NRC issues draft EA/FONSI for Duane Arnold restart

Efforts by NextEra Energy to restart the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant as early as 2029 continue to move forward with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's preliminary environmental assessment and determination that the restart would have no significant environmental impacts.

On Thursday, the NRC posted a draft environmental assessment and a finding of no significant impact for the Palo, Iowa, facility; the Federal Registernotice was published on Monday. The Department of Energy's Office of Energy Dominance Financing is a cooperating agency on the draft EA, as the DOE is considering providing financial assistance to the restart project.

What this means: The issuance of the draft EA and FONSI likely means the NRC will move ahead on the environmental review without needing to craft a lengthier environmental impact statement.

According to the FR notice, NRC staff assessed how restarting the 615-MWe Duane Arnold could impact areas including land use and visual resources; meteorology, air quality and noise; surface water and groundwater resources; non-federally and federally protected ecological resources; historic and cultural resources; socioeconomic conditions; human health; waste management; uranium fuel cycle and transportation; and postulated accidents.

"The NRC staff determined that the environmental impacts of the proposed actions would be not significant for each potentially affected environmental resource area," the FR notice said. "In addition, the NRC staff determined that the projected effects of climate change would not alter any of the impact determinations described in the EA."

Because of the NRC's preliminary determination of its environmental review, staff determined that a draft EIS is not needed and that a FONSI is warranted instead.

What happens next: Members of the public can comment on the draft EA and FONSI through September 2. Full instructions on how to submit comments can be found in the FR notice. Electronic submissions via the federal rulemaking website (using Docket ID NRC-2026-1719) are preferred.

Once the comment period closes, the NRC will finalize the EA and make a final determination on whether an EIS is required and if a FONSI is warranted. The final EA and FONSI are expected in the fall, according to the NRC's Duane Arnold restart web page.

The NRC's preliminary determination of the Duane Arnold environmental review comes two months after the agency gave a similar decision to the restart project at Constellation's Crane site (formerly Three Mile Island-1) in Pennsylvania.