An Iowa nuke plant may be the next to restart thanks to AI power demand

IOWA, the Duane Arnold Nuclear Power Plant in northwest of Cedar Rapids, puts pressure on the plans to restart operations until the end of decade after being closed for economic reasons in 2020.

The facility is the third – and probably the end – stew reactor, which will return online to support the increasing electricity demand in the USA.

Duane Arnold will plan to be approved by the Nuclear Regulation Commission in 2027, respectively and 2027, the Palisades nuclear facility in Michigan and the Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, respectively.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a request last week. Nextera energy, The owner of Duane Arnold, To allow the nuclear power plant to be reconnected to the electrical network. Nextera sees Duane Arnold restarting the earliest processes in the fourth quarter of 2028.

Nextera spokesman Neil Nissan, said in a statement to CNBC, “a significant amount of work before the facility starts again, FERC’s decision is a positive step in this process.” He said.

Power Purchasing Agreement

Florida -based Nextera aims to earn a profitable power purchasing agreement to restart Duane Arnold, with large technology companies that want to feed more nuclear energy to the network to feed the electric hungry data centers they build to educate artificial intelligence. For example, Three Mile Island is restarted from a power agreement with financial support. Microsoft.

Garrett Goldfinger, the Nextera manager responsible for the restarting project, told Ferc in late July. He said.

Duane Arnold would bring more than 600 megawatt electricity to the grill equivalent to the electrical needs of more than 400,000 houses.

“If we succeed in taking Duane forward, this clearly creates a warm data center activity around this facility,” Nextera CEO John Ketchum told investors about the company’s call for July earnings.

‘Unicorn Opportunities’

Duane Arnold, Palisades and Three Mile Island are three of the 10 US reactors who have been closed in the last decade as nuclear energy stretched to compete against cheap natural gas and renewable energy.

Restarting these plants is the most concrete sign that the nuclear industry returned after years of financial struggles.

“These are unique opportunities because you do not encounter new building costs associated with nuclear,” Nextera calls for earnings. “These are really unicorn horse -type opportunities.”

Nextera, the largest renewable power developer in the United States, had previously divided Duane Arnold’s network connection between multiple solar farms in response to demand for lower cost -cost electricity in Iowa.

However, last year, the United States began to return in favor of high -capacity nuclear energy because it has seen an unprecedented increase in electricity demand from the US industrial and data centers.

Nextera now combines these solar grid connections as a single one for Duane Arnold after receiving Ferc approval. “This will provide commercial and financial certainty to support the demand for the demand and to accelerate the restart of clean, reliable operations in Duane Arnold,” Goldfinger told Ferc.

Capital is intensive

Nextera said that the restart of Duane Arnold would be a “extremely busy process”. In his application to FERC, he announced that he planned to spend 100 million dollars in 2025 in the project.

Nextera, transformers, although it has faced significant supply chain restrictions and took about three years to be delivered, they gave orders of new transformers to replace the issuance when the facility was closed. The facility has been dismantled and changed the cooling towers, the management building and the training center.

The nuclear industry has a long project delay history, GoldFinger has warned, for example, if the transformers are delivered late, Duane Arnold may take longer than expected.

Although risks, Duane Arnold represents a financial opportunity for Nextera, the mother company of Florida Power & Light. Despite the increasing demand for power, the stock has barely moved this year, despite a sharp return from 2024 when the stocks increased in January 18%, President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on renewable energy increased the trust of the investor in the solar and wind power.

Sun and wind projects will no longer be suitable for two basic tax loans that are expected to break renewable energy demand after 2027. Duane Arnold, restarted in 2028, Duane called on July, said that it could help balance some gains lost from the stage of tax loans.

“You add Duane Arnold to the mixture, and this is one of the many ways we need to continue to expand the business in the future.” He said.