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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.”
Chas. W. von Rosenberg, Jr.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1600-1604
Inertial Fusion Driver | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29948
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The laser driver system we describe is coupled to the SOMBRERO reactor concept. This is the Inertial Fusion for Energy (IFE) design concept generated by the W.J. Schafer Team for a recent DOE study1. The nominal plant design has 1 GW electrical output and requires a KrF laser driver system that supplies 3.4 MJ per pulse onto a spherically symmetric, direct drive target, at a repetition rate of 6.7 pps. We describe an architecture which results from the constraints of what must be supplied at the target, coupled with a final amplifier design which makes use of e-beam pumped, angularly multiplexed, 60 kJ final amplifier cavities, recent technology advancements in e-beams and pulsed power, and which has been optimized for system efficiency. Driver system efficiency of more than 7% (“wall plug”), and an effective efficiency of more than 9%, obtained through utilization of laser waste heat, are projected.