Categorical Exclusion Determination
Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance
February 13, 2017
Estimated Read Time min
The purpose of this EC is to add scope to activities originally detailed in INL-08-082 (OA 7) as Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) Technology Development. The program name has been changed to Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART) tristructural isotropic (TRISO) Fuels as a result of a reorganization at DOE-NE HQ. The previous EC covered installation of a high temperature furnace system in the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF) at Window 6M of the main cell to support qualification of Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) fuel for a High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) at the Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The furnace was designed to subject irradiated fuel specimens to thermal conditions that could be encountered during postulated reactor accident conditions (typically 1,600 to 2,000°C). The furnace system includes an INLdesigned fission gas monitoring system capable of measuring volatile fission gases released during the fuel heating tests. The original EC also covered furnace accident testing of the Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR)-1 experiment and briefly discussed processing of 8 test trains through HFEF. This EC is needed to capture extended project scope.