Classifying Free Texts Into Predefined Sections Using AI in Regulatory Documents: A Case Study with Drug Labeling Documents
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96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
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Basis for Dose and Reactor Safety Design Criteria for Army Regulation AR 50–7 and DA Pamphlet
This report describes the basis used to develop the radiological dose acceptance and design criteria contained in the draft updates to Army Regulation 50–7 (AR 50–7) Army Reactor Program and its accompanying draft Department of the Army (DA) Pamphlet (PAM), Army Reactor Program Procedures. These criteria will apply to Army nuclear reactors that fall under AR 50–7 and its accompanying DA PAM and ensure alignment with the overall objectives of the Army Reactor Program. The development basis for the radiological dose and design criteria supports a modern, technology-neutral, risk-informed, and performance-based approach to Army regulation of reactors and the demonstration of “adequate protection of the public.” To establish these criteria that support the Army’s unique operational requirements, multiple well-known and well-established standards and their supporting documentation were reviewed to ensure consistency with existing regulatory safety levels, including guidance from U.S. and international sources. These include the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) regulations and policy, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s (CNSC’s) regulatory documents, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) safety standards, as well as industry input that is tailored specifically to advanced microreactors. This report walks through the key definitions and associated references used for these criteria, which are outlined in Section 2.0. Based on these definitions, the dose acceptance criteria were established for various receptors for routine reactor operations (Section 3.2), design basis accidents (Section 3.3), and beyond design basis accidents (Section 3.4). Comparisons of multiple national and international dose limits are provided in these sections. Lastly, Section 4.0 outlines the reactor safety design criteria contained in the draft DA PAM and their associated bases.
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
Radsource Mr: Mixed Reality Planning Tool For Radioactive Recovery
The RadSource MR system leverages Meta Quest 3's advanced mixed reality capabilities to create a comprehensive spatial planning platform for end-of-life sealed radioactive source recovery operations. The application utilizes the Quest 3's high-resolution passthrough cameras and spatial mapping algorithms to generate accurate 3D environmental models. Core technical components include: (1) Real-time spatial measurement algorithms calculating distances, angles, slopes, and surface areas with sub-centimeter accuracy; (2) Virtual object placement system allowing users to position digital representations of recovery equipment (trailers, containment vessels, protective barriers) within the real environment; (3) Voice recording and annotation system for hands-free documentation in protective equipment; (4) 3D mesh capture and storage capabilities for post-operation analysis and regulatory documentation. (5) Procedure documentation is available for viewing in Mixed Reality, providing an innovative and convenient way to access the information during pre-visit and inspection activities. (6) Support for screen capture for the view for real world and virtual objects together to use it later for planning. The system integrates computer vision techniques for environmental understanding, spatial mathematics for precise measurements, and human-computer interaction principles optimized for hazardous environment operations. Data persistence allows teams to save and share planning sessions across multiple stakeholders while maintaining operational security requirements.
Khadka, Rajiv [Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Id↗
TCR Postulated Accident and MHA Dose Assessment
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is engaged in regulatory activities to gain US Department of Energy (DOE) approval to build and operate a small high-temperature gas reactor, the Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR). ORNL uses advanced manufacturing techniques to produce select reactor components. The TCR is unique in its mission: the reactor’s at-power operating lifetime will be less than one effective full-power day to limit the radiological source term to very low values, thus facilitating approval to operate. The primary regulatory documents governing construction and operation of the facility are NUREG-1537, “Guidelines for Preparing and Reviewing Applications for the Licensing of Non-Power Reactors” and DOE-STD-3009, “Preparation of Nonreactor Nuclear Facility Documented Safety Analysis.” Although this document is not a safety basis document, it provides a conservative indication of the magnitude of onsite and offsite radiological doses for specific scenarios, thus informing future design and regulatory activities. As required by NUREG-1537, scenarios included in this analysis are (1) a worstcase depressurized loss-of-forced-circulation accident, and (2) a maximum hypothetical accident. Details on the analysis of dose consequences with various system configurations are also provided.
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
Simulation-Based Recovery Action Analysis Using the EMRALD Dynamic Risk Assessment Tool
A recovery action is defined as the action that prevents deviant conditions from producing unwanted effects. It generally indicates a kind of countermeasure performed in response to a failure of human action. The recovery actions especially play an important role in complex systems like nuclear power plants (NPPs), which consist of highly sophisticated controllers to ensure that desired performance and safety must be achieved and maintained. This is because a combination of human error and its recovery failure may be able to cause a catastrophic effect on a system. Analyzing recovery actions has been a critical part of HRA, which is a technique to evaluate human errors and provide human error probabilities (HEPs) for application in probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). If recovery actions are not adequately analyzed and applied to PSA models, the PSA results may be under-estimated or be not able to reasonably account for the failure of human actions in the context of PSA. For this reason, some regulatory documents such as ASME/ANS RA-Sb-2013 by the American Society for Mechanical Engineers and the American Nuclear Society and NUREG-1792 by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have emphasized the importance of recovery analysis within the HRA. A couple of existing HRA methods, such as the Technique for Human Error-Rate Prediction (THERP), the Cause-Based Decision Tree (CBDT), and the Korean Standard HRA (K-HRA), have respectively suggested their own approaches to the HRA recovery analysis. However, there are a couple of limitations to treating recovery actions using only the current HRA methods available. The biggest limitation is that the existing recovery analysis does not explicitly consider a variety of recovery action types and recovery sequences as they occur in actual NPPs. To handle the limitations of existing recovery analysis, this study proposes a simulation-based recovery analysis method using the Event Modeling Risk Assessment Using Linked Diagram (EMRALD) software. The EMRALD software is a dynamic simulation tool for PSA. It supports realistic and dynamic modeling of human actions as they would be performed at NPPs. It is also favorable to simultaneously model the specific moment at which an action is performed, the time it takes to perform the action, and the failure probability of that action. In this paper, a detailed methodology for modeling recovery actions in the simulation platform is proposed with a couple of examples. Then, outputs from the simulation are discussed as reviewing if this novel approach can complement the challenges of existing recovery analyses.
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
KRUSTY Experiment: Reactivity Insertion Accident Analysis
The centerpiece of the Kilopower Project, i.e., the Kilowatt Reactor Using Stirling TechnologY (KRUSTY) test, consists of the development and testing of a ground technology demonstration of a small fission power system based on a 1-kW(electric) space science power requirement. The KRUSTY test was authorized by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office. Authorization was obtained by adding an amendment to the existing regulatory documents for the National Criticality Experiments Research Center to cover the KRUSTY experiment. This amendment was reviewed and approved by the DOE. The most important safety question for the experiment was the addition of over 2 $ of excess reactivity to the reactor system. This amount of excess reactivity meant that the analyst could postulate accidents where the reactor went prompt critical, leading to physical shock or melting of the fuel. This paper analyzes these accidents using computer calculations and examines the controls used to mitigate them. The estimation of the impacts both on accident progression and consequences of reactivity insertion events was a significant part of obtaining approval for the KRUSTY experiment. The regulatory approval of KRUSTY was one of the first to be obtained for a completely new reactor concept in many decades.
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
YEASTRACT+: a portal for the exploitation of global transcription regulation and metabolic model data in yeast biotechnology and pathogenesis
Abstract YEASTRACT+ (http://yeastract-plus.org/) is a tool for the analysis, prediction and modelling of transcription regulatory data at the gene and genomic levels in yeasts. It incorporates three integrated databases: YEASTRACT (http://yeastract-plus.org/yeastract/), PathoYeastract (http://yeastract-plus.org/pathoyeastract/) and NCYeastract (http://yeastract-plus.org/ncyeastract/), focused on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, pathogenic yeasts of the Candida genus, and non-conventional yeasts of biotechnological relevance. In this release, YEASTRACT+ offers upgraded information on transcription regulation for the ten previously incorporated yeast species, while extending the database to another pathogenic yeast, Candida auris. Since the last release of YEASTRACT+ (January 2020), a fourth database has been integrated. CommunityYeastract (http://yeastract-plus.org/community/) offers a platform for the creation, use, and future update of YEASTRACT-like databases for any yeast of the users’ choice. CommunityYeastract currently provides information for two Saccharomyces boulardii strains, Rhodotorula toruloides NP11 oleaginous yeast, and Schizosaccharomyces pombe 972h-. In addition, YEASTRACT+ portal currently gathers 304 547 documented regulatory associations between transcription factors (TF) and target genes and 480 DNA binding sites, considering 2771 TFs from 11 yeast species. A new set of tools, currently implemented for S. cerevisiae and C. albicans, is further offered, combining regulatory information with genome-scale metabolic models to provide predictions on the most promising transcription factors to be exploited in cell factory optimisation or to be used as novel drug targets. The expansion of these new tools to the remaining YEASTRACT+ species is ongoing.
Teixeira, Miguel Cacho (ORCID:0000000256766174)↗
Clinical pharmacology information in regulatory submissions and labeling: A comparative analysis of orphan and non-orphan drugs approved by the FDA
Clinical pharmacology is an integral discipline supporting the development, regulatory evaluation, and clinical use of drugs for the treatment of both common and rare diseases. Here, we evaluated the recommendations and information available from select clinical pharmacology studies in the therapeutic product labeling of new molecular entities (NMEs) approved from 2017 to 2019 for both common and rare diseases. A total of 151 NMEs, including 72 orphan and 79 non-orphan drugs, were analyzed for recommendations and information available related to food–drug interaction, drug–drug interaction, renal impairment, hepatic impairment, QT assessment, and human radiolabeled mass balance studies using data collected from the original labeling and other regulatory documents. The analysis showed no statistically significant difference in the recommendations between orphan and non-orphan drugs except for renal impairment related recommendations in section 8 of the labeling. Although not significant, fewer hepatic impairment labeling recommendations were available for orphan drugs when compared with non-orphan drugs. At the time of initial approval, 79 postmarketing requirements (PMRs) and postmarketing commitments (PMCs) for 33 orphan drugs and 39 PMRs and PMCs for 19 non-orphan drugs were established; with most difference observed for drug–drug interaction, hepatic impairment, and QT assessment. Overall, although there was a trend for more labeling recommendations and fewer postmarketing studies and clinical trials for non-orphan drugs, there appeared to be no substantial differences in how these select clinical pharmacology studies are leveraged during the development and approval of orphan and non-orphan drugs.
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
All-Source Competitive Solicitations: State and Electric Utility Practices
This report provides an overview of principles, practices, and emerging issues in all-source competitive solicitations. It reviews the history of electric utility all-source solicitations and recent results; provides an overview of goals, design tradeoffs, and stages; and examines solicitation design and implementation options and issues, including methodological issues around bid evaluation. The report draws on a review of regulatory documents, resource plans, solicitation materials, independent evaluator reports, and scholarly literature. While the report focuses on solicitations by investor-owned utilities for bulk power system needs, it also briefly discusses solicitations for non-wires alternatives for distribution system needs, as well as nascent practices for integrating both types of procurements.
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
The Challenges of Using Real-Time Detection Systems: From Data Gathering to Actionable Information [Slides]
This session will discuss challenges and real life examples associated with Real-Time Detection Systems (RTDS) used in exposure assessment strategies. This first presentation will provide an overview of RTDS as used as part of an overall exposure assessment strategy and to document regulatory compliance. Managing OH consequences has been problematic when it comes to actionable information gleaned from sensor data. The judgement of regulatory entities, can be at odds with IH practitioners implementing an exposure strategy that creates exposure profiles and judges workplace exposures.
61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
Oxidation Behavior and Property Degradation of Nuclear Graphites
During its multidecade operation in the core of nuclear reactors, graphite components are subjected to aggressive and continuous exposure to a high field of ionizing and neutron irradiation, high temperature, and various types of present and postulated chemical attacks. High density, high crystallinity polygranular synthetic graphite is unique among other materials for its extraordinary capacity of resisting and adapting to the aggression inflicted by high temperature, high energy neutron bombardment and ionizing gamma radiation. But, as a carbonaceous material, even though of very high purity, graphite is reactive towards common oxidizing agents: oxygen, carbon dioxide, water. Safe operation of HTGRs relies, among other aspects, on engineered safeguard systems for efficient and continuous protection of graphite components against oxidation. Graphite oxidation behavior was, and continues to be, an important direction of theoretical and experimental research, engineering analyses, models and simulations, and design and safety regulations. The avalanche of publications, reports, experimental data, computer codes, and regulatory documents related to oxidation behavior of nuclear graphite is now accelerating to new levels, prompted by the increased interest for nuclear energy as a clean, carbon-free energy source. Even though public’s perception of nuclear energy advantages may still be influenced by the memories of past accidents of nuclear reactors from generations II and III, the community of informed scientists and engineers, regulators and statemen knows that generation IV of nuclear reactors is designed at very high safety standards, doubled by great advances of scientific knowledge and technological progress. One of routes of these recent advances is directed at better understanding of graphite oxidation behavior, its relationship with graphite manufacturing and microstructural properties, along with the effects of various environmental factors and process variables. Together, the recent progress in manufacturing, properties characterization, and modeling of intricated physical and chemical processes that concur to the oxidation behavior led to development of powerful simulation codes able to analyze various scenarios of normal operation and hypothetical off-normal events, and thus to clearly specify the allowable parameters envelopes for the designers, constructors, and operators of current and future modular HTGRs. This review begins with an introduction on manufacturing methods, structure, and properties of nuclear graphite, including basic requirements that this specialty graphite type must satisfy for nuclear use. It continues with a chapter on environmental effects on nuclear graphite, where emphasis is placed less on irradiation and much more on oxidation phenomena, their safety implications, and the basic traits of chronic and acute oxidation by air (oxygen) and water (humidity, steam). Particular attention is placed on the three graphite grades of interest for this document (IG-110, NBG-18, PCEA). A chapter on properties degradation induced by oxidation follows, with focus on density, dimensional, and mechanical properties changes. The next chapter is intended as a brief review of various approaches used for modeling of graphite oxidation behavior. It summarizes the progress of oxidation models, from the early attempts to complex computational approaches interfaced with specialized computer codes designed for nuclear reactor simulations. Last, a list is presented of knowledge gaps where more research is needed. A short summary concludes the review.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
Natural Language Processing for Text Based Event Extraction: Identifying Events of Interest Related to Worldwide State-Sponsored Civil Nuclear Power
Beginning in FY20, SRNL was funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation Research and Development to develop a prototype natural language processing/natural language understating machine learning-based modeling and analysis pipeline to extract and forecast events of interest from massive open data sources. The working hypothesis within the approach is that contextual shifts in key words and phrases act as indicators of events of interest over time. Therefore, by identifying points in time where contextual shifts occur, events of interest can be extracted along with explicit and implicit connections of entities and activities. The development of the preliminary prototype pipeline proved successful, meriting further testing of the pipeline on more broad topical domains and in a worldwide data environment. Therefore, SRNL, in collaboration with the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics at Virginia Tech, have continued development with a test case of identifying events of interest related to worldwide state-sponsored civil nuclear power in open data sources. In the first year of this follow-on effort, the team has curated domain-specific data corpuses using an automated scheme and applied the modeling and analysis pipeline. This robust, focused, and efficient approach consists of an ensemble of analyses applied to time dependent word embedding models that are trained on the data corpuses. In this report, the team has demonstrated the capability of the existing pipeline (as development has continued in parallel) by exploring several specific case-studies centered around Rosatom’s international activities regarding the planning, construction, operation, and/or shutdown of nuclear reactors. A basic timeline events has been generated by manually cataloging known “milestone” events that have occurred at reactors in Turkey, Finland, Hungary, and Egypt and compared with the output of the modeling pipeline. In this approach, the team has characterized the lead time using the prototype pipeline, as well as the ability to capture relevant information, which proved 100% successful. A deep dive example of the Akkuyu reactor (Turkey) is presented that shows the breadth of information that can be captured using the approach. In this case study, events were extracted pertaining to the planning/construction of Akkuyu including protests from the population, information campaigns in response to the protests, forged regulatory documents and lawsuits, budgetary/shareholder information, geopolitical tensions, and the various construction milestones. This has demonstrated the pipeline’s utility as a research aid or real-time event extraction tool, where summary-level information and detailed text extractions from millions of articles or Tweets across long time periods can be generated with significantly less effort than current techniques.
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
Cultural Resource Management Plan for Brookhaven National Laboratory
The Cultural Resource Management Plan (CRMP) for Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) provides an organized guide that describes or references the facets and interrelationships of cultural resources at BNL. Management strategies included within this CRMP are designed to adequately identify the cultural resources that BNL and DOE consider significant and to acknowledge associated management actions. A principal objective of the CRMP is to reduce the need for additional regulatory documents and to serve as the basis for a formal agreement between the DOE and the New York State Historic Preservation Officer (NYSHPO). The BNL CRMP is designed to be a “living document.” Each section includes identified gaps in the management plan, with proposed goals and actions for addressing each gap. The plan will be periodically revised to incorporate new documentation. The current (2023) update incorporates new findings and/or updated text based on completed or ongoing projects related to cultural resources at BNL since inception of the last updated CRMP in 2013. Historically, Brookhaven National Laboratory had little need for cultural resource management because many of its buildings were less than 50 years old. Most of the features that are potentially eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places were protected simply by avoiding the features. Compliance with cultural resource laws and regulations has included archeological surveys, such as those associated with the 1977 Final Environmental Impact Statement for Brookhaven National Laboratory and the 1978 Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Proton-Proton Storage Accelerator Facility (ISABELLE). In 1979, World War I trenches associated with the former Camp Upton and located near ISABELLE were determined to be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places; however, many of these trenches had been destroyed by construction work. In 1991, the NYSHPO provided BNL with a letter indicating that only three structures and features were likely to be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. Between 1991 and 1999, little work associated with cultural resource management was accomplished. Beginning in 1999, awareness for the need of a program to manage cultural resources grew out of the realization that over half of the buildings at BNL were either 50 years old or were reaching that age and were, therefore, subject to the requirements in Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. This fact, concomitant with the decontamination and decommissioning of the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR) and the subsequent determination of BGRR’s eligibility for listing as an historical site, fueled the need for developing and implementing a more structured program for managing cultural resources at BNL.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Degradation and Failure Phenomena of Accident Tolerant Fuel Concepts: FeCrAl Alloy Cladding
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is anticipating licensing applications and commercial use of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) in United States commercial nuclear power reactors. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is providing technical assistance to the NRC related to the newly proposed nuclear fuel and cladding designs. This report focuses specifically on the iron-chromium-aluminum (FeCrAl) alloys being investigated to replace zirconium-based alloys for fuel cladding and provides current state-of-the-industry information on material properties and fuel performance considerations under reactor operating conditions and design basis accident conditions. Currently, Global Nuclear Fuels (GNF) is the only U.S.-based fuel vendor considering FeCrAl cladding as a near-term ATF design. GNF has tested several different FeCrAl alloys including Kanthal APMT, C26M, and MA956; fueled C26M rods and unfueled Kanthal APMT, C26M, and MA956 rods have been inserted in lead test assemblies at Plants Hatch and Clinton. This report will focus on those three alloys specifically, with broader information given regarding in-reactor and ex-reactor testing of FeCrAl alloys. To support the NRC’s readiness efforts, this report will identify and discuss degradation and failure modes of FeCrAl cladding concepts, including fuel performance characteristics that may not be addressed within existing regulatory documents.
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
PFAS Removal by Ion Exchange Resins: Background and Knowledge Gaps with Respect to the Hanford Site
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been a rising concern for the past two decades, with the United States Department of Defense and Environmental Protection Agency investing millions of dollars in research into remediation and clean-up technologies. Due to the environmental persistence, toxicity, biological uptake, and ongoing changes in both federal and state regulatory space, understanding the fate and transport of PFAS compounds has been of growing concern to the US Department of Energy (DOE). The DOE’s Hanford Site is investigating historical use of PFAS and will be doing site characterization for PFAS. Thus, PFAS have not yet been identified as a contaminant concern in regulatory documents. Based on historical records that mention the discharge of aqueous film-forming foam containing PFAS and having on-site fire stations (a risk factor for PFAS contamination), it seems likely that environmental releases of PFAS may have occurred. Pump and treat (P&T) remediation is the selected remedy for multiple groundwater contaminant plumes at Hanford. These P&T systems use ion exchange (IX) as a component of aboveground treatment, with the specific resins depending on the target contaminants. There is potential that these IX resins may be able to remove PFAS from groundwater, but investigation is needed to understand affinity/selectivity and removal capacity given the groundwater composition and the operating conditions. This report provides background on PFAS uses and chemistry, then provides a review of IX resin applications for PFAS, identifying knowledge gaps. Recommendations are provided regarding research needed to address knowledge gaps and acquire information needed to propose IX as a future PFAS remediation technology at the Hanford Site, as well as other U.S. Department of Energy sites. Generally, PFAS compounds are fluorinated substances that contain at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon – with a few noted exceptions, any chemical with at least a perfluorinated methyl group (–CF3) or a perfluorinated methylene group (–CF2–) is a PFAS. These chemical compounds are characterized as non-biodegradable, non-reactive, non-photolytic, and hydrolysis resistant. This makes them highly recalcitrant within the environment, however polyfluoroalkyl materials are less recalcitrant as the carbon chains contain C–H bonds which are more easily broken than carbon – fluorine (C–F) bonds. The backbone carbon structures are commonly punctuated with a head group, the most well-known of them are perfluorooctanesulfonic acid and perfluorooctanoic acid, which possess a sulfonate and a carboxylate group, respectively. IX resins are marketed for the removal of PFAS from water systems and industrial water, however, the mechanism of removal is not as well understood as for anion or cation removal. A better understanding of the mechanism of removal would enable the development of IX resins that have improved specificity for PFAS removal. Four knowledge gaps were identified: 1) the effect of dissolved ions on the IX resin PFAS removal effectiveness, 2) the effect of additional primary contaminants of concern (PCOCs) or secondary contaminants of concern (SCOCs) on the effectiveness of PFAS via IX resin, 3) the mechanisms of PFAS removal from water, and 4) practical solutions to IX resin regeneration and waste disposal.
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
Degradation and Failure Phenomena of Advanced Reactor Fuel Concepts: Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Metallic Fuel
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is anticipating licensing applications and commercial use of new fuel types in advanced nuclear power reactors that would be designed and built in the United States. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is providing technical assistance to the NRC related to the newly proposed nuclear fuel and cladding designs that would be deployed in these reactors. This report focuses specifically on the metallic fuel that is being considered for sodium-cooled fast reactors and specifically on mechanisms that would cause damage or failure to the fuel under reactor operating conditions and design basis accident conditions. There is historic experience with both metallic and oxide fuels in experimental sodium-cooled fast reactors, but this report will focus solely on metallic fuel. Currently two U.S.-based reactor designers are engaged with the NRC in the application or pre-application review and considering a sodium-cooled fast reactor. TerraPower is engaged with NRC in pre-application review of its Natrium reactor. The current design for this fuel uses a sodium-bonded uranium-10wt% zirconium (U10Zr) fuel clad in HT9 stainless steel. ARC Clean Technology is engaged with NRC in pre-application review of its ARC-100 reactor. The current design for this fuel uses a sodium-bonded uranium-10wt% zirconium (U10Zr) fuel with steel cladding. This report will focus on this fuel system specifically, with broader information given regarding other metallic fuel systems with other stainless steel alloy claddings. To support the NRC’s readiness efforts, this report will identify and discuss degradation and failure modes of metallic fuel concepts for sodium-cooled fast reactors, including fuel performance characteristics that may not be addressed within existing regulatory documents.
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
Hydropower Fish Passage Webmap
The National Fish Passage Webmap application provides an environment that allows users to visualize information information on fish passage facility existence, type, and direction at hydropower developments across the conterminous United States. It was developed through collaborative partnerships with fish passage engineers and biologists at both the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and hydropower experts at the Low Impact Hydropower Institute (LIHI). Data on fish passage facilities at hydropower features were compiled from numerous sources including published and non-published datasets, published reports, email communications with federal and state resource managers and hydropower operators, and by extracting information from regulatory documents within the FERC eLibrary. The number of sources for a given feature varied, which occasionally resulted in conflicting information regarding the existence of fish passage facilities or in the type or sub-type of passage technologies. Such discrepancies were reviewed and resolved individually, based on the weight of evidence or, when available, on direct observations from information providers or aerial imagery.
13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
Part IV: Remedial Action
This part of the book focuses on the remedial action where the remedy is selected and approved with associated regulatory documentation, detailed designs are prepared, and construction and/or implementation of the remedy is completed. The application may include remediation of environmental media (e.g., subsurface sediments or surface water sources), waste processing, and/or deactivation and decommissioning of historical facilities. Once a preferred remedy is implemented, the final steps include long-term stewardship and site closure (discussed in Part V). Refer to Section 3.2 of Chapter 1, Remediation Strategy for Complex Waste Sites, for context on how these steps fit into the broader remediation process.
Johnson, Christian D.↗