The Scientific Justification for a U.S. Domestic High-Performance Reactor-Based Research Facility

Technical Report · Wed Oct 28 04:00:00 EDT 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1647598· OSTI ID:1647598

Birgeneau, Robert ^[1]; Clark, Sue ^[2]; Dai, Pengcheng ^[3]; Epps, Thomas ^[4]; Heeger, Karsten ^[5]; Hoogerheide, David ^[6]; Kastner, Marc ^[7]; Keimer, Bernhard ^[8]; Louca, Despina ^[9]; Lyons, Pete ^[10]; MacDonald, Allan ^[11]; O’Kelly, Sean ^[12]; Olsen, Brad ^[7]; Phillips, Julia ^[13]; Robertson, David ^[14]; Rollett, Anthony ^[15]; Ross, Kate ^[16]; Rowe, Mike ^[6]; Stevens, John ^[17]; Wirth, Brian ^[18]

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1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
3. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
4. Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States)
5. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
6. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
7. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
8. Max Planck Institute, Stuttgart (Germany)
9. Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States)
10. Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee, Washington, DC (United States)
11. Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
12. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
13. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
14. Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, MO (United States)
15. Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
16. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)
17. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
18. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)

The Basic Energy Science Advisory Committee (BESAC) was charged with forming a subcommittee to assess the scientific justification for a U.S. domestic high-performance reactor-based research facility in order to continue providing the U.S scientific community with leading neutron capabilities in support of DOE's missions in science, energy, environment, and national security. The assessment included consideration of current international plans and existing domestic facility infrastructure. The subcommittee held a series of meetings from August 19, 2019 to April 24, 2020 that included DOE senior officials, leaders of national and international neutron facilities (SNS, HFIR, NIST, ILL, FRM-II), chairs of the NAS and POPA HEU-LEU committees, and outside experts on important areas of science, technology, and industry where high flux nuclear reactor facilities make important contributions. Also included were tours of neutron facilities (SNS, HFIR, NIST, BR2 reactor, and the planned Jules Horowitz Reactor). This July 2020 (revised 10-28-2020) report describes scientific use cases, brief summaries of existing and planned neutron facilities in the US and Europe, a comprehensive review of HFIR, a comprehensive discussion of the current state of progress on HEU-LEU conversion, user information from NIST and ORNL, and three recommendations to DOE for moving forward.

• Research Organization: US Department of Energy (USDOE), Washington DC (United States). Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• OSTI ID: 1647598
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEAR CHEMISTRY
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION