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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.”
Y. Gu, M. Williams, R. Stubbers, G. Miley
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1342-1346
Innovative Approaches to Fusion Energy | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963135
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion confines high energy ions in potential wells, where their increased energy and density yields a high fusion rate. Studies of the IEC at the University of Illinois (UI) initially concentrated on steady-state operation where neutron yields of ~106 D-D n/s are routinely obtained. However, the development of a pulsed configuration has been undertaken to provide higher neutron yields. Preliminary experiments have demonstrated I2 scaling during pulsed operation when the perveance threshold of 2.2 mA/kV3/2 is exceeded. Based on these results, it appears that the present IEC could be operated with 3-A, 100-kV repetitive pulses with a 10% duty factor to produce neutron yields of ~1010 neutrons/second.