1 and 2 ) has been announced for the period from 2018 to 2025 . In the states of New York and Illinois , electricity providers have withdrawn the decommissioning announcements for a total of six reactors ( Quad Cities 1 and 2 , Clinton , Ginna , Nine Mile Point 1 , Fitzpatrick ) after the respective governments agreed to fund the plants from funds for pollution-free energy to subsidize. In New York, environmental initiatives are preparing a lawsuit against this subsidization of nuclear power plants. The governments of Pennsylvania and Ohio, however, refuse to approve subsidies for nuclear power plants. The electricity company FirstEnergy got into financial difficulties and has announced that it will either sell or shut down its four nuclear reactors ( Davis Besse , Perry , Beaver Valley 1 and 2 ). In Minnesota, the power company Xcel is considering taking the Prairie Island nuclear power plant out of service. The construction of two new blocks at the Virgil C. Summer nuclear power plant was canceled in 2017.
At the end of January 2018 it became known that the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant was also facing a possible end. The operator announced that the contracts for the purchase of the electricity produced by the power plant only run until the year 2025, it is unlikely that the only buyer will extend the contracts beyond this date.
On July 27, 2018, it was announced that the electricity purchase agreements would be shortened by five years and that the power plant would be shut down at the end of 2020. The reason for the early shutdown is the power plant's lack of competitiveness as a result of the oversupply of natural gas and wind energy in the northwestern United States. On August 10, 2020, a storm damaged the power plant's cooling tower and cut the external power supply, which resulted in the automatic shutdown of the reactor. On August 25, the operator and majority owner NextEra Energy Resources announced that, after assessing the damage, the decision had been made not to restart the power plant, as the damage would not have been repaired until the previously planned shutdown on October 30, 2020 .
Data of the reactor blocks
The Duane Arnold nuclear power plant has one block :
| Reactor block | Reactor type | net power |
gross power |
start of building | Network synchronization |
Commercialization of essential operation |
switching off processing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duane Arnold | Boiling water reactor | 581 MW | 614 MW | 06/22/1970 | May 19, 1974 | 02/01/1975 | 08/25/2020,
defacto 08/10/2020 |
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ US Nuclear Reactor List - Operational. (XLS) In: Energy Information Administration. November 2004, accessed January 7, 2011 .
- ↑ http://www.whec.com/news/nuclear-subsidy-lawsuit-victory/4765527/
- ↑ KCRG-TV9 News Staff: Iowa's only nuclear power plant likely to close in 2025. In: kcrg.com. January 30, 2018, accessed April 12, 2020 .
- ↑ Brian Eckhouse: Another Nuclear Power Plant to Retire Early - This Time in Iowa. In: bloomberg.com. July 27, 2018, accessed April 12, 2020 .
- ↑ USA: Decommissioning announcement for Duane Arnold. In: nuklearforum.ch. Retrieved August 6, 2018 .
- ↑ https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/082520-storm-damage-prompts-nextera-energy-to-shut-duane-arnold-nuclear-plant -early
- ↑ Power Reactor Information System of the IAEA : "United States of America: Nuclear Power Reactors - Alphabetic" (English)