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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.”
I.N. Sviatoslavsky, J.P. Blanchard, Y. Gohar, S. Majumdar
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 1552-1557
ITER | Proceedings of the Ninth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Oak Brook, Illinois, October 7-11, 1990) | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29562
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The solid breeder blanket has been chosen as the first option for ITER, with three of the four participating international groups submitting designs utilizing solid breeding materials. This paper describes the design submitted by the U.S. group. The ITER chamber will have both inboard and outboard blankets. The outboard side is divided into 48 modules, three per TF sector, where one central module fits between TF coils and two side modules fit partially within the coils. The central module is divided into an upper and lower segment leaving space at the midplane for penetrations. These penetrations include spaces for test modules, neutral beams and RF heating units. The two side modules extend the full height of the reactor. The inboard side is divided into 32 modules with each module separated into three electrically insulated front zones. A slab configuration is used within the blanket, where Be zones are interleaved with thin LiO2 solid breeder zones and water coolant panels. In the outboard blanket the first wall and coolant panels have toroidal channels while the inboard blanket has poloidal channels. The first wall has to be designed to be capable of withstanding the pressure generated by plasma disruptions. An independent coolant loop is used for the first wail while the blanket and shield are integrated into another loop.