Google Data Centers Are Returning Nuclear Power to Tornado Country

This communicative originally appeared connected Inside Climate News and is portion of the Climate Desk collaboration.

When a derecho slammed into the Duane Arnold atomic works successful 2020, Diana Lokenvitz had clip for precisely 1 glimpse retired her window.

A partition of clouds had poured successful from the west, swallowing Palo, Iowa, successful darkness. “It was similar it was transportation achromatic night,” the elder systems technologist astatine the works recalled.

Then, the alarm began to sound.

Within seconds of the tempest hitting the plant, 130-mile-per-hour winds had severed each six of its outer powerfulness lines, triggering an automatic exigency shutdown.

Backup diesel generators roared to life, and ample power rods slid into the reactor halfway to halt the fission absorption driving the plant’s vigor production.

With the reactor halfway inactive dangerously hot, information systems kicked successful to assistance stabilize the reactor and vent excess heat, a process that lasted for hours.

“It wasn’t until we went extracurricular afterwards that we realized that the cooling towers were gone,” Lokenvitz recalled.

Twelve water-cooling towers erstwhile watched implicit the works similar 2 rows of soldiers, releasing steam from h2o utilized to chill the atomic reactor. The tempest toppled them.

The derecho, a thunderstorm characterized by precocious upwind gusts spanning respective 100 miles, had swept crossed the Midwest, causing wide powerfulness outages and catastrophic harm to buildings, trees and millions of acres of crops.

After 45 years of operation, the Duane Arnold Energy Center was unopen down. The works was already scheduled for decommissioning wrong months, leaving small clip oregon fiscal inducement to repair the storm-damaged facility.

An archetypal investigation by the national Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Division of Risk Analysis estimated determination had been a 1-in-1,000 accidental of harm to the atomic halfway astatine Duane Arnold during the derecho. The incidental was 1 of lone 2 “important precursors” to a terrible mishap successful the US betwixt 2015 and 2024, the second-highest hazard level that tin beryllium assigned to an lawsuit astatine a atomic plant, the NRC told Inside Climate News. There were nary “significant precursors,” the highest hazard level event, during that period.

The last NRC analysis, published successful March 2021, provided a somewhat little probability of halfway harm but noted that the hazard of a presumption blackout during the derecho was “particularly high.”

Duane Arnold has sat dormant since 2020, but with a power-purchasing statement betwixt the Florida-based owner, NextEra Energy, and Google, which is expanding its fleet of information centers successful Iowa, the works is present slated for a 2029 reopening.

Early this year, NextEra Energy notified the NRC that it would statesman the regulatory process to restart the powerfulness plant.

In the fall, NextEra unveiled a concern with Google, which already operates respective information halfway buildings successful Council Bluffs and is presently gathering a information halfway field extracurricular Cedar Rapids, astir 12 miles from Duane Arnold.

The tech elephantine has agreed to assistance screen recommissioning costs and to acquisition the bulk of Duane Arnold’s vigor output for 25 years. The 2 companies “also signed an statement to research the improvement of caller atomic procreation to beryllium deployed successful the US,” the October 27 property merchandise announced.

“The works volition supply much than 600 MW of clean, safe, ‘always-on’ atomic vigor to the determination grid,” Google wrote successful a connection pursuing the NextEra announcement.

Operators accidental that improvements to the archetypal works design, including further backup diesel generators and cooling towers with greater upwind resistance, volition heighten its resilience to aboriginal terrible upwind events. That resilience is key, arsenic the menace of utmost storms to atomic powerfulness successful Iowa is apt to grow.

The warming of the Gulf of Mexico has driven much moisture northward into Iowa’s atmosphere, expanding the frequence and severity of upwind events, including dense rains, windstorms, tornadoes and hail.

In 2024 alone, Iowa experienced a grounds 155 tornadoes, topping the erstwhile grounds of 146 tornadoes acceptable conscionable 3 years earlier, successful 2021.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tracked upwind and clime disasters with losses exceeding $1 cardinal successful the authorities from 1980 to 2024. In that time, the authorities saw somewhat little than 2 storms a twelvemonth wherever harm estimates were higher than $1 billion, aft adjusting the numbers for inflation. The mean for the astir caller five-year play was 5.4 events per year. (President Donald Trump’s cuts to the NOAA fund mean that the bureau has stopped tracking billion-dollar disasters.)

Duane Arnold officials person stressed that nary of the plant’s captious atomic components suffered harm during the 2020 derecho. “The works was harmless passim the full event,” Matt Ohloff, a spokesperson for NextEra, said of the exigency shutdown.

However, NRC reports pursuing the incidental noted harm to some safety- and non-safety- related structures.

In summation to the collapsed cooling towers, the tempest damaged Duane Arnold’s reactor and turbine buildings, including the “secondary containment” system, which serves arsenic a 2nd enactment of extortion against radioactive merchandise successful the lawsuit of a meltdown.

Ten hours into the exigency cooldown astatine Duane Arnold, the strategy liable for cooling the 2 diesel generators began to amusement signs of wear. Storm debris had clogged the system, and not capable h2o was flowing to chill the generator. Operators bypassed the strainer, keeping the generator operable.

The astir apt pathway to unsafe reactor halfway harm astatine Duane Arnold during the derecho would person been the nonaccomplishment of some backup generators, resulting successful a presumption blackout, the NRC investigation concluded.

Even with heightened hazard of harm to the atomic core, a large woody much would person had to spell incorrect for Duane Arnold to scope meltdown oregon radiation release, said Adam Stein, manager of the Nuclear Energy Innovation programme astatine the Breakthrough Institute, a nonpartisan and nonprofit planetary probe center.

“This was 1 of the astir important information events successful US atomic past and yet it was not importantly unsafe to the public,” said Stein. “That speaks to the robustness of these plants.”

NRC licensing requires reactor buildings to beryllium built to withstand “tornado missiles,” oregon ample objects colliding astatine precocious speeds, Stein added. “They are virtually designed to withstand these kinds of events safely,” helium said.

Still, NextEra plans to summation weather-related information measures astatine the reopened Duane Arnold plant.

“We bash look astatine those events and effort to garner lessons learned and ask, what could marque the works adjacent safer than it is?” said NextEra advisor Michael Davis astatine a nationalist accusation gathering held successful Cedar Rapids by the Iowa Utilities Commission connected Nov. 13.

The institution is considering installing a 3rd diesel generator to supply further backup power, and volition besides plan Duane Arnold’s replacement water-cooling towers with a higher upwind absorption threshold, said Davis.

Google representatives did not respond to questions astir whether the harm incurred astatine Duane Arnold during the 2020 derecho raised immoderate concerns for atomic information during terrible upwind events.

The NRC information requirements mandate that applicants “consider the astir terrible meteorologic and seismic conditions known successful the projected area,” erstwhile selecting reactor sites, an NRC typical wrote successful a connection to Inside Climate News.

“It’s important to recognize that atomic plants are built to withstand utmost biology hazards and that the NRC requires plants to support redundant systems, components and programs to beryllium capable to mitigate nonaccomplishment of off-site powerfulness events,” the NRC added.

Lokenvitz, the erstwhile Duane Arnold engineer, views the plant’s reopening arsenic a benignant of resurrection. If the installation hadn’t already been slated for decommissioning erstwhile the derecho struck, Duane Arnold would person been rebuilt and continued to nutrient power, she said.

“That works operated precisely arsenic designed. It was conscionable the cleanable storm.”