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NRC proposed rule for licensing reactors authorized by DOE, DOD
Nuclear reactor designs approved by the Department of Energy or Department of Defense could get streamlined pathways through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s commercial licensing process should applicants wish to push the technology into the civilian sector.
A proposed rule introduced April 2 by the NRC would “improve NRC licensing review efficiency, where applicable, by explicitly establishing by regulation an additional means for reactor applicants to demonstrate the safety functions of their reactor designs, and thus, would contribute to the safe and secure use and deployment of civilian nuclear energy technologies.”
Jeremy J. Whitlock, Naoko Inoue, Masao Senzaki, Dennis Bley, Ed Wonder
Nuclear Technology | Volume 179 | Number 1 | July 2012 | Pages 91-96
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Safeguards / Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT179-91
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) Working Group of the Generation IV International Forum conducted a high-level pathway analysis of a hypothetical sodium fast reactor and integral fuel processing facility (called collectively the Example Sodium Fast Reactor, or ESFR), as a test of the effectiveness of its analysis methodology. This paper presents the results of the analysis based on the breakout scenario. Four representative strategies were chosen for analysis: diversion of low-enriched uranium feed material, two different types of misuse of the reactor facility, and misuse of the fuel processing facility. A high-level pathways analysis was conducted for each strategy to determine relative ranking of the proliferation-time measure, specifically as it applies to the postbreakout period.