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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.”
G.L. Kulcinski, G.A. Emmert, J.P. Blanchard, L.A. El-Guebaly, H.Y. Khater, J.F. Santarius, M.E. Sawan, I.N. Sviatoslavsky, L.J. Wittenberg, R.J. Witt
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 2 | March 1989 | Pages 1233-1244
Commercial Reactors, Economics and Power Conversion | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A39861
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A preconceptual design of a tokamak reactor fueled by a D-He-3 plasma is presented, A low aspect ratio (A=2–4) device is studied here but high aspect ratio devices (A > 6) may also be quite attractive. The Apollo D-He-3 tokamak capitalizes on recent advances in high field magnets (20 T) and utilizes rectennas to convert the synchrotron radiation directly to electricity. The overall efficiency ranges from 37 to 52% depending on whether the bremsstrahlung energy is utilized. The low neutron wall loading (0.1 MW/m2) allows a permanent first wall to be designed and the low nuclear decay heat enables the reactor to be classed as inherently safe. The cost of electricity from Apollo is > 40% lower than electricity from a similar sized DT reactor.