Next Generation Nuclear Plant System Requirements Manual

System Requirements Manual for the NGNP Project. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (H.R. 6; EPAct), which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in August 2005, required the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a project to be known as the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Project. According to the EPAct, the NGNP Project shall consist of the research, development, design, construction, and operation of a prototype plant (to be referred to herein as the NGNP) that (1) includes a nuclear reactor based on the research and development (R and D) activities supported by the Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems initiative, and (2) shall be used to generate electricity, to produce hydrogen, or to both generate electricity and produce hydrogen. The NGNP Project supports both the national need to develop safe, clean, economical nuclear energy and the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative (NHI), which has the goal of establishing greenhouse-gas-free technologies for the production of hydrogen. The DOE has selected the helium-cooled High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) as the reactor concept to be used for the NGNP because it is the only near-term Generation IV concept that has the capability to provide process heat at high-enough temperatures for highly efficient production of hydrogen. The EPAct also names the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the DOE's lead national laboratory for nuclear energy research, as the site for the prototype NGNP.