§9703 Research, development, and demonstration program; establishment; purposes; implementation

Summary

The Secretary must create a research, development, and demonstration program to improve the safety of nuclear power plants. The program must study and better measure risks in generic plant designs and how failures can spread, including how primary and secondary systems interact. It must find cost‑effective design and operating changes that cut the chances of accidental radioactive releases and lower worker radiation exposure. The program must also develop ways to boost operator performance, study how more automation would affect safety and costs, and run experiments mainly on light water reactors to look at things like high burn‑up fuel, fuel and cladding interactions with coolant, core thermohydraulics, hydrogen control, better core monitoring, barrier failure modes, and fission product release. The Secretary may examine fuel or parts offered for a nominal cost (for example, $1) but only as many samples as needed. The program must also identify the skills, training, and staffing needed for reliable operator performance. The Secretary must coordinate with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and can make or update agreements to avoid duplicate work. The Secretary should also work with other federal agencies, foreign governments, and industry, and may make agreements that do not delay the program. The program should use underused federally owned research reactors and staff when feasible, and recommend ways to simplify plant systems and operations.