For decades, the Halden Boiling Water Reactor (HBWR) in Norway has been a key resource for assessing nuclear fuels and materials behavior to address performance issues and answer regulatory questions. Halden contributions to modern global Light Water Reactor (LWR) technologies have been expansive and crucial to an industry with decreasing financial resources and fewer available test facilities. With increasing technical, financial, and political challenges, the HBWR will shut down and decommission in the near term with the loss of significant experimental capabilities for prototypical irradiation testing. This loss represents a great challenge and opportunity for swift response by the R&D community to fill the resulting capability gaps. The primary of objective of this report is to identify the core fuels and materials experimental capabilities available at the HBWR, assess potential capability gaps specifically related to the Department of Energy (DOE) Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) program, and provide recommendations for a path forward for DOE ATF. The near-term ATF fuels and materials concepts have a goal of core batch reloads in commercial power plants of ~2025 while the timeline for more revolutionary concepts extends to ~2028+. This timeline places some urgency on making decisions on experiment pathways and execution. In general, particularly in regard to the ATF program, compensating for the loss of the Halden reactor appears to be feasible. However, not surprisingly, the development of new capabilities will require significant investments in infrastructure and human resources within the DOE laboratory complex. As a result of the preliminary assessment for the DOE ATF program, near-term recommendations to address post-HBWR testing are summarized as follows: 1) Halden possesses unique technologies and knowledge for testing, refabrication, and instrumentation of nuclear fuels and materials; a key effort going forward should be to transfer that expertise to other relevant facilities as soon as possible through collaborative partnership with DOE, including TREAT and ATR. This collaborative partnership should focus specifically on water loop technology, in-pile Loss-of-Coolant-Accident (LOCA) testing device at the Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility, fuel rod refabrication capability at INL, and in-pile instrumentation for integral fuel rods as well as materials testing. 2) Within the DOE complex, the potential to increase the capacity for steady-state fuel testing should be explored. Three primary targets for study should include increasing capacity in the existing ATF-2 loop in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), exploring the development of loops in the Ipositions within the ATR, and investigating the use of pressurized water capsules in either ATR or the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). 3) Using Lead Test Rod (LTR) and Lead Test Assembly (LTA) materials irradiated in commercial reactors for follow-on testing in hot cells and transient and steady state reactors is an important strategy to have sufficient q...
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