“In my opinion, nuclear power is the most beneficial method of anything we could possibly do to provide energy to our customers in the future,” Mr. Arnold stated in a 1979 interview with the Des Moines Register, about a month after the Three Mile Island accident.

However, power operations were restricted to 1593MWt (about 535 MWe) until plant modifications were completed in 1985 to utilize the full licensed capacity.

Scheduled outages since that time have added modifications to the plant that have allowed this power level to be sustained without restrictions or challenges to nuclear or industrial safety.

[15] In December 2010, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted Duane Arnold a 20-year extension license lasting until 2034, taking the plant beyond the life of its original 40-year operating permit.

Facilities exist on site for dry storage of spent fuel with capacity for the entire life of the plant (including license renewal).

[20] This design flaw may have been the reason that the tsunami in 2011 led to explosions and fire in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

[21] In 2010, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimated that the risk of an earthquake causing core damage to the reactor at Duane Arnold was 1 in 31,250 each year.

[22] In 2013, in response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered Duane Arnold "to install a reliable hardened venting capability for pre-core damage and under severe accident conditions, including those involving a breach of the reactor vessel by molten core debris" due to the similarity in reactor design.

Drills are conducted on a regular basis in accordance with requirements from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Pleasant Creek Reservoir, a 410-acre (1.7 km2) lake, was developed by Alliant Energy and the Iowa Conservation Commission to provide a recreation area and act as a source of cooling water during times of low flow in the Cedar River.

In 2014, the Nuclear Energy Institute released a study showing the positive impact of DAEC on the economy and environment.

[25] The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Duane Arnold was 107,880, an increase of 8.2 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com.