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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.”
Palmer A. House
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 3 | November 1994 | Pages 1178-1195
Fusion Power Reactor, Economic, and Alternate Concept | Proceedings of the Eleventh Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy New Orleans, Louisiana June 19-23, 1994 | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A40313
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Mechanical design features of the reactor chamber for the HYLIFE-II inertial confinement fusion power plant are presented. A combination of oscillating and steady, molten salt streams (Li2BeF4) are used for shielding and blast protection of the chamber walls. The system is designed for a 6 Hz repetition rate. Beam path clearing, between shots, is accomplished with the oscillating flow. The mechanism for generating the oscillating streams is described. A design configuration of the vessel wall allows adequate cooling and provides extra shielding to reduce thermal stresses to tolerable levels. The bottom portion of the reactor chamber is designed to minimize splash back of the high velocity (> 12 m/s) salt streams and also recover up to half of the dynamic head. Cost estimates for a 1 GWe and 2 GWe reactor chamber are presented.