ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2026
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2026
Nuclear Technology
January 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
DOE announces NEPA exclusion for advanced reactors
The Department of Energy has announced that it is establishing a categorical exclusion for the application of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures to the authorization, siting, construction, operation, reauthorization, and decommissioning of advanced nuclear reactors.
According to the DOE, this significant change, which goes into effect today, “is based on the experience of DOE and other federal agencies, current technologies, regulatory requirements, and accepted industry practice.”
L. El-Guebaly, P. Wilson, M. Sawan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 1027-1031
Technical Paper | Tritium, Safety, and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1630
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The main goal of this assessment is to classify the radwaste stream of the recyclable transmission lines (RTL) at the end of the Z-Pinch plant operation. With the emergence of the new clearance standards, we included both the national and international standards in our analysis and assessed the implications for the RTL waste stream. The 3-D spectral flux was coupled to the ALARA pulsed activation code to estimate the activation responses. Our results indicate that for the first time an internal component close to the target, such as the RTL, can be cleared from regulatory control following a storage period of 50 y after plant decommissioning. As a design requirement, the recycling process must be economically feasible, accomplished within 1.1 day with no hands-on manufacturing and in the absence of personnel access to the fabrication facility. Advanced remote handling equipment must be developed to handle a dose rate of 3000 Sv/h.