Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 94 Part 3.djvu/686

 94 STAT. 3330

42 USC 2039.

PUBLIC LAW 96-567—DEC. 22, 1980 (1) the term "Secretary" means the Secretary of Energy; (2) the term "Government agency" means any department, agency, commission, or independent establishment in the executive branch of the Federal Government, or any corporation, wholly or partly owned by the United States, which is an instrumentality of the United States, or any board, bureau, division, service, office, officer, authority, administration, or other establishment in the executive branch of the Federal Government; (3) the term "Commission" means the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and (4) the term "Advisory Committee" means the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards established by section 29 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended.

ESTABLISHMENT OP RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM FOR IMPROVING THE SAFETY OP NUCLEAR POWERPLANTS

42 USC 9703.

Experimental investigations.

SEC. 4. (a) The Secretary shall establish a research, development, and demonstration program to carry out the purpose of this Act. As part of such program, the Secretary shall at a minimum— (1) refine further the assessment of risk factors associated with the generic design and operation of nuclear powerplants to determine the degree and consequences of propagation of failures of systems, subsystems, and components, including consideration of the interaction between the primary and secondary systems; (2) develop potentially cost-beneficial changes in the generic design and operation of nuclear powerplants that can (A) significantly reduce the risks from unintentional release of radioactive material from the various engineered barriers of nuclear powerplants and (B) reduce the radiation exposure to workers during plant operation and maintenance; (3) develop potentially cost-beneficial generic methods and designs that will significantly improve the performance of operators of nuclear powerplants under routine, abnormal, and accident conditions; (4) identify the effect of total or partial automation of generic plant systems on reactor safety, operation, reliability, economics, and operator performance; (5) conduct further experimental investigations under abnormal operational and postulated accident conditions primarily for light water reactors to determine the consequences of such conditions. These investigations shall include, but not be limited to, the following: (A) fuel failure at higher than standard burn-up levels; (B) fuel-cladding interactions; (C) fuel and cladding interactions with coolant under various temperatures and pressures; (D) thermohydraulic behavior in the reactor core; (E) mechanisms to suppress and control the generation of hydrogen gas; (F) improved instrumentation for monitoring reactor cores; (G) engineered-barrier failure modes; and (H) fission product release and transport from failed fuel; (6) provide for the examination and analysis of any nuclear powerplant fuel, component, or system which the Secretary

�