DOE closes loan of up to $1.9B for Duane Arnold nuclear restart

The US Department of Energy's Office of Energy Dominance Financing announced on September 8, 2026 the financial close of a loan of up to $1.9 billion to NextEra Energy to help finance the restart of the Duane Arnold Energy Center, the 615 MW boiling water reactor in Linn County, Iowa that permanently ceased operations in August 2020. NextEra, in its own release the same morning, says it plans to restart the plant no later than the first quarter of 2029, pending regulatory approvals.

NextEra describes the transaction as "a combined conditional commitment and financial close." DOE says that with this closing its financing office "has now financed three nuclear plant restarts and completed four concurrent conditional commitments and financial closings under the Trump Administration." The other two restarts are Palisades in Michigan, backed by a loan guarantee of up to $1.52 billion per DOE's August 7, 2025 disbursement notice, where Holtec began loading fuel on August 30, 2026, and the 835 MW Crane Clean Energy Center in Pennsylvania, for which DOE closed a $1 billion loan to Constellation on November 18, 2025. Duane Arnold's ceiling is the largest of the three.

The total cost is not public. KCRG identifies Brian Bolster as NextEra Energy Resources CEO. Iowa Capital Dispatch reported that Bolster said at the plant in Palo on September 8 that the company hopes to be "well inside" the loan, adding: "You can gather from that loan sizing that we're talking about multiple billions of dollars here to bring this plant back online." KCRG reported that the company expects the entire facility back online around the end of 2028 or the beginning of 2029.

In a release datelined October 28, 2025, NextEra said Google had signed a 25-year agreement to purchase carbon-free nuclear energy from Duane Arnold, that Central Iowa Power Cooperative would purchase the remaining portion of the plant's output on the same terms, and that NextEra had signed definitive agreements to buy CIPCO's and Corn Belt Power Cooperative's combined 30% interest in the plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved that ownership transfer by order issued March 30, 2026, making NextEra Energy Duane Arnold, LLC the sole owner. On who pays, the October 2025 release says the Google agreement "enables the investment to restart the plant and covers costs for the production of energy" and that energy customers in Iowa "will not bear any costs associated with the power Google purchases from the facility." Utility Dive reported that DOE did not immediately reply to its questions about how the loan complies with a ratepayer protection pledge "to ensure residential consumers do not foot the bill for large-scale data center infrastructure."

The federal licensing is still in progress. DOE's release says the restart is "pending required U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing approvals," and the NRC's Duane Arnold project page lists the actions under review: an exemption from license termination requirements and three license amendment requests. In a letter dated March 25, 2026, NRC staff wrote that, based on NextEra's schedule to transition to operational status in early 2028, "the staff expects to issue its final decisions on the licensing actions by January 29, 2028," an estimate the letter says could change with requests for additional information or added scope. On August 3, 2026, the NRC published a draft environmental assessment and draft finding of no significant impact for the reauthorization; comments closed September 2, 2026, and the project page projects the final assessment for fall 2026. The notice states the need for the action as "610 megawatts-electric of baseload power generation capability through February 21, 2034," five megawatts under the releases' 615 MW; February 2034 is when the renewed license expires.

The state side is further along. NextEra's release says that in June the Iowa Utilities Commission issued a certificate authorizing construction and operation of the plant; the Corridor Business Journal reported that the order, issued June 18, 2026, grants a certificate of public convenience, use and necessity and requires NextEra to file updates on a final generator interconnection agreement and on the NRC process. Wally Taylor, Beyond Nuclear's attorney in the proceeding, told the Journal on June 18, 2026 that the group would likely seek reconsideration: "Duane Arnold would be supplying power just to Google."

The job and benefit figures vary by document. DOE counts nearly 1,500 jobs during construction and more than 450 during operations. NextEra's release cites a study estimating the restart could generate "more than $9 billion in economic benefits for Iowa over 25 years" and support more than 400 permanent jobs during operations; that study, by Strategic Economic Research and posted November 5, 2025, puts the Iowa figure at $9.1 billion and operations jobs at 393 new direct positions, bringing the site total to 433. The reactor permanently shut down on August 10, 2020, when a derecho damaged non-safety portions of the plant including the cooling towers, ahead of the October 2020 closure NextEra had already announced, per the NRC facility page; the Corridor Business Journal traces that planned closure to Alliant Energy paying $110 million in 2018 to exit its power purchase agreement five years early.

Outlook

The NRC letter's January 29, 2028 estimate is explicitly tied to NextEra's own early-2028 readiness schedule rather than to the agency's review capacity, and the safety reviews of the individual amendments carry completion estimates running to December 15, 2027. If the final environmental assessment lands in fall 2026 as the NRC's project page projects, the environmental track will close more than a year before the licensing decisions, leaving licensee readiness and inspections as the pacing items.