NextEra Energy has announced an agreement with Google to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa’s only nuclear power plant. The plant is located in Palo, about eight miles northwest of Cedar Rapids. It is scheduled to resume operations by the first quarter of 2029. The restart is supported by a 25-year power purchase agreement with Google. Google will use the electricity to supply its data centers in Iowa.
The Duane Arnold plant is a 621.9-megawatt boiling water reactor. It began commercial operation in February 1975 and was licensed through 2034. In October 2020, NextEra closed the facility after a derecho storm in August caused damage to its cooling towers and a loss of off-site power. The repair costs were considered too high, leading to an early shutdown and the start of decommissioning, which was estimated to cost over $1 billion.
The closure of Duane Arnold was part of a trend of single-unit nuclear plant retirements in the United States. Economic challenges were a main factor. Other plants, such as Oyster Creek, Pilgrim, Three Mile Island-1, and Palisades, also closed between 2018 and 2022. Recently, there has been renewed interest in nuclear energy. Restart efforts at Palisades and Three Mile Island-1 (now Crane Clean Energy Center) reflect this change…