42 U.S.C. § 16271 — Nuclear energy

(a) Mission (1) In general. The Secretary must run programs of civilian nuclear research, development, demonstration, and commercial application, including everything else in this part of the law. (2) Considerations. These programs must keep several goals in mind: giving researchers from universities, National Laboratories, and companies the tools to make scientific discoveries in nuclear, chemical, and materials engineering; keeping up nuclear research programs and buildings at National Laboratories and universities; finding technical ways to lower the risk that nuclear material spreads to bad actors; making the public more confident that nuclear energy systems are safe; cutting nuclear energy's environmental impact; helping the National Laboratories transfer technology to private companies; and letting companies partner with National Laboratories to test new reactor designs that address the goals above. (b) Definitions Several terms are defined for this whole part of the law. "Advanced nuclear reactor" covers three things: a nuclear fission reactor — including certain prototype plants — that meaningfully improves on reactors running as of December 27, 2020, in ways like added safety features, less waste, better fuel, more tolerance for losing coolant, better reliability, more resistance to weapons proliferation, higher efficiency, less water use, ability to work with both electric and non-electric uses, modular sizing, and flexibility to match demand; a fusion reactor; and a radioisotope power system that turns heat from radioactive decay into energy. "Commission" means the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "Fast neutron" means a neutron with kinetic energy above 100 kiloelectron volts. "National Laboratory" generally has the meaning used elsewhere in the law, but for Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia National Laboratories, it covers only their civilian work, not military work. "Neutron flux" means how intense neutron radiation is, measured as neutrons flowing through an area over time. "Neutron source" means a research machine that irradiates materials with neutrons, used for materials and nuclear physics research and for testing reactor materials, fuels, and parts.