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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.”
H.H. Streckert, K.R. Schultz, G.T. Sager, R.D. Kantncr
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 448-451
National Ignition Facility | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11962981
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The baseline design for the target chamber and chamber components for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) consists of aluminum alloy structural material. Low activation composite chamber and components have important advantages including enhanced environmental and safety characteristics and improved accessibility due to reduced neutron-induced radioactivity. A low activation chamber can be fabricated from carbon fiber reinforced epoxy using thick wall laminate technology similar to submarine bow dome fabrication for the U.S. Navy. A risk assessment analysis indicates that a composite chamber has a reasonably high probability of success, but that an aluminum alloy chamber represents a lower risk. Use of low activation composite materials for several chamber components such as the final optics assemblies, the target positioner and inserter, the diagnostics manipulator tubes, and the optics beam tubes would offer an opportunity to make significant reductions in post-shot radiation dose rate with smaller, less immediate impact on the NIF design.