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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.”
W. D. Nelson, D. C. Lousteau (FEDC), J. N. Doggett (LLNL), the MINIMARS Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 1146-1152
Fusion Reactor Design—II | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24885
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A two year study to describe an attractive tandem mirror reactor has recently been completed. The reactor, called MINIMARS, has met all its mission goals. For instance, it will produce 600 MW of net electrical power at a cost of less than 50 mill/kWh. It has a mass utilization of 100 kW/tonne. In the event of a major accident, the MINIMARS reactor will minimize the risk of a major loss in investment and will be passively safe. The first year of the study emphasized innovative concepts and trade studies that led to good cost vs performance. The first year results were summarized in Refs. 1 and 2. The second year of the study developed the proposed concepts into an integrated point design. This paper presents a description of the MINIMARS design and its related cost. The engineering integration of this machine has been a principal activity at the Fusion Engineering Design Center (FEDC).