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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.”
D. A. Petti, B. J. Merrill, R.L. Moore, G. R. Longhurst, L. El-Guebaly, E. Mogahed, D. Henderson, P. Wilson, A. Abdou
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 2 | March 2001 | Pages 449-457
Advanced Designs | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963277
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
ARIES-AT is a 1000 MWe conceptual fusion power plant design with a very low projected cost of electricity. The design contains many innovative features to improve both the physics and engineering performance of the system. From the safety and environmental perspective, there is greater depth to the overall analysis than in past ARIES studies. For ARIES-AT, the overall spectrum of off-normal events to be examined has been broadened. They include conventional loss of coolant and loss of flow events, an ex-vessel loss of coolant, and in-vessel off-normal events that mobilize in-vessel inventories (e.g. tritium and tokamak dust) and bypass primary confinement such as a Loss of Vacuum and an in-vessel loss of coolant with bypass. This broader examination of accidents improves the robustness of the design from the safety perspective and gives additional confidence that the facility can meet the no-evacuation requirement. We also provide a systematic assessment of the design to address key safety functions such as confinement, decay heat removal, and chemical energy control. In the area of waste management, waste is classified by both the volume of the component and its hazard. In comparison to previous ARIES designs, the overall waste volume is less because of the compact design.