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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.”
R. McEachern, C. Alford
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 35 | Number 2 | March 1999 | Pages 115-118
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A11963912
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We are studying the feasibility of using boron doping to refine the grain structure of sputter-deposited Be for NIF ignition capsule ablators. The goal is to improve the surface finish and homogeneity of these coatings. Films deposited on flat silicon substrates display a pronounced change in structure at a concentration of ∼11 at.% B. At lower levels of B, grain sizes of about 200 nm are observed. AFM images show the roughness of these films to be about 20 nm rms. At higher levels of B, the grains size drops to below 50 nm and the roughness decreases to less than 2.5 nm rms. Films deposited on capsules do not show the same behavior. In particular, at 15 at.% B, the capsule coatings have nodular structure with an rms roughness of greater than 50 nm. When viewed in cross section, however, no structure is seen with either the flat films or the capsule coatings. We believe that differences in substrate temperature may be largely responsible for the observed behavior.