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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.”
P. E. Moroz, D. B. Batchelor, B. A. Carreras, S. P. Hirshman, D. K. Lee, V. E. Lynch, D. A. Spong, J. S. Tolliver, A. S. Ware, J. C. Whitson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1347-1354
Innovative Approaches to Fusion Energy | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963136
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Novel concepts of an ultra-low-aspect-ratio stellarator system, called a Spherical Stellarator (SS), or a stellarator-tokamak hybrid system, called SMARTH (Small Aspect Ratio Toroidal Hybrid) are discussed for high-β regimes of operation. Self-consistent analysis of the three-dimensional MHD equilibria with inductively driven plasma current or bootstrap current is presented. It is stressed that the bootstrap current in SS can be large and is flowing in such a direction that the rotational transform produced enhances the vacuum rotational transform. This feature increases the equilibrium β-limit. The high-β equilibria in SS and SMARTH (β(0) > 30%, β ⋍ 8-9%) are demonstrated, correspondingly, with the bootstrap current and the ohmic current. Possible experiments and scalings, including those for reactor parameters, are outlined.