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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.”
B. G. Logan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1784-1793
Alternate Concept and Application | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29979
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The performance (efficiency and cost) of IFE reactors using MHD conversion is explored for target blanket shells of various materials vaporized and ionized by high fusion yields (5 to 500 GJ). A magnetized, prestressed reactor chamber concept is modeled together with previously developed models for the Compact Fusion Advanced Rankine II (CFARII) MHD Balance-of-Plant (BoP). Using conservative 1-D neutronics models, high fusion yields (20 to 80 GJ) are found necessary to heat Flibe, lithium, and lead-lithium blankets to MHD plasma temperatures, at initial solid thicknesses sufficient to capture most of the fusion yield. Advanced drivers/targets would need to be developed to achieve a “Bang per Buck” figure-of-merit ≳ 20 to 40 joules yield per driver $ for this scheme to be competitive with these blanket materials. Alternatively, more realistic neutronics models and better materials such as lithium hydride may lower the minimum required yields substantially. The very low CFARII BoP costs (contributing only 3 mills/kWehr to CoE) allows this type of reactor, given sufficient advances that non-driver costs dominate, to ultimately produce electricity at a much lower cost than any current nuclear plant.