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Senate bill looks to clarify DOE authority over advanced reactors
Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (ENR), has introduced a bill that would grant the Department of Energy greater authority over new nuclear projects under the federal agency’s oversight.
Megan Harkema, Steven Krahn, Paul Marotta, Adam Burak, Xiaodong Sun, Piyush Sabharwall
Nuclear Technology | Volume 212 | Number 2 | February 2026 | Pages 294-313
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2025.2480982
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Molten salt reactors (MSRs) offer potential operability and safety advantages when compared to commercial light water reactors (LWRs). However, operating experience with MSRs is sparse in comparison to what exists for LWRs. Further, the chemical and isotopic composition of the fuel and/or coolant salt is dynamic and difficult to characterize continuously, posing potential safety, operability, and safeguards unknowns that need to be addressed. A molten salt sampling system (MSSS) is regarded as a necessary subsystem within first-generation MSRs used to obtain samples of salt for chemical and isotopic analysis in support of the need to monitor and control salt composition during operation. The MSSS is being developed using the Safety-in-Design (SiD) methodology, which incorporates incremental integration of safety analysis into the design process. The MSSS conceptual design emerging from the application of the early stages of the SiD methodology consists of a sample collection system and its housing, a freeze port, and inert gas control and delivery systems. This article describes the prototypes developed to test the functions of these MSSS subsystems, presents the results of testing in both dry and molten salt environments (including reliability data collection performed in accordance with the principles of SiD and the development of a semiquantitative fault tree model), and summarizes the opportunities for future design and testing enhancements based on the results of prototype testing.