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.”
T.F. Yang, G.S. Luan,† L. Bromberg, D.R. Cohn, B.J. Braams
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 857-863
Advanced Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29452
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A novel gaseous divertor concept is proposed consisting of gas chamber and pumping at high pressure or by reionizing the neutrals. The concept results in substantial reductions of the plasma temperature and heat flux at the target and the pumping requirement. Fluid model simulations of the scrape-off region of the Aries Reactor design by feeding the gas at the target at a flux of 1 × 1023m−2/s at 0.5 eV has shown that the electron and ion temperatures can be cooled to 20 eV. The heat flux to the target can be reduced from 80 MW/m2 to 6 MW/m2. The plasma temperature and heat flux at the divertor target are monotonically decreasing functions of the neutral incident flux. Interestingly the temperature and the heat flux also decrease with decreasing neutral gas initial flowing speed removing the need of gas jets. The backflow problem can be minimized by including a baffle plate to form a gaseous chamber. Monte-Carlo simulations using test particles have showed that the throat of the gaseous chamber can be practically plugged by the incident plasma to prevent backflow of neutrals into plasma core. The pumping can be facilitated by either operating the divertor chamber at high pressure on the order of 30 torr or reionizing the neutrals traveling to a weak toroidal field region.