ML18117A463

M180424: Transcript - Briefing on Advanced Reactors

ML18117A463
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Issue date:	04/24/2018
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UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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BRIEFING ON ADVANCED REACTORS (PUBLIC MEETING)

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TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2018

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ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND

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The Commission met in the Commissioners' Hearing Room at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, at 9:00 a.m., Kristine L. Svinicki, Chairman, presiding.

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

KRISTINE L. SVINICKI, Chairman JEFF BARAN, Commissioner STEPHEN G. BURNS, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:

ANNETTE VIETTI-COOK, Secretary of the Commission MARGARET DOANE, General Counsel

2 NRC STAFF:

VICTOR McCREE, Executive Director for Operations STEPHEN BAJOREK, Office of Nuclear Reactor Research FRED BROWN, Office of New Reactors MICHAEL LAYTON, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards JOHN MONNINGER, Office of New Reactors BRIAN SMITH, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards ALSO PRESENT:

RITA BARANWAL, Idaho National Laboratory JACOB DeWITTE, Oklo, Inc.

JOHN HERCZEG, US Department of Energy NICK IRVIN, Southern Company Services EDWIN LYMAN, Union of Concerned Scientists FARSHID SHAHROKHI, Framatome, Inc.

3 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 9:04 a.m.

3 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Good morning, everyone. The 4 Commission convenes this morning in this Public Meeting to hear an update 5 regarding what is a very dynamic field of activity right now, at least in my 6 assessment.

7 And that is the development of the broad panoply of what 8 are termed advanced reactors, so our new reactor technologies.

9 And of course, the NRC's interest is in understanding this 10 dynamism and what is happening in the larger world, but also then 11 comparing and contrasting the necessary regulatory readiness and 12 preparedness activities that we would need to undertake upon a receipt of 13 one of these new designs for review.

14 And I think from my assessment, this has some parallels 15 with a meeting that the Commission conducted earlier this month on the 16 development of both accident tolerant fuels and just broadly the qualification 17 of new fuels.

18 So, I think we're continuing a focus this months on 19 regulatory preparedness for technology, innovation, and development. But 20 we will have two panels this morning, first of which is a number of external 21 participants. Thank you all for being here.

22 We will follow that with a brief break and then we will hear 23 from NRC Staff Managers and Experts in this subject matter. Before we 24 begin, do either of my colleagues have any opening comments?

25 Hearing none, we will now begin with, as I've said, a panel 26 of non-NRC experts that we have invited to be here today.

4 1 We will begin with Dr. John Herczeg, who is Deputy 2 Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Technology, Research, and Development at 3 the Department of Energy. John, thank you for being here.

4 Following him will be Dr. Rita Baranwal -- have I 5 pronounced that correctly? Thank you -- from the Idaho national laboratory, 6 who is the Director of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, 7 which is a large Department of Energy initiative.

8 Following that, we will have Dr. Farshid Shahroki -- is that 9 correct? Thank you -- from Framatome Inc., who is here in his capacity of 10 the Chair of Nuclear Energy Institute High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor 11 Technology Working Group.

12 Following that, we will hear from Dr. Dewitte of Oklo Inc.

13 Again, he's here in his capacity as Chair of the NEI Fast Reactor Working 14 Group, and following that, we will hear from Mr. Nick Irvin, from Southern 15 Company Services, who will present in his capacity, as the NEI Molten Salt 16 Reactor Technology Working Group representative.

17 And following that, we will hear from Dr. Ed Lyman who is 18 here from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

19 So, I will simply go from my left and we can move down the 20 table, and after the previous presenter has concluded please begin your 21 preparation. So we begin with Dr. Herczeg.

22 Please begin, thank you.

23 DR. HERCZEG: Thank you. Good morning, 24 Commissioner Svinicki, Commissioners, NRC Staff, and the attendees of 25 this meeting.

26 It is my pleasure and I thank you very much for this

5 1 opportunity, to give you an overview of the Department of Energy's 2 perspective on advanced reactors, our vision, strategy, and strategy of 3 deployment.

4 First, however, I would like to stress that the 5 administration, President Trump, is firmly behind the advancement of nuclear 6 energy and nuclear reactors.

7 In a statement in June 2017, he clearly stated that we 8 need to revive and expand our nuclear energy sector and has ordered a new 9 policy review on nuclear energy.

10 Secretary Perry is equally committed to the president's 11 goals and has a side area of interest in Small Modular Reactors, one of 12 which is the NuScale reactor. Next slide. Is there a clicker? No clicker, 13 okay.

14 Our mission is to advance nuclear power as we would 15 normally think as a reliable source that will help maintain the nation's energy 16 supply in environmentally clean and energy security.

17 We seek to resolve our technical cost, safety, and security 18 issues, and regulatory issues through research, development, and 19 demonstration.

20 Our focus is on the deployment of advanced nuclear 21 technologies to support the goal of domestic resources for secure energy, 22 reducing greenhouse gases, and enhancing national security.

23 The priorities are listed on the right-hand side of this slide.

24 We have recently re-arranged our office to focus on the 25 areas of the existing fleet, the advanced reactor pipeline, which is the focus 26 of this talk today and fuel cycle.

6 1 On the arrow below, you could see the timeframe that 2 we're looking at for implementation of this strategy, where we have been 3 working for many years to extend the life of Light Water Reactors.

4 We have gotten many, it takes 60 years, and we are now 5 working on 80-year extensions. We are working on advanced fuels, 6 primarily accident tolerant fuels for Light Water Reactors and advanced fuels 7 for advanced reactors.

8 We're working on small modular reactors and hope to 9 deploy them in the mid-2020 to the early 2030s and full-sized reactors in the 10 2030 to 2035 range. Next slide. There are five areas that we focus on for 11 our R&D pipeline.

12 The first is Light Water Reactors, these small modular 13 reactors such as NuScale. The second is high-temperature gas reactors 14 and there's two versions of that. One is a prismatic and the other is a 15 pebble bed. Some are helium-cooled, some are molten salt.

16 Our emphasis in this particular area is working on TRISO 17 fuels, which is applicable to both, and graphite qualifications. I'll speak 18 more on TRISO fuels later.

19 Liquid-fueled reactors, sometimes called molten salt 20 reactors, are a rebirth from the '60s and we have many of them looking at 21 this technology. There are fast reactors, there are thermal reactors, and 22 there are hybrid designs.

23 These particular reactors require a significant amount of 24 R&D because of the corrosive properties of molten salt.

25 Metal-cooled fast reactors, we have two in the overall 26 picture here today, and that's the sodium-cooled and lead-cooled. And

7 1 lastly, I would like to emphasize micro reactors.

2 We're looking at several of those at this particular point in 3 time and we think they will be a new area in which we can expand and 4 bridge the gap from today until tomorrow.

5 Next slide, please. Our focus areas are somewhat 6 repeated here but let me just go through the work in those particular areas.

7 In advanced reactors, advanced Light Water Reactors, we are focusing on 8 technical assistance through the NuScale overall program.

9 That has been going on for a number of years and it will 10 continue to go. In the advanced reactor technology, fast reactor technology, 11 we look to demonstrate the advanced reactor systems and components that 12 are key to cutting the costs within these particular types of reactors.

13 We have established a laboratory at Argonne National 14 Laboratory called Met Lab, which will test components such as small pumps, 15 valves, and heat exchangers.

16 We are looking at advanced materials for fast reactors and 17 those materials are also applicable to other reactor-types.

18 In the gas reactor area, our focus is on advanced alloys for 19 high temperatures, and graphite material qualifications for high-temperature 20 applications. We have also spent and we have been working on for close to 21 14 years now TRISO particle fuel.

22 We've developed that fuel to a very advanced state and 23 we've been testing it and hope to have the complete TRISO fuel particle 24 qualified to your standards by 2022.

25 In the molten salt area, I've indicated that there's both fast 26 and thermal reactors. We're looking at the properties of the salts within

8 1 those reactors. There are fluoride, lithium salts, and there are chloride salts 2 and there are mixtures of all salts.

3 Salt properties are very important to understand, in 4 particular as their application of any degradation they may have, and also 5 how they apply it to corrosion.

6 The materials, fuels, and technology modeling is also a 7 very important part of this particular area, but we also have to be aware and 8 work diligently for safeguards, safeguard ability, because molten salt 9 reactors generally have fuel, not just circulating within the core but go out of 10 the core. And so in those particular cases, we are 11 working on an impact program to make sure we can monitor fissile content 12 as a function of time.

13 In cross-cutting areas, we are looking at advanced energy 14 conversion. Super critical CO2 Brayton Cycle, we've been looking at that for 15 a number of years, and recently, we've joined up with the Office of Fossil 16 Fuels to put together a 10-megawatt demonstration, which is being funded at 17 the Southwest Research Laboratories.

18 Micro-reactors and remote deployment of these is another 19 area of a very strong interest within the Office of Nuclear Energy. In 20 January 2018, the Department issued a funding opportunity announcement 21 to advance these particular technologies.

22 In that opportunity, we broke up into three areas, one for 23 deployment in the 2026 timeframe to support that work, and second, to work 24 on technology-specific areas for certain areas and licensing.

25 Next slide, please. To support the licensing qualification 26 of advanced reactors and achieve the goals of the Advanced Reactor

9 1 Program, we've embarked on a dense test reactor called the Versatile Test 2 Reactor.

3 The support from this reactor has been very, very strong.

4 The industry has indicated that they need to be able to test our fuel and 5 materials in order to qualify those materials for a license within the NRC.

6 We took this to the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee 7 back in 2016. They reviewed the overall program and gave a resounding 8 proceed forward immediately on conceptual design of a new test reactor, 9 which we did.

10 The recent and full creation from Congress on the 11 Omnibus Bill provided $35 million to start an R&D program. We kicked off 12 the program in April of this year and we plan to have a three-year R&D 13 program that is going to put together the details of the overall core and 14 functions of that reactor. Specifically, we will work very carefully 15 with the vendors to identify what needs do they have in looking at various 16 coolants, various fuels, various materials, and we will do that very early on.

17 We also plan to word very early on with the Nuclear 18 Regulatory Commission in parallel as we, the Department, license the 19 reactor.

20 I've had recent discussions in this particular area and I'm 21 putting together a framework of cooperation so that they can attend the 22 appropriate meetings on safety and design.

23 We have not made a decision that we're going to build this 24 reactor but we will make that decision after a three-year study identifying the 25 true costs of schedule of that particular reactor.

26 In closing, I would like to say there are profound

10 1 opportunities for new nuclear growth. We see the picture today and we 2 have strong global markets interested in these vast technologies.

3 And most importantly, we believe the U.S. leadership to 4 ensure safety; non-proliferation is paramount in our overall program.

5 The administration, as I said earlier, is firmly committed to 6 nuclear energy and we look forward to your questions at the end of this 7 meeting.

8 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much. Dr.

9 Baranwal, please proceed?

10 DR. BARANWAL: Good morning, my name is Rita 11 Baranwal.

12 I'm the Director of GAIN, the Gateway for Accelerated 13 Innovation in Nuclear, and thank you for this opportunity for me to share with 14 you a bit about what GAIN is and what we've been doing.

15 GAIN was launched a few years ago to address several 16 issues, national and global demand for nuclear energy is increasing, and 17 frankly, the U.S. global leadership is eroding.

18 There's a sense of urgency with respect to the deployment 19 of the innovative nuclear energy technologies that are being developed, and 20 an effective private/public partnership is required to achieve these goals.

21 Next slide, please. GAIN's mission is to provide the 22 nuclear energy industry with access to the technical, regulatory, and financial 23 support that's necessary to move innovative nuclear energy technologies 24 towards commercialization in an accelerated and cost-effective fashion.

25 GAIN is the organizing principle for relevant, 26 Federally-funded nuclear energy research, development, and deployment

11 1 programs.

2 Additionally, GAIN is a private public partnership 3 framework that's aimed at rapid and cost-effective development of innovative 4 nuclear energy technologies towards market readiness.

5 Next slide, please. GAIN is striving to simultaneously 6 achieve three goals. One, we aim to assist the Department of Energy and 7 the U.S. nuclear industry become leaders in global technology 8 commercialization once again.

9 Two, we strive to include our supply chain vendors while 10 developing new concepts to aid in the deployment process and ensure 11 global industrial leadership.

12 And three, we seek to optimize the U.S. domestic energy 13 portfolio by including utilities and end users during technology development 14 within GAIN.

15 Next slide, please. More specifically, GAIN provides 16 innovators and investors access to the national laboratory capabilities in the 17 areas of modeling and simulation, design and support, reactor and fuel cycle 18 research programs, experimentation, and an NRC interface.

19 This work helps both the innovators and the NRC in 20 determining licensing technical requirements, increasing licensing readiness 21 levels, and reducing regulatory risk.

22 Next slide, please. So, the connection between DOE and 23 NRC includes DOE's support of technology-inclusive and cross-cutting 24 areas.

25 The relationship between GAIN's strategic goal of 26 maintaining DOE state-of-the-art capabilities and its strategic goal of

12 1 providing industry stakeholders access to those facilities.

2 We can progress to the next two clicks. One more, thank 3 you. So, shown here in the red boxes and the NRC's general views of 4 what's needed for licensing are closely coupled.

5 Next click, please. One more. And the blue box 6 connects the more technology-inclusive and generic efforts from GAIN's 7 strategic goal to support development of a technology-inclusive regulatory 8 framework.

9 I'd also like to recognize NRC's efforts in conjunction with 10 the Department of Energy for the licensing modernization project interactions 11 to establish critical regulatory guidance.

12 This first foundational step towards a risk-informed, 13 performance-based regulatory framework will provide a 14 technology-independent alternative that will be crucial to the deployment of 15 advanced reactors.

16 GAIN also appreciates the DOE and the NRC efforts for 17 developing the recently published Regulatory Guide, 1.232, Guidance for 18 Developing Principled Design Criteria for Non-Light-Water-Reactors, which 19 provides acceptable means to develop design criteria for advanced 20 Non-Light-Water reactors. Next slide, please.

21 So, if I can have the next three clicks? I'm highlighting 22 some of the examples of GAIN's support to industry, and these include 23 vouchers for national laboratory work that will assist companies with their 24 design licensing processes, including development of a mechanistic source 25 term, evaluation of power-pumping technologies, and fuel salt 26 characterization, just as some examples.

13 1 Next slide, please. One of GAIN's primary objectives is to 2 grant innovators access to DOE laboratory facilities and expertise. Some 3 examples of this include accident tolerant fuels.

4 New ATF cladding was conceived, developed, 5 manufactured, and tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and has been 6 manufactured by Global Nuclear Fuels into lead test assemblies, has been 7 shipped to Southern Nuclear Operating Company for trials in the Edwin 8 Hatch Plant.

9 FeCrAl cladding, known as iron clad, will be the first 10 developed through the DOE's enhanced accident-tolerant fuel program to be 11 installed in a commercial nuclear reactor.

12 Molten salt reactor development, including training on MSR 13 technology and the molten salt reactor experience, has been provided to the 14 NRC via a series of training courses.

15 We continue to support the ARC-15 funding opportunity 16 announcement with TerraPower on MSR technology development, including 17 material development, corrosion expertise, salt properties, modeling and 18 simulation, and safeguards.

19 And in the area of database development, Legacy Fast 20 Reactor data including EBR-2 reactor physics and fuel performance data, as 21 well as creep data on fuel-transient testing.

22 And post-test examination has been provided, GAIN's 23 supported completion and activation of the creep database, TREXR, for 24 benefit of industry users.

25 Next slide, please. On November 10 of 2016, DOE and 26 NRC signed a memo of understanding wherein the NRC provides DOE and

14 1 the GAIN community with current accurate information on NRC licensing 2 processes and regulations.

3 This MOU enabled GAIN to have a regulatory tab on our 4 website, wherein anyone can ask a question of the NRC. We send those 5 questions to your Staff who provide us back a reply to post under the FAQs 6 on the GAIN website.

7 I would like to thank the NRC Staff for working with and 8 educating the GAIN Advanced Reactor community via the regular public 9 stakeholder meetings that are held about every six weeks.

10 These meetings have been invaluable for the GAIN 11 community. Final slide, please.

12 Finally, GAIN looks forward to continued engagement with 13 the NRC Staff to accelerate deployment of advanced reactors via the NRC's 14 public stakeholder meetings and workshops, the most near term of which will 15 occur with the American Nuclear Society on May 2nd on developing a 16 strategic vision for advanced reactor standards.

17 Thank you.

18 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much. Dr.

19 Shahrokhi, please proceed.

20 DR. SHAHROKHI: Good morning, my name is Farshid 21 Shahrokhi, I'm the Director of High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor 22 Technology at Framatome.

23 Today, I represent the High-Temperature Gas Cooled 24 Reactor Technology Working Group. We are an independent industry 25 group formed within the NEI Advanced Reactor Working Group.

26 Our membership includes high-temperature reactor

15 1 developers, coated particle fuel manufacturer, and a utility. We also have 2 representatives from EPRI, DOE, and NEI.

3 Our mission is to express and support our Members' 4 common technical and R&D needs. We have engaged and interacted with 5 the DOE research communities, the universities, the standards developed in 6 communities, and the NRC.

7 Our reactor designs use helium as the coolant or molten 8 salt in case of Kairos Power. Graphite moderator and uranium oxycarbide, 9 tri-isotropic or TRISO-coated particle fuel as our basic fuel form.

10 Our designs produce high-temperature steam under the 11 order of 560 degrees Centigrade, provide a high-efficiency electricity 12 production or industrial process heat.

13 Our reactors are modular and small, ranging in power from 14 10 megawatts to 275 megawatts. Next slide, please. I would like 15 to first thank the NRC Staff for working with us and the other advanced 16 reactor communities in an effort to modernize and risk-inform our regulatory 17 infrastructure.

18 This work is important to us because we need guidance 19 that applies to our reactor designs, as opposed to the current guidance that 20 evolved over the past 50 years through licensing many Light-Water reactors.

21 Risk-informed and performance space guidance for 22 Non-Light-Water reactor, licensing basis development will provide a 23 systematic process for demonstrating satisfaction of existing regulations that 24 we could use, independent of any specific reactor technology.

25 The work the NRC is doing with support from the Licensing 26 Modernization Project, supported by DOE, is a major step forward in the

16 1 long-term goal of technology-inclusive regulatory structure.

2 For the near term, we support and applaud the DOE-NRC 3 efforts for developing and publishing earlier this month the Regulatory Guide 4 1.232, titled Guidance for Developing Principled Design Criteria for 5 Non-Light-Water Reactors.

6 This guide provides acceptable ways for developing 7 principled design criteria for a range of advanced reactor designs, including 8 our modular high-temperature gas reactor.

9 Within our developer community, the interim results from 10 the DoE TRISO particle fuel qualification program mentioned earlier, and 11 characterization known as the DOE-AGR program, show that the reactors 12 that use a combination of TRISO fuel, graphite core, and a single-phase 13 chemically inert coolant could have an extraordinary low radiological source 14 term.

15 This enables enhanced operational capacity and accident 16 tolerance, which is foundation for our alternative radionuclide retention 17 strategy and performance criteria definition.

18 The so-called functional containment is an independent set 19 of systems, structures, and components, working together to retain fission 20 products and limit those at the site boundary to less than one gram for all 21 anticipated operational occurences design basis and beyond design basis 22 accident scenarios without relying on pressure-retaining reactor buildings.

23 Of course, one gram is the EPA PAG limit and is our 24 design goal. We have worked with the NEI and the NRC Staff to establish a 25 radionuclide retention strategy using the concept of functional containment 26 for Non-Light-Water-Reactors.

17 1 A draft Commission paper titled, Functional Containment 2 Performance criteria, is working its way through the NRC regulatory review 3 and approval chain.

4 Acceptance of functional containment for radionuclide 5 retention is an essential part of our reactor concept development and 6 commercialization. Our Technology Working Group is also 7 collaborating with the DOE Idaho National Lab and the Electric Power 8 Research Institute in preparation of a limited-scope topical report to be 9 submitted to the NRC early next year in 2019 for off-fee review and approval.

10 This report will be a generic topical report documenting the 11 completed part of the TRISO fuel testing results at Idaho National Lab.

12 Once reviewed and approved, each developer that wishes 13 to use UCO and TRISO fuel, UCO-based TRISO fuel, can reference this 14 topical in this design-specific fuel qualification report.

15 The HDGR Technology Working Group also recognizes 16 that further advanced reactor regulatory development with the goal of 17 reduction of regulatory uncertainty will continue to require close 18 collaboration, coordination, and interaction with industry.

19 This is evident by our past and ongoing engagement with 20 the consensus standards communities, such as ANS and ASME. We have 21 proposed and encouraged an NRC review and the endorsement of one of 22 our key standards, the ASME Section 3 Division 5 for high-temperature 23 reactors.

24 In coming years, we will continue our engagement with the 25 NRC Staff to further develop cross-cutting improvements such as 26 safety-focused regulatory reviews, emergency planning, staffing, and

18 1 security requirements for advanced reactors to further reduce regulatory 2 uncertainties and encourage deployment of advanced reactors.

3 Thank you.

4 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much. Next we'll 5 hear from Dr. DeWitte. Please proceed.

6 DR. DEWITTE: Thank you, and thank you for the 7 opportunity to be here. My name is Jacob DeWitte, I'm the CEO and 8 co-founder of Oklo and I'm here representing the Fast Reactor Working 9 Group Today. So, next slide, please.

10 The Fast Reactor Working Group includes multiple 11 developers who are working on multiple technologies that span the spectrum 12 of fast reactor development and it is growing to also include various 13 stakeholders beyond just the developers engaged, including utilities, as well 14 as suppliers and vendors, as well as other stakeholders.

15 These technologies span the spectrum of fast reactors 16 under consideration, meaning we have liquid-metal-cooled systems, 17 gas-cooled systems, as well as salt-cooled and salt-fueled systems under 18 consideration.

19 Next slide, please. Some of the activities we've been 20 mostly focused on to date have worked around developing our 21 understanding needs and capability sets, and growing those to support the 22 deployment and commercialization of these technologies.

23 And since these technologies often span a wide range of 24 technology and material readiness, the needs vary considerably. So, I'll 25 highlight a summary of those here for you today.

26 One of the highlighted efforts here is really focused on

19 1 fuels, considering that's often one of the longer poles in the tent.

2 When you look at the technologies being developed by the 3 fast reactor developers, they span a variety of fuels as well, from metals to 4 nitrides to oxides to carbides to salts.

5 Most of those have some degree of radiation experience 6 and prototypic conditions or near prototypic conditions but often, that's very 7 limited and lacking.

8 So, there's quite a bit of work going on to expand our 9 understanding, not just of the fundamental phenomenology but also the 10 operational characteristics.

11 The restart of TREAT was a tremendous step in the right 12 direction to enhancing our capabilities for research and development to 13 support the transient testing and qualification of new fuel forms that are 14 being developed, and also advancing the fuel forms that have a fairly mature 15 and rigorous base behind them, such as metallic and oxide fuels.

16 Furthermore, we're working to expand and open up the 17 opportunities for research and development infrastructure including, for 18 example, the versatile test reactor as well as other facilities that are 19 possessed in our national laboratory system that support fuel development 20 and qualification.

21 On top of that, since some of these fuels are very mature 22 and have a rich legacy behind them, there's a lot of work going on in getting 23 access to the tremendous amounts of radiation data that was generated over 24 the past 50 to 60 years in this country's fast reactor development program, 25 and I'll touch on that in a minute.

26 Another aspect that we've been focused on is expanding

20 1 out the capabilities we have available for modeling and simulation, building 2 upon both these existing tools as well as new tools that can be developed to 3 enhance what we can do in our design suites as well as analysis suites.

4 It's important to highlight that some of these tools have 5 tremendously high fidelity capabilities, which also limit their use to some 6 degree in both the analysis space as well as the regulatory space.

7 So, translating those and using those into a more useable 8 state is going to be an important factor here.

9 On top of that is the uncertainties that go with those tools.

10 Sometimes we may be able to model and simulate a 11 system to such a high degree of fidelity, (unintelligible) washed out by the 12 underlying uncertainties in just the thermophysical properties of the materials 13 being used.

14 So, coupling what we have today with what we're 15 developing now and what we'll have available tomorrow are important 16 aspects of what we're trying to focus on. And spanning that bridge, it's a 17 continuum of development when it comes to modeling and simulation tools.

18 Furthermore, some designs have a very mature modeling 19 and simulation base behind them and others need more work to enhance the 20 capabilities to suit their needs.

21 Touching on legacy data, I mentioned that earlier, that's a 22 very important piece, especially for metal-fueled designers. So, specifically, 23 there's seven developers that are considering using metal fuel in their 24 designs.

25 Uranium and zirconium alloy is the predominant use case 26 there. That fuel form has a long history of development and qualification in

21 1 this country's fast reactor programs.

2 And the data that was generated from EBR-2 3 predominantly, but also FFTF and other radiation campaigns that have gone 4 on next to that, including TREAT for example, as well as out-of-pile tests, is 5 tremendously valuable for the developers pursuing that technology, and 6 provides the fundamental case, safety case, for why these reactors can 7 operate the way they can.

8 Thankfully, there's work being done by Argonne National 9 Laboratory to develop that database and make it available, both with what 10 Rita mentioned with the TREAT database, but also the EBR-2 field 11 performance databases.

12 And we're working with DOE to expand the data that we 13 can put into those databases and make it available for not just developers 14 and the public, but also the regulators.

15 Related to that, we support a virtual test reactor; we think 16 that will be a tremendous boon for the development of advanced reactor 17 technologies and spur quite a bit of innovation in terms of not just brand-new 18 technologies but also evolving the technologies that have a more mature 19 base behind them.

20 Furthermore, we have been mapping out the various 21 standards, needs, and opportunities we pursue and we see as important for 22 the development and de-risking the regulatory risk for fast reactor 23 developers.

24 One aspect that we endorse is the pursuit of this ASME 25 Section 3 Division 5 for higher-temperature operations. That affects a 26 variety of the developers and is something that we will be participating in

22 1 next week in the panel, and advocating for.

2 And finally, we'd like to log the work being undertaken by 3 both DOE as well as the industry in conjunction working with the NRC to 4 both adopt new frameworks and guidance for basically the 5 Non-Light-Water-Reactor design criteria but also the licensing modernization 6 efforts that are going on, including, for example, the functional containment 7 effort that Farshid mentioned, as well as the other piece of the industry-led 8 licensing modernization efforts.

9 There's a lot of value that comes from those in terms of 10 providing more flexibility in terms of how designs can demonstrate safety, as 11 well as the case to demonstrate safety more adequately and more 12 thoroughly.

13 The inherent and passive nature that many designs 14 employ from beginning is an important characteristic to capture accurately 15 and some of these advanced, I would say, frameworks and guidance allows 16 us to do that fairly rigorously.

17 So, with that, I end my presentation. Thank you.

18 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much. Mr. Irvin, 19 please proceed?

20 MR. IRVIN: Thank you for the opportunity to be here.

21 My name is Nick Irvin, I am the Director of the Advanced Energy Systems 22 R&D Program at Southern Company. Today I am here representing the 23 molten-salt reactor technology Working Group at NEI.

24 We're here today because we believe molten-salt reactors 25 have an opportunity to provide a great future for nuclear energy.

26 We saw this several years ago with our R&D program and

23 1 decided to inject ourselves into that program and support the innovation in 2 this space.

3 Next slide, please. The Molten-Salt Reactor Technology 4 Working Group is a very diverse group. It represents I think the heart of 5 what innovation is in the nuclear space.

6 There are eight technology developers represented on this 7 team and they are very diverse in both their reactor design but also in their 8 makeup as a company. We also have representation from multiple utilities 9 as well as EPRI on the team.

10 Next slide, please. Similar to Jake, with this broad diverse 11 set of players, we have decided to highlight some of the activities going on 12 within the group. I've laid them out here for you.

13 One of the important activities that we have been 14 participating in and I think is very important as we look forward to 15 commercializing these technologies is the integration of the gap analysis and 16 closure plan of NUREG 1537 to support test reactor licensing.

17 Many of these designs are fairly young in the development 18 cycle and there is a recognition that some of them may require a test reactor 19 campaign to support the licensing of the commercial technology. And so 20 that's a very important piece of work that's been going on for some time and 21 we see as an important part going forward.

22 In a similar vein, as Jake mentioned, we are very 23 supportive of the development of the risk-informed performance-based 24 regulatory structure. An important aspect of that is the work being led by 25 Southern Company on the licensing modernization project.

26 We believe those results are very promising and they

24 1 provide a high potential to give us a consistent and transparent framework 2 going forward for licensing these advanced reactors in the future. Similar to 3 both Jake and Farshid, we also support the regulatory guidance for 4 functional containment that's underway right now.

5 MSRs are a different beast in that this community is a 6 group of folks who have liquid fuel designs. And so fuel qualification is an 7 important question for us.

8 We're currently working with DOE and others in the 9 community to establish a basis for how those liquid fuels would be qualified.

10 What are the critical characteristics to support that 11 qualification? The network will be important as we go forward, both in test 12 reactor and in commercial reactor licensing.

13 Modeling simulation is another way that MSRs may require 14 some different tools. We actually, the MSR Working Group, was hosted by 15 the NEAMS program last month and had a great workshop on how we can 16 use the NEAMS tools to support modeling simulation for these reactors.

17 We support this ongoing work and encourage the use of 18 these tools. We think they have a great potential to provide us a basis from 19 which to design and license these machines.

20 Further, we're also working with the ANS program to 21 support the 20.2 standard, which is to provide the design criteria for AMSRs.

22 Largely, the goal would be to have a largely risk-informed 23 performance base standard there to where you could use it in any way 24 possible. We think that work is important for the commercialization of the 25 technology as well.

26 And last but not least, there is a consistent need across

25 1 most of the designs for the use of high-assay LEU fuel, whether it be for 2 support of the test reactors or even ultimately, the commercial reactors in 3 this space.

4 So, with that, I'll close by just saying that MSRs, again, 5 offer this great potential with a very diverse set of needs.

6 We think these are the most important ones that we've 7 consolidated on as a group, and we thank you for your time.

8 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Next, we'll hear from Dr. Lyman.

9 Please proceed when you're ready.

10 DR. LYMAN: Yes, good morning and thanks again to the 11 Commission for inviting us to present our views on this set of very important 12 issues. Next slide, please.

13 So, our overall position on advanced reactors and just to 14 set the context, it's very important to separate hype from reality in this 15 particular area. So, that's what we strive to do.

16 All Non-Light Water Reactor concepts I'm aware of have 17 potentially some advantages, but also disadvantages compared to Light 18 Water Reactors. And one has to understand the totality of those differences 19 to really assess their overall safety.

20 All Non-Light Water Reactors have novel features whose 21 behavior will require significant testing analysis to quantify margins and 22 uncertainties for licensing purposes.

23 And at this point, even though many of these designs have 24 been brought to various stages of development over many decades, there's 25 still no technical basis to say that any, either gas-cooled reactors, fast 26 reactors, or molten-salt reactors will be inherently safer or more secure than

26 1 Light-Water Reactors.

2 In fact, there's good reason to believe from any of those 3 groups of designs that they have characteristics that could well make them 4 less safe and secure, meaning that at least for the first generation of 5 deployment, they would require compensatory measures to ensure a 6 comparable level of safety to Light-Water Reactors.

7 Next slide, please.

8 Our belief is that the NRC's regulatory processes for 9 licensing are sound but they're being unfairly maligned as significant 10 obstacles to advanced reactor deployment.

11 In fact, we see the main barriers or the fact that huge 12 investments in both cost and time are required for any Non-Light Water 13 Reactor vendor to develop a concept to the level of maturity needed to 14 support a high-quality application.

15 And the burden is on the vendor. It's not up to the NRC to 16 weaken their licensing standards so that they can accept a less robust 17 application, just to expedite advanced reactor licensing.

18 We think that line of thinking is unnecessary and potentially 19 dangerous. And we also are concerned about efforts in Congress to 20 promote deployment of demonstration reactors without NRC licensing 21 authority based on a reading of the Atomic Energy Act we may not agree 22 with.

23 So we think that Congress really needs to ensure that the 24 NRC will have licensing authority over that next generate of reactors, even if 25 technically, under the AEA they would not be given that authority a priori.

26 Next slide, please. So, expectation versus reality.

27 1 The NRC has already made statements and documents 2 like the final regulatory basis for the emergency preparedness rulemaking for 3 SMRs and other new technologies that state this assumption that new 4 designs typically have lower probabilities of severe accidents which would 5 also lower their impacts to build with health and safety.

6 We think this is an unverified and likely false assertion at 7 this point and we'd like to point out that the advanced reactor policy 8 statement has an expectation that new reactors will be safer, but it does not 9 have a requirement.

10 So, you may expect to get something but you may not 11 actually get it when it comes. You have to validate that for any regulatory 12 decision.

13 Next slide, please. In fact, this can become a 14 self-defeating prophecy because even if designs have some additional 15 inherent safety features, the overall safety of the design is still going to 16 depend on how the NRC comes out on these policy decisions involving 17 citing.

18 And I'd say we don't think revisiting the Commission's 19 position on urban intensely-populated areas is necessarily a good strategy.

20 The issue of functional containment is something that 21 concerns us greatly and other changes to the design criteria which may 22 sweep under the rug certain uncertainties that are long-known for these 23 designs, issues of emergency preparedness and the issues of security, how 24 Probabilistic Risk Assessment is credited in licensing, the level of testing 25 requirements that are accepted, and also special treatment and the 26 allowance of non-safety-related systems based on, again, these

28 1 presumptions that the reactor is safer.

2 And we think overall, if you reduce safety margin defense 3 and depth by making decisions in the wrong way that could undermine the 4 overall safety of these designs.

5 So we think certainly for the first-of-a-kind demonstration 6 reactors, they should be regarded as prototypes and the NRC should ensure 7 that there are additional safety features to compensate for these 8 uncertainties. Next slide, please.

9 And just pointing out for each class, gas-cooled reactors 10 can be seriously damaged by air or water ingress and that's a category of 11 accident or sabotaged events that need further consideration.

12 Liquid sodium-cooled fast reactors have inherent reactivity 13 instabilities as well as flammable coolant. Molten-salt reactors have to be 14 kept in a narrow temperature range and if they heat up, if there's a coolant 15 clot that freezes, then the reactor can destroy itself within ten minutes.

16 So, the window is pretty slim there. And you also have to 17 consider the implications for the entire fuel cycle and certainly any designs 18 that involve co-located reprocessing or the use of strategic special nuclear 19 materials in the fuel cycle are going to raise novel security issues.

20 Next slide, please. On risk-informing reactor licensing, the 21 fact of the matter is that PRAs for any Non-Light-Water design are largely 22 still academic exercises and lack sufficient data for validation.

23 And it's hard to define even what a design-basis accident 24 is; certainly, to understand severe accident progression consequences are a 25 long way off.

26 So, for first-of-a-kind reactor licensing, we think there's

29 1 very little utility in using risk information except in a very general way.

2 And over time, however, as operating experience becomes 3 available and the validation of PRAs becomes stronger, you may increase 4 their use in applications.

5 Next slide, please. One area we're very concerned about 6 is the potential Non-Light-Water-Reactor Security Rulemaking, again based 7 on the presumption that advanced reactors are going to be safer.

8 And there are proposals that perhaps advanced reactors 9 will not require to protect against the design basis thread and certainly would 10 not need to demonstrate that through force-on-force performance 11 evaluations.

12 We think the current regulatory framework is already 13 flexible enough to accommodate exemptions or exceptions from the current 14 rule, so we don't think the rulemaking is necessarily appropriate.

15 And certainly less vendors can document or have a proof 16 of principle that there's a reactor that can't be sabotaged and will lead to a 17 large radiological release. We think that rulemaking is premature. Next 18 slide, please.

19 Finally, on the issue of secrecy, my experience in the past 20 is that reactors that have come to the NRC in pre-application reviews have 21 provided much more basic information about the designs which is very 22 helpful for the public to start getting a sense of the safety basis for these 23 reactors.

24 I'd point out the Toshiba 4S during pre-application provided 25 a considerable amount of information that we don't see in current 26 pre-application reviews, for instance, with Oklo.

30 1 And we're wondering why the standards for proprietary 2 information may have become stricter and we think that this may need to be 3 challenged.

4 Also, since the vendors will have to release more 5 information eventually if they pursue licensing, if they want to engage with 6 the NRC early, why not engage with the public early and be more 7 transparent early in that process?

8 So, I'll stop there and I apologize for exceeding my time.

9 Thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much, Dr. Lyman, 11 for that presentation and to all of the panelists for your presentations.

12 It's the practice of our Commission to rotate the order of 13 recognition for Q&A, and today we begin with Commissioner Burns.

14 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Thank you all for being here 15 this morning and for the perspectives you've brought on the advanced 16 reactor reviews.

17 It is certainly an area, since I returned to the Agency in 18 2014, that it's gotten much more attention, much more attention, and also 19 concentration by the Staff as various people in the community have sought 20 to bring forward the potential for new designs. And I appreciate 21 the work with our partner Agency, the Department of Energy, in terms of the 22 cooperation we've had, and being able to provide the link through the GAIN 23 initiative for that.

24 Let me start out with a few questions first for Dr. Herczeg.

25 Could you give me a little bit more in terms of what's the 26 conception in terms of micro-reactors and the applications for them?

31 1 DR. HERCZEG: Thank you, Commissioner Burns. The 2 micro-reactors that we've looked at so far, and these are people who come 3 in and give us overview presentations, are in the conceptual design phase 4 but they are small enough that they could accelerate it to building very 5 quickly.

6 The applications that they're looking at are in primarily 7 remote sites right now like Alaska, which as you know, 4S has been looking 8 at for number years. But it turns out that the Defense Department is also 9 looking at this application for islands or small places that they need power.

10 As you well know, the transport of that fuel costs many, 11 many lives.

12 And so if we can get transportable reactors into I won't say 13 a forward basis at this point in time, but just the main basis.

14 This is a way to not only help an environmentally clean 15 release of energy for the site but it also provides the capability to quickly 16 move them in and out.

17 As part of the overall designs we're looking at, they have to 18 be transportable in an aircraft, they have to have enough shielding so they 19 are not giving radiation to the people.

20 We also are making sure that the containment is such that 21 it will not, even if there is some sort of explosive that's made nearby, 22 disperse fission products in the overall area.

23 These are heat-pipe designs and, well, I should say two of 24 them are heat-pipe designs, the third is a turbine design.

25 The heat pipes look very robust, there's a lot of technology 26 going on.

32 1 We're testing those right now at the Sandia National 2 Laboratory. I think that we will have to look at that technology and try to 3 determine its viability by actually building and demonstrating one.

4 And in doing so, we'll work closely with the NRC to make sure that it 5 meets the standards of the NRC.

6 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay, thanks very much.

7 And I think for Dr. Baranwal, one of the things I think we've been able to take 8 advantage of is some training on the molten salt technology for the NRC 9 Staff.

10 Are there other areas you thought there might be 11 opportunities for our Staff to obtain training or other aspects from the DOE 12 programs that would have a benefit for us?

13 DR. BARANWAL: I think that certainly, yes, in the areas 14 of fast reactors there is training, especially on the advances that have 15 occurred over the past, I'd say, decade that could be developed and offered.

16 And I think with respect to the fuel qualification aspects for 17 the high-temperature gas arena, certainly we can apprise your Staff of the 18 activities and results going on in that arena.

19 Not to indicate that there's a deficiency necessary on the 20 NRC side but just to keep all of your Staff apprised of the progress that's 21 been made in these technologies.

22 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay, thanks very much. I 23 think there were a number of people that mentioned the Regulatory Guide, 24 I'm going to probably get the number wrong, 1.123.

25 PARTICIPANT: 232.

26 COMMISSIONER BURNS: 232, okay. Great, I'll put that

33 1 in my head there. So, on the Regulatory Guide, which really came out of 2 the initiative, we had cooperation or we took into account the DOE 3 assessment on the general design criteria.

4 And then looking at that and how that would then fit in 5 terms of the review aspects for advanced reactors. I think it's a big step, I'll 6 put it to the Working Groups here.

7 What are the other big steps you think that need to come 8 from the NRC with respect to either licensing-type criteria or consideration of 9 where we go with that?

10 DR. SHAHROKHI: One of the things that we would like 11 for the short term, the 1.232 is very good for us. It provides us ways, 12 acceptable ways to prepare our principled design criteria for early adopters.

13 Risk-informing the regulation is very important to us, their 14 licensing modernization project, developed by, sponsored by DOE, is 15 important to us. Engagement of the Staff with that project is quite important.

16 There is a guidance being prepared as we speak to 17 prepare a Reg Guide or a SECY for this project to say how do you provide 18 risk-informed performance-based structure for regulations?

19 So, those two, and also the functional containment; our 20 design is different from Light-Water Reactors, our radionuclide retention 21 strategy is different.

22 So we need a different way of retaining a radionuclide, and 23 functional containment is that way. And the preparation of the Commission 24 paper on that describes that and so we encourage endorsement of that 25 paper.

26 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Anybody want to take --

34 1 DR. DEWITTE: I would just echo that and say for the 2 various technologies being pursued by the Fast Reactor Working Group, all 3 of those align with the interests.

4 And people are kind of expressing specific requirements, 5 specific need-sets in terms of clarity and definition in some of these areas 6 will be provided specifically.

7 For example, functional containment, risk-informed 8 performance base, development frameworks for regulations as well as 123 9 and 1.232 is a very good first step.

10 I think longer term, there's a few opportunities with regards 11 to citing discussions but that's something that falls in I think a little bit later.

12 These early ones are more important for the near term.

13 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay, Mr. Irvin?

14 MR. IRVIN: I'll echo these two guys with the one addition.

15 As I mentioned earlier, the use of NUREG 1537 and the 16 work that's been done to date on that for supporting potential test reactor 17 applications for the MSR community is probably the last thing to add.

18 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay, thanks. Dr. Lyman, in 19 your presentation, you note in a number of areas there is a concern about 20 what ultimately licensing standards and technology standards are.

21 So, I may have an understanding from the slides and from 22 the discussion you have.

23 What would you say are the biggest ones or the most 24 significant ones that you see right now that have a challenge in terms of 25 either maintaining or improving safety where you think there's if I can use the 26 word backsliding?

35 1 DR. LYMAN: Yes, well, I think some of the issues that 2 have come up already, for instance, functional containment and how it's 3 defined, how the current deterministic criteria for pressure-resistant 4 containment may be waived, and what you would accept to make that kind of 5 a major change?

6 In other words, reactivity control and how you define 7 inherent reactivity feedback and the timescales, which are very important for 8 some of the fast reactor safety cases we've heard about.

9 And with regards to molten salt, the very nature of core 10 damage and how you define fission product releases and also how you treat 11 co-located essentially reprocessing plants, and they are both safety and 12 security implications. So, those are some of the ones that come to mind.

13 COMMISSIONER BURNS: And on the latter, 14 reprocessing, your concern is the security or non-proliferation concern?

15 DR. LYMAN: Primarily, but there's also a safety case, for 16 instance. My preference is keep fuel solid so when the molten-salt vendors 17 go out and say our fuel can't melt down, well, that's because it's already 18 molten.

19 But that isn't necessarily an advantage unless you can 20 compensate for the fission product retention properties as solid fuel.

21 So, you're going to have to substitute other barriers for the 22 barrier that's solid fuel in the cladding and that is going to require certain 23 assumptions on the part of the NRC as to how you will accept this change of 24 barriers.

25 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay, and if I could, one last 26 question, one of the I think concerns that Dr. Lyman noted was in terms of

36 1 the PRAs, whether or not there's sufficient experience or data.

2 How does historical data -- I think Dr. Dewitte noted that 3 we're trying to in effect mine that data.

4 And I think actually, Dr. Baranwal, how does that address 5 or help address, it may not give you a long period of experience or it may be 6 more limited experience, but does that help to inform your development of 7 the PRAs?

8 Is that what you're looking for in trying to get your hands on 9 that data? Help me out on that.

10 DR. DEWITTE: Yes, the PRA actually is more of a way of 11 identifying what is the fundamental basically performance and really, how the 12 system behaves.

13 Less so depending on exactly the data and component 14 reliability data as much as it illustrates how PRA can be used to identify 15 safety and progression of events, and what you need to do with that.

16 An important characteristics of a lot of these advanced 17 reactors is what you look at the inherent safety capability sets in there, you 18 don't need to have a lot of active componentry involved to keep the system 19 in the safe state.

20 And as a result, the data that comes out from these legacy 21 experiments is more built for operational perspectives and to drive testing 22 programs, but less so needed for the development of complete and 23 adequate PRA.

24 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Rita, anything on that?

25 DR. BARANWAL: Just that GAIN is trying to provide 26 access to that legacy data, to the historical data in an adequate appropriate

37 1 format to the developers so that they can continue to accelerate their 2 designs and not have to, so to speak, reinvent the wheel.

3 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay, thanks very much, 4 thank you, Chairman.

5 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Well, thank you all for your 6 presentations.

7 I was reflecting on a few things as I listened and I 8 appreciated that we have the different Working Groups that are representing 9 the different categories that kind of roll up to the overall diversity of the 10 designs that are under pursuit and development now.

11 It would be easy to be overwhelmed when I think about the 12 foundation that we need to build to make the kind of safety determinations 13 that NRC makes. It would be easy to be overwhelmed with the body of 14 work that is needed for any one design, much less across the spectrum of 15 the design variation. However, there is a body of work that can 16 be of benefit to all the different Working Groups and types of designs. And I 17 conclude that NRC and DOE have focused on that as the highest priority.

18 And what do I mean by the kind of major work efforts?

19 I'm bidding them as kind of data standards, codes, and 20 then there is this kind of overhang of fuel development or the high-assay 21 LAU which hangs out.

22 There's a need, probably sooner rather than later, creeping 23 up on a lot of the development programs.

24 An interesting historical fact, of course, is a number of 25 these reactor types were explored many decades ago with the United 26 States, which I'm intrigued by trying to develop modern-day pedigrees for

38 1 legacy data.

2 I know that Oklo's been working on that with Argonne for 3 some time. It's an interesting exercise.

4 I was contacted recently by a friend and former colleague, 5 Dr. Pete Lyons, and so I shouldn't attribute this to him in case I'm not 6 remembering what he told me correctly, but he said for some of the 7 encapsulated fuel types like the predecessors of TRISO fuel, some of that 8 data and work goes back to 1947, which was even earlier.

9 And that's kind of what he was commenting to me, is how 10 interesting that is. So, that's I think a significant undertaking to develop a 11 pedigree around that. I'm not saying it can't be done, but there's a lot of 12 work there.

13 Standards development, I probably don't follow as closely, 14 but there is a law, U.S. law, the citation to which I've forgotten in the 15 moment, which as a regulator, in essence, the theory of this or the 16 requirement of this law is that we are required to utilize consensus-endorsed 17 standards.

18 And if we're not going to use them in our safety work, then 19 we have to justify why they were not sufficient.

20 And then codes, there's this disconnect as I understand it, 21 and I'm going to ask a question in a minute.

22 But there's this disconnect in code development historically 23 in that AEC, Atomic Energy Commission, and DOE work today is more 24 orientated around normal operating regimes, meaning if you're going to 25 develop the technology, you want to have high fidelity codes to model it 26 around how it's going to operate you hope most of the time.

39 1 NRC has been more focused on the far edges, which is 2 systems under stress, severe accidents scenarios, or just off normal events.

3 And so as we look, as NRC and DOE, at bringing some of that work or 4 bridging it, I'd be curious if anyone has a comment? I know those 5 discussions are underway. How is that going? I have a personal view that 6 given the computing power now, the development of a code is a very 7 substantial exercise and therefore, I think the notion that different 8 Government Agencies will have their own codes is not likely to be 9 supportable.

10 And so what I'm trying to solve is the problem of how can 11 we have a suite of high-fidelity instruments or tools computationally that can 12 meet the needs of, again, the regulator, which are on these far edges, and 13 then also be useful for the large technology development work that's done by 14 the Department of Energy.

15 So, in that broad suite of data, standards, codes, the fuel 16 issue of the high-assay LEU, is there something that any commenter would 17 like to say as to where should NRC be focusing more of its orientation and 18 less of its orientation on kind of that suite of problems to be solved?

19 And Dr. Baranwal, you were nodding vigorously during 20 parts of that. Would you like to start?

21 DR. BARANWAL: Sure, I'll start.

22 So, with respect to the modern-day pedigree for legacy fuel 23 data, I think that is a very important aspect going back to my earlier 24 comment where we really need to take advantage of the wealth of 25 information that is available within the National Laboratory complex, 26 modernize it and make sure it's acceptable for use in today's designs.

40 1 We have a general sense of the quality assurance 2 standards.

3 Again, I have a view in studying the history that this nation, 4 when it didn't have a lot of computational power, we had a core of 5 tremendously creative and smart experimentalists.

6 And so that was the historic strength, I think, of a lot of our 7 scientific foundations and maybe now we've migrated more to analysis to 8 complement the experimentation.

9 But were the general practices on quality assurance, were 10 they fairly high back in the '50s and '60s, maybe the '40s? I don't know.

11 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: It varies.

12 DR. BARANWAL: Unfortunately, I can't speak to that. I 13 think Dr. DeWitte might be closer to it since they're working with that data.

14 DR. DEWITTE: Sure, I'll jump in. So, a lot of the data 15 that spans back to that era, I would say '50s, '60s, there were at that time QA 16 protocols. I wouldn't say they were sufficient for use today.

17 I would say, though, that there's insights learned from that 18 that were also carried through to inform the experimental development work 19 that happened in the '80s and '90s and through now, which did apply QA 20 protocols and programs that resemble more what's done today and what's 21 expected today.

22 And there are processes by which you can take that data 23 and show basically quality sufficiency and kind of exceed what the 24 expectation is using that old data.

25 Rigorous records are often kept, experimental drawings, 26 diagrams, experimental notes and records are all maintained and these are

41 1 what are being put into databases.

2 So, they can be accessed, taken through a subject-matter 3 expert review among one of several tools you can use to actually take that 4 data and show modern QA equivalency I would say.

5 On top of that, the other thing that is of interest is that 6 some of the work done by Idaho and Argonne together has shown with 7 modern radiation you can do flex filters, for example, with the advanced test 8 reactor and get a fast enough spectrum to show that the way the fuel 9 behaves in terms of how fission is going on is the same as what we saw 10 before.

11 And so that complements. You can trace that through and 12 show quality --

13 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Kind of a validation step that 14 allows you to kind of look at and convince yourself of the integrity of the 15 experimental methodologies and the data-capture and things like that.

16 DR. DEWITTE: Exactly.

17 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: I think, Dr. DeWitte, your 18 presentation had talked or you focused quite a bit on modeling and 19 simulation.

20 Do you have any comment to make about my codes, the 21 different kind of overall orientation towards codes utility by DOE and NRC?

22 DR. DEWITTE: Yes, I think that's a very good point but I 23 think one thing I would add onto that is some of the work going on right now 24 with the modern frameworks that the DOE's pursuing for their tools, 25 particularly under the MOOSE framework, is applying the flexibility.

26 And I would say the robustness and resiliency in these

42 1 tools to capture the physics at the edge of what we expect, as well as 2 applying modern I would say uncertainty quantification and qualification as 3 well as actually dynamic PRA tools allows us to really push the edges there 4 and understand where we go on that and kind of get out to the cases that 5 are most interested but preserve the physics of the system. And that's the 6 key aspects of what needs to happen here.

7 So, I think building on what's going on there provides the 8 need cases there and we just have to keep expanding that and ultimately 9 using it.

10 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Do you think it's fair to say -- from 11 our accident tolerant fields meeting I developed a sense that maybe the 12 codes development right now is akin to what we've gone to in this country 13 with user facilities for experimental capacity meaning that it's one facility but 14 many users.

15 It tries to meet the needs of many users coming forward so 16 that with codes development, you're trying to have one high fidelity suite that 17 is well validated.

18 And therefore, whether you're looking at the margin effects 19 for the regulator or other effects for the developer, you just would have 20 invested all the orientation in getting a highly-validated suite of codes for us 21 by everybody.

22 And I think there's strengths in terms of the overall integrity 23 analytically to that approach. Is that kind of what's happening? Do I draw

43 1 the right conclusion about that, Dr. Baranwal?

2 DR. BARANWAL: There is a suite of tools being 3 developed and the beauty of it is that as Mr. Irvin alluded to, we are working 4 with not only the technology developers but they're coming in and working 5 with the code developers to ensure that we are developing the codes to 6 meet the technology's needs. So, it is not only the design basis but also the 7 extreme accident scenarios that the NRC will expect them to come prepared 8 with.

9 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay, thank you.

10 DR. DEWITTE: And I would just like to add that one of 11 the important things, too, from a methods and development perspective, an 12 actual code development perspective, is using modern software 13 development techniques allows what's happened, for example, the MOOSE 14 framework, to build out a broad framework.

15 But then you can plug in different modules of interest for 16 each system of interest. And I think that's part of the powerful capabilities 17 and flexibility we're seeing with these modern tools. You're developing a 18 modern computation architecture with modern software development 19 architecture.

20 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay, thank you for that. And 21 the NRC Staff published a roadmap last December and they focused a 22 chapter of that on getting very precise about terminology about what is a 23 prototype, what is a demonstration, what is a test reactor.

24 So I mentioned that only because I can't remember the 25 precision of those definitions so I'm just going to use prototype and

44 1 demonstration which a very general terminology here.

2 But the interesting point about the history, that many of 3 these new advanced reactors actually were investigated by the United 4 States many years ago, it seems to me that we did a lot more prototyping 5 and demonstrating.

6 Is that just too expensive to do today or is it that we have 7 the computational power and therefore, we feel we can do much more 8 targeted system-by-system research or material-by-material research and 9 we don't need to build the integrated physical thing to demonstrate?

10 It's a little philosophical but I feel like the history, a lot of 11 the work today stands on the shoulders of so much of that experimental 12 work. Again, having spent some time out in Idaho, I know that 52 I think 13 different reactors were demonstrated out there.

14 So, is there going to be no parallel to that in the modern 15 age of reactors? Is that not needed anymore?

16 DR. SHAHROKHI: For us in the HTGR community, we've 17 had at least seven or eight HTGRs operating in the United States and in the 18 world. So, we feel like we're ready for a commercial-scale prototype.

19 Our customers want to see our costs, our schedule, our 20 licensability, before they commit to buying. They will not buy our first 21 module. They probably would not buy our second or third.

22 They need some support. They probably will buy the 23 fourth and fifth ones. So, we need to demonstrate the cost, the schedule, 24 the licensing of our product.

25 So, we're ready to do that but how do you finance that?

26 That's what we are struggling with. We can license these reactors today, at

45 1 least our reactors today, with existing regulation.

2 It just takes a long time. We would try to modernize it so 3 we can take advantage of the features of these advanced reactors to make 4 the licensing more certain and remove the uncertainties. So, in our 5 case, we are ready for a commercial-scale demonstration and we do not 6 need any proof-of-concept-type testing that type, because that has been 7 done.

8 In fact, China will start their first gas-cooling reactor at the 9 end of this year. So, we're behind.

10 So, we need to catch up with them if we want to compete 11 with them in the commercial world. That's what most of our companies are 12 in here for, to compete in the commercial world.

13 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay, thank you. I'm over my 14 time. Commissioner Baranwal?

15 COMMISSIONER BARAN: I think it's a really interesting 16 topic so I'll just pick up right where you left off.

17 Does DOE have any current plans to construct or provide 18 for the construction of a prototype or demonstration Non-Light-Water 19 Reactor?

20 DR. HERCZEG: Our facilities are available to any and all 21 that want to build on the DOE site. There has been some discussion and I 22 think a site has been issued or at least a site permit for the Terrestrial reactor 23 design.

24 As we go forward, I'm sure there's more that we'll put 25 forward as they come to us. I don't know, some cases, you can do 26 demonstrations without fissile material in it.

46 1 For example, a molten-salt reactor that Southern is 2 working on could be actually a small loop without physical material and they 3 wouldn't have to necessarily do that on a DOE site because there's no fissile 4 material.

5 If there's fissile material, then they have to do it on our site 6 for security and control purposes.

7 COMMISSIONER BARAN: As was previously mentioned, 8 there's been a long history of these type of prototype and demonstration 9 reactors. How does that traditionally work with DOE?

10 Is it basically you're providing a facility and then the vendor 11 is constructing it all and doing all the rest of the work or is it more nuanced 12 than that?

13 DR. HERCZEG: Well, I would say in the past, it would be 14 the U.S. Government of the 52 reactors paying for the bulk of it and doing all 15 the tests.

16 Today, we have what are called cooperative agreements 17 called CRADAs, which we put in place with the Idaho National Laboratory or 18 any other laboratory that is in a system that can handle that type of activity.

19 Now, those CRADAs are guided by certain laws.

20 The Energy Policy Act of 2005 says that if we are to 21 engage with a vendor for actual demonstration, then we must do at least a 22 50-50 cost share.

23 And we are only permitted to do up to a 50-50 cost share if 24 it's just some experimental design such as the work that Rita does under 25 GAIN. And that's an 80-20 split, where we pay 80 and the vendor would 26 pay 20.

47 1 So, we're constrained by certain laws today but I will say 2 that, and if I may go back to a little bit to the Chairman's question about 3 facilities and reactors in the past, I think we're a lot smarter today. We know 4 how to do smaller experiments to give us the information that we need.

5 I chair the Nuclear Science Committee at the OECD NEA 6 and as part of that, we are starting a new program on facilities and advanced 7 data collection.

8 We're trying to enter into the big data realm of activities, 9 but when we do our experiments, we're really collecting a huge amount of 10 data, hopefully. And we'll be able to have insight that we didn't have before.

11 One of my goals would be for the MOOSE-BISON set to 12 be able to collect real-time data in our virtual test reactor for fuels as we go 13 forward. And we'll be able to gain insight as to fission product production, 14 cracking, thermal conductivity as a function of time.

15 And that will give us even more insight, so we cannot build 16 a reactor ourselves but I think we're smart enough now that we can home in 17 and focus, treat experiments, for example.

18 Right now, the transient test facility is actually going to be 19 -- we have outlined a number of experiments that we're going to do but 20 they're going to be very focused experiments to collect a lot of data.

21 COMMISSIONER BARAN: This may be a hard question 22 to answer in the abstract or this early in the process, but are you envisioning 23 that NRC would have a licensing or oversight role on any of these 24 demonstration or prototype reactors that are being contemplated or 25 potentially provided for?

26 DR. HERCZEG: I certainly would hope so. I would think

48 1 it's in the best interest of the particular company going forward to license it 2 with NRC on our site.

3 We can provide a license demonstration but I think if they 4 want to be commercialized, the right thing to do is to start from the very 5 beginning to start looking at the licensing process.

6 COMMISSIONER BARAN: In terms of the data from the 7 legacy reactors, you talked a little bit about the efforts there to developed a 8 modern pedigree for that and validate the data.

9 How far along are you in discussions with the Staff, DOE, 10 or vendors about what the Staff would need and expect in terms of data 11 quality and validation for our current modern-day licensing purposes?

12 DR. DEWITTE: I'll start with that.

13 So, we've been engaged with the Staff on this specific 14 issue, getting back to December of 2016, where we had a public and private 15 meeting related to some of that information.

16 One of the challenges was that data getting into a usable, 17 approachable format I would say.

18 To say this loosely, there are boxes and boxes and boxes 19 of this data and it's been digitized and now it's been put into a usable and 20 searchable database.

21 And so we've engaged with Staff on that front.

22 That was also in subsequent meetings for preparing at the 23 Fast Reactor Working Group level. We've prepared a general White Paper 24 that we'll be sharing or submitting to the Staff.

25 It's just a generic overview of what the information is and 26 how the fuel behaves, collected from some of that information.

49 1 And then I know some vendors are pursuing more 2 specifically basically a technical report structure to say here's an introduction 3 to what these reports look like and here's the plans which we're pursuing or 4 undertaking to show quality equivalence. In terms of the actual work going 5 on with that, we have been doing some of that work to date separately to 6 kind of pilot what that looks like with the National Labs, and then we'll be 7 scaling that and ramping that as appropriate if we make sure we work 8 through the kinks to understand what that really looks like.

9 The key thing here is these databases have a large 10 amount of data on them. They're very rigorously maintained, the records 11 are actually quite thorough across the board.

12 It was very enlightening to be able to see this, but because 13 there's so much data, actually consolidating it, penetrating it and kind of 14 growing that database are our difficult challenges that just take time and 15 effort and hard work to do.

16 DR. SHAHROKHI: For us, legacy data is the basis of our 17 knowledge, both the knowledge that we have in manufacturing TRISO fuel in 18 the United States and internationally.

19 So, that legacy data is the basis for development of our 20 fuel, which is UCO-based. We believe this UCO-based fuel is the ultimate 21 TRISO particle fuel.

22 We developed that back in the late 1990s and 2000s, and 23 so that fuel form is being qualified as we speak and I think it has NQA1 24 qualification and we use the legacy data to develop that fuel. And we are 25 qualifying it as that.

26 COMMISSIONER BARAN: More broadly, not specific to

50 1 any one category of technology, it seems like fuel development and 2 qualification may be the long pole in the tent for some of the designs.

3 I guess the challenge being that the fuel is expected, in 4 most cases, to be very different from the fuel that's previously been qualified 5 and used in the existing fleet for Light-Water-Reactor reactors. As 6 was discussed earlier, many of the advanced reactor designs contemplate 7 using fuels with enrichment levels between 5 and 20 percent, whereas, the 8 existing fleet is all below 5 percent.

9 My understanding is that there's currently very little data on 10 criticality for fuels with enrichment levels between 5 and 20 percent. Is that 11 right?

12 DR. SHAHROKHI: That's correct. And benchmarking is 13 an issue for a high-assay LEU, so low-enriched uranium.

14 So, benchmarking work is important and that's something 15 that the industry cannot do and hopefully, DOE will pick that up.

16 COMMISSIONER BARAN: What is the current thinking 17 on that question of who would gather the data that would be necessary for 18 criticality of benchmarking? Does the DOE have thoughts about that?

19 DR. HERCZEG: I would say we would look forward to a 20 vendor coming forward and saying I am going to build this particular reactor 21 and here's my enrichment and we'll work on solving that particular problem 22 at that point in time.

23 We've had a lot of experience with Fort Saint Vrain, which 24 was using 93 percent. So, we know a little bit about that particular reactor 25 and that was TRISO fuel, too.

26 There are more problems associated with the high-assay

51 1 LEU than just the criticality of using it within the reactor. Also, we do not 2 have transport casks for that fuel at this point in time.

3 So, if the design transport casks that meet your standards 4 -- we have to put facilities together that can manufacture and store this fuel.

5 So, we're at the beginning stages of this right now and I 6 know this is a very important area because almost all of the companies have 7 high-assay LEU 19.75.

8 But I think as we move forward, the earliest ones will focus 9 on and solve that particular issue. We've been talking to enrichers about do 10 you move UF-6 gas or do you make it to a metal and transport that, right?

11 The enrichers will tell you that they want to move UF-6 12 because it's easier for them. So, we'll design a cask for that.

13 Well, you only have so many dollars and you have to figure 14 out where you're going to spend your money. So, I would look at the first 15 movers to tell us what to do.

16 COMMISSIONER BARAN: And we're running out of time, 17 but that's kind of a very interesting question at least in my mind about how 18 you balance all that.

19 Because it's challenging and it's similar to the balancing we 20 have to do in terms of how do we deploy our resources to make sure we're 21 ready for applications that come in the door.

22 What are you looking at to trigger, okay, this is far enough 23 along that we are going to start focusing on some of these trickier fuel issues 24 for a particular design or category of designs?

25 DR. HERCZEG: I would say at this point in time, there's 26 two that come to mind. One is TRISO fuel because we've been doing a lot

52 1 of testing of that fuel, that's one. The other one are the micro-reactors.

2 There is a lot of discussion on moving forward very quickly 3 with micro-reactors and it's being driven by mostly the Defense Department 4 at this particular point in time.

5 But as we go forward with that, that will have 19.75 in it 6 and we'll have to address those issues as we go forward with it.

7 So, first you identify which is a first mover and then 8 identify, if we're going to build this particular technology, we must 9 immediately start working on shipping casks to transport that fuel to the site, 10 because they're certainly not going to ship a reactor, well, I hope we wouldn't 11 ship a reactor, with the fuel in it.

12 DR. DEWITTE: I just have one point on that.

13 I think one important point on that criticality data that's 14 particularly relevant is for the shipping and the fuel cycle infrastructure 15 pieces. In the reactor side, there is sufficient data and you can 16 build enough margin to make sure what you're doing with that to 17 accommodate that there might be lags in data.

18 Also advances in modeling computational capabilities that 19 have been driven through DOE outside of just the reactor complex but also 20 into the weapons complex. It carries over here with some value.

21 And I think for fuel performance and how it behaves, 22 enrichment actually doesn't affect that in terms of the fuel performance 23 issues.

24 That's really a function of chemical composition, so 25 whether it's solid or liquid, and also burn-up, so the actual amount of energy 26 per kilogram generated.

53 1 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thank you.

2 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Well, if my colleagues feel the 3 same as me, like every answer is so interesting that it could bring five more 4 questions but we will not keep you here doing that.

5 Again, I thank each of you for participating in today's 6 meeting.

7 We will take a short break and I got hung up on our clocks 8 being wrong last time so we will reconvene at 10:35 a.m. and give ourselves 9 a little bit of time to have a short break here while we reset for the NRC Staff.

10 Thank you again.

11 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 12 at 10:27 a.m. and returned at 10:35 a.m.)

13 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: If I can please ask the attendees 14 to retake their seats. And we are not joined by our NRC panel of 15 presenters. So the room is quieting down slowly and people are -- okay, 16 that -- all the sudden it quieted down really quickly once I said that. We will 17 begin with our executive director for operations, Mr. Victor McCree, to lead 18 off the staff's presentation. Victor, please proceed.

19 MR. McCREE: Thank you. Good morning, Chairman, 20 and Commissioners. We are pleased to be here to discuss our ongoing 21 efforts to prepare effectively and efficiently, regulate and license advanced 22 reactors and thereby enable the safe and secure use of nuclear materials.

23 On January 25th we provided the Commission with an overview of the new 24 reactor's business line, of which advanced reactors is one part. On that 25 same day we forwarded SECY-18-0011, entitled Advanced Reactors 26 Program Status, which provided a status of our advanced reactors activities,

54 1 including the progress and path forward on each of the implementation 2 action plan strategies, and the various external factors influencing the 3 preparation for possible licensing and deployment of advanced reactors. In 4 today's briefing, we will provide more detail on our activities to prepare 5 license and regulate advanced reactors, as well as potential policy issues.

6 Our preparedness activities have benefitted significantly 7 from engagement with a broad range of external stakeholders. The earlier 8 panel represents one segment of our stakeholders, and we appreciate their 9 collaborative engagement and the value of their continued contributions.

10 We continue to encourage productive discussions with our stakeholders as 11 we enhance our regulatory infrastructure. And with that in mind, I and my 12 senior leadership team meet with our Department of Energy counterparts on 13 a quarterly basis to ensure alignment on strategic issues that affect the safe 14 and secure use of nuclear materials. We held our most recent quarterly 15 meeting earlier this month and discussed our respective activities associated 16 with advanced reactors.

17 Also want to highlight the importance that we place in 18 appropriate planning and budgeting for advanced reactors, particularly given 19 the uncertainty associated with application submissions and the associated 20 schedules. Next slide, please -- slide two. I would note that our advanced 21 reactors preparedness activities represent an agency-level effort that is led 22 by the Office of New Reactors. Multiple offices are engaged in new 23 reactors, including the Offices of Nuclear Regulatory Research, the Office of 24 Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, the Office of Nuclear Security and 25 Incident Response, the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, the Office of 26 the Chief Human Capital Officer and the Office of the General Counsel.

55 1 This cross-coordination of support that we've cultivated has been vital to our 2 efforts as many of the skill sets and experience basis needed to prepare for 3 advanced reactors exists within the agency in different organizations.

4 We are leveraging those resources as well as those of the 5 Department of Energy laboratories. In addition, we are actively engaged 6 with the Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.

7 Today's briefing will be provided by Fred Brown to my right, the acting 8 director of the Office of New Reactors, who will address our overall efforts 9 and priorities. John Monninger to Fred's right, the director of the Division of 10 Safety Systems, Risk Assessment, and Advanced Reactors in the Office of 11 New Reactors. John will discuss -- John will address reactors licensing, 12 readiness, and potential policy issues. Steve Bajorek, to my far left, the 13 senior level advisor for thermal hydraulics in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory 14 Research, will address efforts to assess and update analytical codes, tools 15 and industry standards for advanced reactors. And finally, Brian Smith, to 16 my immediate left, the deputy director of the Office of Nuclear Material, 17 Safety and Safeguards, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety, Safeguards and 18 Environmental Review will address fuel cycle considerations for advanced 19 reactors. I will now turn the presentation over to Fred. Next slide, please.

20 MR. BROWN: Thank you, Vic. Good morning, Chairman 21 and Commissioners. One of the pleasant surprises in my return to the 22 Office of New Reactors has been the progress that's been made in the area 23 of advanced reactors over the last several years. Notwithstanding that 24 progress, however, there are still much that we need to do in order to be 25 able to be fully prepared for all potential types and sizes of advanced 26 reactors being discussed. Next slide, please.

56 1 This slide illustrates the wide range of advanced reactors 2 under development -- a large and diverse landscape with thermal outputs 3 that range from less than a megawatt to thousands of megawatts. It's a 4 slightly different grouping of the technologies compared to the working 5 groups that you heard from in the first panel this morning, and there are 6 other advanced reactor developers that are not shown here. The six 7 designs shown in red have responded to our regulatory information summary 8 request for information on potential applicants, and we expect to receive 9 more responses. Next slide, please.

10 As John described to you in the January Commission 11 meeting on the new reactor business line, we have developed a vision and 12 strategy for advanced reactor reviews. This includes near-term, mid-term, 13 and longer-term implementation action plans that will prepare us to efficiently 14 review advanced reactors in the mid-2020s, consistent with the Department 15 of Energy and Nuclear Energy Institute goals for 2030's deployment that you 16 heard from the previous panel. We are now implementing the 17 implementation action plans and continue to make progress, including in the 18 area of policy proposal, within the constraints of the available resources.

19 John, Steve, and Brian will discuss our progress in more detail. In addition 20 to what they will cover, I think it is worthwhile to note the use of the 21 dedicated core team concept for engagement with potential applicants. We 22 think that this organizational approach shows great promise. Next slide, 23 please.

24 As you know, we expect to receive applications for 25 advanced reactors within the next couple of years, which is well in advance 26 of the mid-2020s time frame that the implementation action plans were

57 1 developed around. To the extent that the maturity of a specific design and 2 market niche support early applications, we should be ready to perform 3 those reviews in as effective and efficient a manner as possible. As our 4 confidence increases in the specific timeline for near-term applications, we 5 will need to shape and prioritize some of the activities within the broad 6 technology-inclusive implementation action plans.

7 We believe that resolution of policy issues will be key to 8 the effective review of early applications, and that policy area will remain our 9 highest priority. For other areas, such as skills development and 10 computational code development, we will ensure that we are capable of 11 addressing the earlier applications prior to doing preparatory work for other 12 technologies. I expect to work with partner offices to develop 13 applicant-specific integrated program plans as soon as we have solid 14 application commitments and sufficient information to develop such plans.

15 The strategic workforce planning process gives us the structure to plan for 16 and meet our skills needs. The level of off-fee based budgetary support 17 that we received for advanced reactors in Fiscal Year 2018 increases our 18 ability to do both design-specific and technology-inclusive preparation.

19 Steady budgetary support will be very helpful to us in meeting the need 20 within both the near term and longer term.

21 With respect to the existing regulatory structures of 10 22 CFR Part 50 and Part 52, we believe that they offer flexibility, but not 23 necessarily efficiency. While we have said many times that we can review 24 advanced reactors using the existing regulations, we have also been clear 25 regarding the inefficiency associated with a large number of exemptions. If 26 the resources were available, particularly off-fee based resources, I believe

58 1 that revising our regulatory requirements to more clearly align with the wide 2 spectrum of potential technologies and uses in a risk-informed and 3 performance-based manner, would significantly increase our review 4 efficiency. It will also be important for us to incorporate the Commission's 5 direction to use risk-informed, design-specific review standards for small 6 modular reactors into our approach for advanced reactor reviews. Along 7 these lines, we have been closely engaged with the Transformation Team, 8 and we support the recommendations that you will see in the next few 9 weeks. Next slide, please. I will now turn the presentation over to John.

10 MR. MONNINGER: Thank you, Fred. And good 11 morning, Chairman and Commissioners. My remarks will focus on efforts to 12 improve our licensing readiness and identify potential policy issues. NRC's 13 regulatory framework is predominantly light water-centric, which presents 14 challenges for advanced reactors. As a result, we are addressing those 15 challenges and modifying our licensing framework to address the unique 16 attributes of advanced reactors. We are also focused on developing options 17 for the Commission on the resolution of policy issues to provide clarity and 18 predictability to advanced reactor designers to that they can make informed 19 and timely decisions. Next slide, please.

20 This slide illustrates the six strategies we are working on in 21 the near term to improve our regulatory framework. We are making 22 progress in all six strategies. My presentation will focus on strategy three, 23 entitled Flexible Review Processes, and strategy five entitled 24 Technology-Inclusive Policy Issues. Following my remarks, Steve Bajorek 25 will address strategies two and four. Brian Smith will discuss fuel cycle 26 considerations for advanced reactors, which supports strategies three and

59 1 five. We had originally categorized fuel cycle considerations as mid-term 2 issues to be addressed. However, due to stakeholder feedback, we have 3 accelerated our efforts in that regard. This reflects our flexibility in 4 addressing issues important to advanced reactor designers. Next slide, 5 please.

6 The NRC is proactively modernizing our regulatory 7 framework. Last December we issued guidance that describes NRC's 8 flexible, staged and predictable review processes, which support a wide 9 range in design, development, and deployment strategies. This got in -- to 10 assist both designers and applicants in the preparation of regulatory 11 engagement plans. Since the issuance, we've received positive feedback 12 on it, and we are now considering whether additional guidance is needed for 13 any of the specific processes within that document.

14 Earlier this month, as you heard today, we issued 15 Regulatory Guide 1.232 entitled Guidance for Developing Principal Design 16 Criteria for Non-Light Water Reactors. This -- this document describes how 17 the general design criteria in Appendix A to Part 50 could be adopted for 18 advanced reactors to develop principal design criteria. The Reg Guide also 19 provides guidance for two specific design concepts including sodium-cooled 20 fast reactors and modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors. Going 21 forward we are evaluating piloting this guidance to gather lessons learned.

22 Additionally, we are evaluating industry-proposed guidance on a 23 technology-inclusive, risk-informed, and performance-based approach.

24 Supporting that, we completed the review of four industry-wide papers 25 including one, the identification of licensing basis events; two, probabilistic 26 risk assessment approaches; three, the safety classification of structures,

60 1 systems and components; and four, defense in depth. Collectively, these 2 four white papers address critical aspects of designing and licensing any 3 nuclear power plant. Last month, industry submitted a consolidated draft 4 guidance document to the NRC for review and potential endorsement. As 5 the staff reviews this document, we will inform the Commission of any policy 6 issues that arise. Next slide, please.

7 We are also focused on identifying and providing 8 recommendations on policy issues. Resolution of policy issues in a timely 9 manner is important, as it allows reactor developers to optimize their design 10 to meet NRC's safety and security requirements. This slide lists three 11 examples of policy issues that the staff is currently evaluating. The first 12 issue involves emergency preparedness. In 2016 the Commission 13 approved the staff's rulemaking plan to modify the emergency preparedness 14 requirements. And the staff subsequently issued the regulatory basis last 15 November. The staff concluded in the regulatory basis that there is 16 sufficient justification to proceed with rulemaking, to develop a clear set of 17 rules and guidance for emergency preparedness based on the perceived 18 reduced risk of these facilities. We are evaluating using a scalable, 19 dose-based, and consequence-oriented approach to determine the 20 appropriate size of an emergency planning zone. We are on schedule to 21 provide the Commission with the proposed rulemaking package this fall.

22 The second issue involves consequence-based --

23 consequence-based physical security. In 2016 the industry submitted a 24 white paper on proposed physical security requirements for advanced 25 reactors. The paper proposes an approach to security that considers the 26 potential enhanced safety and security incorporated into advanced reactor

61 1 designs. We have evaluated that paper and are developing options and a 2 recommendation for the Commission's decision. We expect to provide that 3 paper to the Commission this year.

4 The third issue involves functional containment. The 5 containment building at a typical light water reactor serves many functions, 6 such as protecting safety-related systems, structures, and components from 7 external hazards such as tornadoes. In addition, it serves to confine 8 radioactive material following hypothetical accidents. Reactor developers 9 may develop other effective means to control the release of radioactive 10 material following an accident. As an example, a functional containment 11 consisting of multiple barriers, both internal and/or external to the reactor 12 and its cooling system, to control the release of radioactive material, has 13 been proposed for high-temperature gas reactors. We have developed a 14 draft way paper -- we have developed a draft paper discussing this issue and 15 engaged with external stakeholders over the past six months. We also brief 16 ACRS earlier this month and will provide the Commission with a paper later 17 this year. Overall, in addressing these various potential policy issues, the 18 staff is demonstrating that it is receptive to changing our traditional ways to 19 which safety and security has been achieved. Next slide, please.

20 The staff continues to identify and assess other issues that 21 may contain policy issues -- or policy matters. Listed here are two issues, 22 including siting and insurance that we are currently evaluating and engaging 23 with stakeholders. Regarding -- regarding siting, the staff provided the 24 Commission with several SECY papers over the years addressing source 25 term, accident dose calculations and siting for advanced reactors and small 26 modular reactors. Advanced reactor designers have indicated an interest in

62 1 increased flexibility for siting nuclear power plants. Assuming 2 demonstration of an enhanced level of safety and reduced accident 3 consequences, and advanced reactor could be sited with a reduced distance 4 to exclusionary boundaries and low-population zones, as well as increased 5 proximity to population centers. Last November we developed a draft white 6 paper summarizing our assessment of the current siting requirements, 7 Commission policy and staff guidance, and issued it to facilitate discussions 8 with external stakeholders. We will consider insights from these 9 discussions and determine whether clarification to siting guidance, or any 10 other actions, would be beneficial and report to the Commission on proposed 11 actions, if any. In accordance with the Price-Anderson Act, the NRC will 12 prepare a Commission SECY paper and supporting report to Congress 13 recommending the need for continuation or modification of any of the 14 provisions of the Price-Anderson Act by December 2021. Any changes that 15 may be needed for advanced reactors would be addressed by the staff in 16 that paper. We will continue to raise policy issues to the Commission early 17 for awareness and resolution, including any technology-specific policy 18 issues. I will turn the presentation over to Steve. Next slide, please.

19 MR. BAJOREK: Thank you, John. And good morning. I 20 am Steve Bajorek from the Office of Research and I appreciate the 21 opportunity to brief you on our technical readiness activities. As John 22 stated, we have been working on six strategies to prepare for non-LWRs.

23 The Office of Research is most involved in strategies two and four, which are 24 directed at the development of an analysis capability for non-LWRs, 25 obtaining the experimental information needed for code assessment, and the 26 evaluation of material performance. Next slide, please.

63 1 Because most of our experience has been with light water 2 reactors, a major activity in 2017 has been the familiarization with non-LWR 3 designs and issues affecting modeling and simulation of accidents 4 scenarios. Several staff have received training in molten salt reactors, 5 which is probably the technology we are the least familiar with. And we 6 have attended several workshops held by the DOE technology working 7 groups in order to better understand those design types.

8 The NRC codes for accident analysis have been 9 developed primarily for light water reactors. So we have worked to obtain 10 access to several codes developed by DOE, and are currently evaluating 11 those codes for our use in non-LWR confirmatory analysis. The NRC codes 12 do, in fact, have some non-LWR capabilities. Our international code 13 development of activities have provided us with some of those necessary 14 code improvements for non-LWRS, and we are reviewing those 15 contributions. With our initial considerations of the DOE codes and existing 16 NRC capabilities, we are now trying to identify the technical gaps in code 17 capability, verification and validation, and in materials behavior the future 18 work must address. Next slide, please.

19 Selection of analysis codes for additional development and 20 application to non-LWRs inherently involves five questions. First, does the 21 code contain the correct physics and can it model the various design 22 features we expect to encounter? That is, can the code model the 23 phenomena associated with alternative coolants, a fast neutron spectrum, or 24 a reactor cavity cooling system, for example? Second, as I mentioned on 25 the previous slide, we are considering alternative approaches. If an NRC 26 code is not well-suited for an application, can we use a DOE, commercial or

64 1 international analysis code instead? Can we reduce costs by using a 2 non-NRC code, keeping in mind that becoming expert in use of a non-NRC 3 tool also incurs its own costs?

4 Third, if we use non-NRC codes, can we -- or must we 5 maintain independence, especially if an applicant chooses to use those 6 same codes? Fourth, how can we make best use of limited staff and 7 budget? There are a limited number of staff skilled at using these complex 8 tools. Having codes that can be used for multiple design types can 9 enhance the efficient use of NRC resources. And finally, how extensive is 10 the existing code verification and validation, V&V, also called code 11 assessment? We know there remains much V&V to do. However, starting 12 from a code that has experience with a particular design is a significant time 13 saver. Next slide, please.

14 Following our initial review of DOE and NRC codes, we are 15 proposing to use the set of codes shown in this figure for non-LWR modeling 16 and simulation. The phenomena and accident scenarios are expected to 17 require a multi-physics coupling of codes because of the feedback between 18 thermal fluids, neutronics, and fuel performance. One tool developed by 19 DOE, called MOOSE, appears to be well suited to perform this coupling.

20 Several other DOE codes already work with this so-called MOOSE 21 environment to efficiently pass information from one code to the other. We 22 have coupled the NRC's TRACE code so that it can be used interoperably 23 with these other DOE codes. I will not go into the details and description of 24 the individual analysis codes. Some are NRC codes and some are DOE 25 codes. The DOE codes shown here have capabilities needed for pebble 26 bed gas-cooled reactors, TRISO fuel, sodium and liquid metal reactors that

65 1 may be difficult to add to our codes. The codes in this figure cover the 2 technical disciplines of fuel performance, thermal hydraulics, neutronics, and 3 computational fluid dynamics. There are some duplicative capabilities at 4 this point to allow us flexibility and options in the case of development 5 problems. We have signed Memoranda of Understanding with DOE to 6 obtain access and assistance to use and develop these codes, and have 7 started to work with the DOE code experts to identify issues and resolve 8 problems. Next slide, please.

9 Now, there are a number of challenges to development of 10 a common tool set for non-LWRs. First, because of the large number of 11 designs, it is difficult to make significant progress in any one particular 12 design. We are confident, however, that we can refocus efforts to meet the 13 licensing schedules of any of the near-term applications. There are 14 numerous technical issues for which experimental data -- vital data -- does 15 not yet exist. For some molten salts basic properties like viscosity or 16 thermal conductivity are not known to sufficient accuracy. Behavior or 17 materials -- creep, corrosion rate -- at the high temperatures expected in 18 these designs is not known. And these are just a couple of examples.

19 The DOE codes are promising. However, there are 20 significant challenges. DOE and NRC develop codes for different purposes.

21 In general, the DOE codes model a system with a high amount of detail to 22 examine normal operation. This enhances economics and is very important 23 to industry. The NRC, on the other hand, develops codes to simulate 24 transients and accident scenarios that drive a system to its extreme limits.

25 The DOE codes execute on high-performance computing systems, 26 sometimes with tens, hundreds of thousands of computer cores, CPUs.

66 1 The NRC does not have such a high-performance computing system.

2 Currently, we cannot remotely access the DOE computers because of NRC 3 security restrictions. But we are working on a solution. Next slide, please.

4 Industrial codes and standards refer to specifications and 5 recommended practices that are used in all aspects of construction, 6 fabrication, manufacturing, and inspection. Of particular interest for 7 non-LWRs is that of high-temperature materials performance. Many of the 8 non-LWR designs propose to operate at high temperatures, 500 degrees C 9 or higher. Our initial work has found there to be limited high-temperature 10 creep data for structural alloys at these high temperatures, and limited data 11 for irradiation performance. Conventional industrial standards are not 12 necessarily applicable to these new designs.

13 To prepare the agency for non-LWR review, staff has been 14 active participants on several ANS and ASME committees and expert 15 working groups. This includes the ASME Committee for High-Temperature 16 Materials and groups developing consensus safety standards. Next slide, 17 please.

18 We intend to continue to work with DOE to ensure the 19 DOE and NRC codes can be smoothly and efficiently coupled so that a 20 multi-physics code environment is attained. We will continue our 21 participation at ASME and ANS codes and standards activities. We expect 22 this to assist our reviews of high-temperature materials for non-LWRs. And 23 of course, we will adjust our priorities to meet the licensing schedules and 24 needs of potential applicants. Thank you for your attention. Our next 25 speaker is Brian Smith from NMSS. Next slide, please.

26 MR. SMITH: Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners.

67 1 My division has the lead for integrating NMSS expertise into the NRC's 2 efforts to plan for and conduct regulatory reviews of advanced reactors with 3 emphasis on the advanced reactor fuel cycles, transportation, and waste 4 management activities. Next slide, please. NMSS is an active member of 5 the Advanced Reactors Core Team, and staff have participated in meetings 6 with several reactor developers. We have focused on understanding the 7 fuel cycle and waste management system necessary for each of the reactor 8 designs. The meetings with the reactor developers to date have focused 9 primarily on the reactor designs. However, there is some, but limited, 10 information including fuel material preparation, fuel fabrication, nuclear 11 material transportation, and post-irradiation fuel management, which can be 12 either processing or storage.

13 We have also supported NRO in its periodic advanced 14 reactor stakeholder meetings with the industry and the Department of 15 Energy, and assisted in updating the policy issues table it has used to 16 support these meetings. We also presented during the advanced reactor 17 setting at the Regulatory Information Conference. To further knowledge in 18 the advanced reactor designs, staff have also participated in molten salt 19 reactor training provided by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We were 20 also involved with reviewing NEI's white paper entitled "Addressing the 21 Challenges with Establishing the Infrastructure for the front-end of the fuel 22 cycle for advanced reactors. This paper identified a number of issues that 23 need resolution in both the regulatory and industrial arenas. I will discuss 24 several of these issues later in my presentation. Next slide, please.

25 The staff has examined the current regulatory framework 26 and, working with limited information on advanced reactor fuel cycles, made

68 1 the preliminary assessment of its flexibility to accommodate the fuel cycle 2 and waste management systems of advanced reactors. The current 3 regulatory system includes 10 CFR Parts 70, 71 and 72. Part 70 addresses 4 the domestic licensing of the possession and use of special nuclear material, 5 including requirements for an integrated safety analysis. These regulations 6 possess sufficient flexibility to address many different types of processes 7 and has been used to license multiple types of facilities, including 8 enrichment, low and high enriched fuel fabrication, and mixed oxide fuel 9 fabrication. It is also being used most recently in the construction permit 10 applications for the molybdenum-99 medical isotope production facilities.

11 Part 71 addresses the packaging and transportation of 12 radioactive material. Many different types of packages have been approved 13 under these regulations, including Type B uranium hexafluoride, fresh 14 reactor fuel and spent fuel. Part 72 addresses the licensing requirements 15 for the independent storage of spent nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive 16 waste, and reactor-related greater than Class C waste. Many different 17 storage system designs have been approved and are use -- using these 18 requirements. Overall, this regulatory framework appears to have adequate 19 flexibility for solid fuel reactors operating on a once-through fuel cycle, such 20 as for the current light water reactors or certain advanced reactor designs 21 using solid fuel.

22 Regulatory guidance may need to be developed to 23 address specific hazards that might be part of an advanced reactor fuel 24 cycle. Examples include processing fuel with new hazards, such as metal 25 fuel, use of special nuclear material of moderate strategic significance, or 26 Category 2 materials, which in this case are those with higher enrichments

69 1 ranging from 10 to 20 percent. These will impact safety, material control 2 and accounting and physical security. Handling, transporting and storing 3 fuels with these higher enrichments and long-term degradation processes for 4 storage of fuels other than zirconium clad uranium dioxide.

5 Some of the advanced reactor design utilize fluid fuel, or 6 pebbles that move in and out of the reactor. Current material control and 7 accounting requirements for power reactors were formulated based on the 8 current fleet of reactors with solid fuel. The staff will need to evaluate the 9 adequacy of these requirements for these types of advanced reactors. In 10 addition, irradiated material processing at the reactor site is possible with 11 some advanced reactor concepts, particularly, some of the molten salt 12 reactors. The scale and nature of irradiated material processing for these 13 designs is not fully defined by the vendors at this time. The staff will need to 14 further evaluate the licensing implications of irradiated material processing 15 as these reactor designs are more fully developed. Next slide, please.

16 As I mentioned previously, the NEI white paper on the 17 front-end fuel cycle infrastructure identified issues requiring consideration 18 that focused on just the processes of producing and transporting the fresh 19 fuel. The staff has identified some additional areas for consideration, 20 including use and storage of the fuel. I have grouped the issues by those 21 needed to be addressed by the industry and the staff. I will address the 22 staff issues on the next slide.

23 Although not policy challenges, there are some issues the 24 industry would need to address to facilitate the production of fuel for 25 advanced reactors, many of which plan to use high-assay low-enriched 26 uranium, or LEU. High-assay LEU is considered to include enrichments

70 1 from 10 to 20 percent. Louisiana Energy Services is the only domestic 2 enricher is not currently licensed to produce this level of enrichment, but 3 could request a license amendment to do so. Similarly, the existing fuel 4 fabrication facilities also need to request a license amendment to possess 5 and use uranium at these enrichment levels. Alternatively, new enrichment 6 or fuel fabrication facilities could be licensed and built. Regulations allow for 7 the licensing of uranium enrichment facilities to produce these higher assay 8 materials, and fuel fabricators to manufacture fuels using higher assay 9 materials.

10 Transportation packages for high-assay LEU in the form of 11 uranium hexafluoride do not currently exist in an economical form. The 12 current cylinders are just too small. This is the form that uranium enrichers 13 produce and ship to fuel fabricators. Similarly, new transportation packages 14 for this type of fresh reactor fuel would also need to be developed and 15 certified. Criticality benchmarks are used in the verification of criticality 16 safety computer codes. There is currently a lack of these benchmarks for 17 uranium enrichments in the high-assay LEU levels. Without these 18 benchmarks, additional conservatism has to be added to assure there would 19 be no inadvertent criticality. The additional conservatism could impact the 20 design of the transportation packages, and the facilities producing and using 21 the high-assay LEU. This could result in smaller packages and smaller 22 processing equipment, resulting in less through-put through plant systems.

23 Next slide, please.

24 From the regulatory perspective, the NRC staff has 25 identified several areas that warrant further consideration. The staff is 26 currently in the process of amending the regulations in Part 74 regarding

71 1 nuclear material control and accounting requirements for facilities that 2 produce or use special nuclear material, including high-assay LEU.

3 However, these amended regulations would only include requirements for 4 enrichments plants that produce up to 10-percent enrichment.

5 Requirements for enrichment plants that would produce high-assay LEU 6 could be established through rulemaking, issuance of an order or through 7 license Commissions. Current material control and accounting regulations 8 for fuel fabrication facilities processing high-assay LEU are sufficient.

9 However no guidance has been published. But it is planned to be issued 10 with the revised Part 74.

11 Physical protection requirements for licensees possessing 12 high-assay LEU exist in Part 73, but have not been revised to address the 13 increased terrorist threat after the events of 9-11. These requirements 14 could be established through rulemaking, issuance of orders or through 15 license conditions, as is currently being planned for licensees who produce 16 moly-99 medical isotopes. As I discussed previously, the staff will need to 17 evaluate the adequacy of current material control and accounting 18 requirements for advanced reactors with liquid fuel, such as molten salt 19 reactors. The staff will also need to closely follow the development of these 20 reactors, as their considerations for irradiated material processing evolves.

21 The staff will continue to evaluate these areas and will submit policy issues, 22 such as the potential need for rulemakings, to the Commission in a timely 23 manner. Next slide, please.

24 NMSS will continue to be an active participant in meetings 25 with technology developers and future applicants. We will also support 26 pre-application meetings, and, as appropriate, visit applicants' facilities to

72 1 gain a better understanding of the details of a facility or a process. We 2 recently made such a visit to the X-Energy pilot fuel fabrication facility. Our 3 participation in the advanced reactor discussions has allowed us to identify 4 actions the industry can take that will more clearly identify specific regulatory 5 review issues for advanced reactor fuel cycle and waste management 6 systems.

7 The first thing the advanced reactor designers can do is to 8 develop their fuel cycle technology and waste management designs in 9 parallel with their reactor designs. Early development in these areas and 10 interaction with the staff can help identify information that might be required 11 to support the licensing reviews. This is especially important if new fuel 12 facilities will need to be licensed and built. The designers should also 13 develop and submit regulatory strategy and engagement plans. Early staff 14 understanding of the applicant's proposed regulatory strategy allows the staff 15 to identify and discuss any difficulties associated with the proposed 16 approach. Early identification of the timing of the regulatory interactions 17 allows the staff to make sure that resources are available for efficient 18 interaction. Such interaction also facilitates identification of all the issues 19 that need to be addressed in the fuel cycle transportation and waste 20 management regulatory reviews.

21 As the advanced reactor designs mature and move 22 through the certification process, NMSS will continue to work to identify 23 specific technical issues associated with the fuel that will have to be 24 addressed for specific applications, and will develop guidance as necessary 25 to address any unique issues. The longer-term accident tolerant fuel 26 designs share some similar industry and regulatory issues with the ones

73 1 previously discussed, so the lessons learned from those activities can inform 2 how best to address these issues. Thank you, and with that, I will turn it 3 back over to Vic.

4 MR. McCREE: Thank you, Brian. In closing, I want to 5 again acknowledge the productive feedback and constructive interactions we 6 are having with our stakeholders, both domestically and internationally.

7 They've been of great assistance as we move forward. As you are aware, 8 we continue to be in a period of change, as noted today, and we have 9 already implemented a number of progressive transformational changes and 10 are considering others. Our primary objective will continue to be to ensure 11 that the design, construction, and operation of advanced non-light water 12 reactors provide for the safe and secure use of nuclear materials. So with 13 that, we welcome any comments or questions that you may have.

14 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Well, thank you to all of the 15 panelists for their presentations and all of the NRC staff who are working on 16 the activities you described today. I once again will begin with 17 Commissioner Burns.

18 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Thank you again for the 19 presentations. Obviously there is a broad spectrum of work that's being 20 done in this area and needs to address both licensing standards 21 development, research and -- you know, the front-end of the fuel cycle as 22 well. I am going to start -- going to cover -- try to cover a few areas. I think 23 in -- actually, it was in Fred's presentation -- said -- you said this, with 24 respect to the existing regulatory structures of 10 CFR Part 50 and 52, we 25 believe they offer flexibility, but not necessarily efficiency. And what I want 26 to go to on that question -- there are two aspects when -- and we talk

74 1 generally about licensing framework. One is how you do it. That's 2 process. And what is you're trying to do? Those are the standards. So, 3 how would you characterize where -- your state -- that statement, would you 4 say that that's a process issue as I've described it? Or really about the 5 standards and acceptability aspects of it?

6 MR. BROWN: Great question, sir. And I think it's a little 7 bit of both, if I understood correctly. And so, in the -- in the standards 8 clearly we've made progress with the advanced reactor design criteria for 9 Appendix A to have a process to work through in early models, generic to 10 high-temperature gas reactors and SMRs. But the actual execution of those 11 is still in front of us.

12 And I -- and my -- and the how actually ties to some of the 13 recent experience we've had with NuScale and the small-module or light 14 water reactor. So, my view, I believe, is colored by the experience in 15 attempting to work through Part 52 and some of the Part 50 reviews with the 16 non-light water -- with the light water, the non-advanced reactors that we 17 regularly find ourselves where we believe we can do something from a 18 safety and security perspective that makes sense and it would be 19 appropriate, and yet we are jumping through hoops to get there 20 process-wise, and we're challenging ourselves for practical application of the 21 safety case.

22 And so, to the extent that we have an opportunity and the 23 funding to go back and re-examine those rules, I think applying the lessons 24 and then tabletops of working through potential non-light water reactors 25 should give us insights that will allow us to increase efficiency.

26 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay, and going back, again

75 1 process-wise, if we look historically, we had -- we had a two-step licensing 2 process, which got challenged. One of the few cases involving nuclear 3 energy has reached the level of the Supreme Court, and actually challenged 4 as a way of doing it. The court sustained it. We come -- we come into the 5 1980s, again I emphasize, as a reform post-TMI -- as a way of reforming 6 licensing process after Three Mile Island to -- also to enhance 7 standardization. We move to Part 52, which we now are -- as you well 8 know, we are actually fully implementing for the first time, 25-plus years 9 afterward with respect to -- as we get to the ITAAC process.

10 So, one of the things I think we see we've done -- which, I 11 think is good -- in my discussion with various -- those who are potentially 12 interested in this, there is a choice there. And actually, the -- the good old 13 way, the Part 50 choice, may well be the one we go down. But the other 14 thing we've had held up -- and I think, to us -- is the design -- some of the 15 design-type reviews held another -- or processed through in other countries, 16 particularly in Canada and the United Kingdom. While I think those 17 examples are useful, I think they're limited. They're of limited value in some 18 respects. But, what it comes back to -- and what I have also heard is, we --

19 it's -- it's sort of in there if you look at -- and I don't mean to denigrate Part 20 52, but in Part 52, even the 50 process, in terms of sort of -- what we -- what 21 people are looking for is more of a staged review, or in effect, the nod that 22 yes, that looks like okay. We're not giving you a license for that, but it looks 23 like it's getting there.

24 One of the things, I think -- I've heard a critique on is 25 greater transparency in what that nod is. What it looks like. Because we 26 have things like the standard design approval, but topical reports other

76 1 things. What is the staff doing to give a greater transparency to that?

2 Because I think that is where there's a valuable lesson from the Canadian 3 and the U.K. experience. John, you want to talk to that?

4 MR. MONNINGER: So with regards to the regulatory 5 review framework, you mentioned the various flexible stage review 6 processes. So we've had several discussions with external stakeholders, 7 and we've -- we've asked them, you know, are there specific processes you 8 would like additional guidance? For example, the SDA process. You 9 know, do you want us to work through a tabletop on SDA? Do we need a 10 separate guidance document on that? So we're still in those discussions 11 now to determine, from the overall framework described in the multitude of 12 processes, let's drill down another level, is there additional guidance needed 13 in any of those specific areas that you -- you know, that they would like?

14 MR. BROWN: And if I could add on, so, specifically I think 15 the standard design approval is a very powerful tool because it allows us to 16 look at a significant portion of a design rather than the entirety of the design.

17 As we execute Part 50, though, we find that Part -- excuse me, Part 52.

18 Part 52 not only changed the traditional two-part licensing approach, but in 19 the area of design certs, it was intended to derive standardization.

20 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes, absolutely.

21 MR. BROWN: And so the essentially complete design to 22 have the finality of a design cert is powerful for where we were in 23 19-fill-in-the-blank when we had that experience. I don't feel that's where 24 we are at today. So it's in no way intended to be an aspersion at either the 25 regulatory structure or our ability to use it, but I do find on a regular basis 26 that Margie's staff and my staff are working hand-in-hand trying to be as

77 1 efficient as possible with a regulatory structure that was optimized for 2 standardization at a time when -- when we're not -- I wouldn't say we're 3 ready to try to standardize for SMRs or non-light water reactors.

4 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay, good. Let me change 5 subjects. I am going to actually go to one, maybe from out in left field. I 6 am going to Price-Anderson. So, as I recall, it's been about 20 years. I 7 won't be around when you all have to deal with the Price-Anderson review.

8 But I remember having to do this congressional report, I think in the late 9 1990s or early 2000s. But you mentioned that, John, and I want -- maybe 10 get a little more granularity about what you're looking at in that regard with --

11 why is the advanced reactor developments -- why is that a potential issue 12 within the context of that Price-Anderson report that we're obligated to 13 develop?

14 MR. MONNINGER: Yes. So, over the years be it, you 15 know, SMRs, advanced reactors, et cetera, the staff has put together lists of 16 policy issues or lists of potential policy issues. And this is one of the issues 17 that is out there from the previous Commission papers.

18 COMMISSIONER BURNS: It was, like, the 2010 paper, I 19 think.

20 MR. MONNINGER: 2010 paper. And the issue there is 21 -- there for the level 2 in -- of insurance or liability provided out there, the 22 regulations have a power limit exclusion for power sizes greater than X, or 23 lesser. So the question was, you know -- you know, is -- does that decision 24 still stand? Is there anything unique with regards to advanced reactors that 25 the staff is aware of and we should raise to the Commission's decision with 26 regards to that level 2 of it and that power cut-off?

78 1 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay. Okay, and one of the 2 things I would encourage you to -- in that regard, is one of the things that is 3 different is that we are now, as a country, a member of an international 4 convention on liability, the Convention on Supplementary Compensation. I 5 don't know that that does it, but certainly -- Id also talked to DOE on that.

6 But I would probably also suggest looking at the other two -- well, how many 7 -- you can count a number of -- two to three other conventions -- because, 8 under things like the Paris Convention and the Vienna Conventions related 9 to liability, smaller facilities are -- can wind up being treated potentially 10 differently. And it's sort of -- it's a similar case. So I would just do that.

11 My last question, in terms of the international research --

12 and I think, Steve, or others can speak to it -- to what -- what other 13 international research are we looking at? And obviously, we -- we are within 14 the U.S., you know, DOE's research capabilities -- some of the other -- what 15 other sources are we looking at that are of value to us?

16 MR. BAJOREK: Thank you, that's a good question 17 because, actually if you look at the research activities in a lot of these 18 reactors, there's been more of that going on overseas over the last 10, 15 19 years than there has been in the U.S. We have a couple of activities that 20 we're participating in. One is through one of the Nuclear Energy Agency 21 working groups where we are meeting with the other regulators and we're 22 focusing our attention on the gas-cooled, the sodium fast and the molten salt 23 reactors. Looking at how other regulators have been dealing with those.

24 Looking at the database that they've been using as part of their regulations 25 and how they've been -- they've been approaching it. A lot of that comes 26 through the Gen-4 project. The other has been limited participation we've

79 1 had with Department of Energy. It's a group called the Expert Group on 2 Multi-Physics Experimentation, Validation and Benchmarks.

3 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Don't ask me to repeat that.

4 MR. BAJOREK: It might win you money on Jeopardy!

5 some day if you remember all of that. But what they're doing is setting up 6 data banks where all of the -- the nations that have collected data that's 7 important to advanced reactors are making their contribution to that. And 8 that's going to be a way that we may be able to gain access to data to -- for 9 some of the -- the Russian tests that have been run.

10 There's a couple -- some criticality work that's important for 11 pebble bed, for example. They would put that into the data bank and we 12 would put in some of the data that we've taken in this country, and then 13 everyone is going to be able to share that. So we're -- we're paying 14 attention to it and as part of our internal task, we're trying to right now look at 15 those technical gaps and identify, of that existing information, what is going 16 to be most valuable to the pre-applicants that we expect to look at?

17 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay. And just to clarify, on 18 the Generation-4 Forum, we're sort of indirect, right? Because, I mean, I 19 used to provide legal counsel to them. So, it was -- and John Kelly from 20 DOE was -- was there. So -- but we have some access -- was -- is that part 21 of our cooperation with DOE and -- in terms of being able to get some 22 information through?

23 MR. BAJOREK: We get a little bit of information. In fact, 24 John Kelly was at one of the recent working group meetings.

25 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay.

26 MR. BAJOREK: And presented their activities, so we're

80 1 using that to become more aware with the picture, correct. Our -- we 2 haven't had direct participants in the Gen-4 project.

3 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes, thank you very much.

4 Thank you, Chairman.

5 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Well, thank you again for your 6 presentations. I in preparation for the meeting was reviewing -- I have not 7 taken up before the Regulatory Review Roadmap for Non-light Water 8 Reactors that, again, after I think receiving some comment the NRC staff 9 published this in a, quote unquote, final form -- I am sure it will be an 10 evolving document -- in December of 2017. But to the question about -- and 11 I have pondered this myself, but Commissioner Burns was asking about 12 what does a head nod or a wink, you know, precisely mean if it's not an 13 approval? I found very interesting the discussion. The staff has defined 14 different possible outcomes from regulatory interactions like, you can receive 15 initial feedback from NRC. You can get a conditional staff finding. You can 16 get a conclusive NRC staff finding and you can get a final agency position.

17 I felt -- I am not in the technology development community, 18 but I thought as a whole this roadmap was a -- would have to be valuable, I 19 would think, to technology developers who have not been engaging us in 20 light water -- large light water reactor space -- to just get some of these 21 foundational concepts out there, get them defined. And so, I am sure, like 22 most things in life, it's not perfect and will undergo further evolution. And 23 then we'll get questions about it and we can add, you know, clarifications as 24 we move forward. But I -- I thought that was helpful. I had often pondered, 25 short of a final agency position, what is the value or meaning of other 26 feedback from NRC experts? And I thought this attempted to put some

81 1 framework around it that was helpful.

2 Couple of other comments. Fred, I appreciate your 3 acknowledgment of the promise of the core team concept. I think what 4 strikes me is that with the diversity of technology and fuel types, the notion 5 that we can continue to maintain a model, which I know we favor at NRC, 6 which is as work comes in, we assign experts and it's very fluid and 7 someone could be working on this on Tuesday and something else on 8 Thursday. Well, the core team concept brings for us is that we cannot do 9 the fundamental reeducation of people on the technology on Tuesday versus 10 Thursday. So we kind of need the same person to work it on Tuesday and 11 Thursday. And I think until there's an overall increase in our knowledge 12 base, I think we're going to have to do this. And it limits some of our 13 workforce flexibility that we value for other reasons. But I appreciate that 14 we're acknowledging that here.

15 Also, Fred, you mentioned -- and Commissioner Burns was 16 asking you -- about this notion of we can do this, but it won't be efficient.

17 Boy, that has a lot of parallels with our work in the decommissioning area, 18 doesn't it? There, we have elected to undertake a rulemaking which, while 19 it may not benefit some of the reactors or licensees entering 20 decommissioning of current reactors now, it would be in place for future.

21 And there's always that question, if you never do it -- because you're always 22 waiting, you know, it will never be in place to be of -- a benefit in the future.

23 What's different here, though, is that -- or, what would be more challenging 24 here about a risk-informed, performance-based framework is this diversity of 25 technology. So, it makes it challenging, but it doesn't make it impossible.

26 The reactors entering decommissioning encounter a lot more homogeneity

82 1 of issues that allows us, I think, to more readily put in place something 2 generic that, again, one of our objectives there is to be more efficient about 3 it. This poses a few additional conundrums, but I -- I think the parallel 4 exists, nonetheless.

5 I appreciate, Steve, your presentation on kind of code 6 coupling -- if that's the right term -- because it is the visual depiction, your 7 slide was, of how is it that we bridge between the unique needs of the part of 8 the modeling that we're most interested in -- which is the kind of severe 9 accident or systems under stress, versus operators tend to want to have 10 greater fidelity on normal operating conditions. And you talked about suite 11 of codes, both vendor, DOE and our codes and how we can couple. I am 12 sure that it's an elegant graph, but I am sure we'll encounter some hiccups 13 along the way. But I appreciate you mentioning that. I would ask you, 14 because you touched on standards. And you mentioned having NRC 15 participation in standards setting and standards development. That's not 16 the end of the story, though, is it? I mean, did the presence of a staff expert 17 on a committee -- a code committee -- is not -- or standards committee is not 18 the be-all and end-all. Could you talk a little bit more about what needs to 19 be done for NRC to truly accept the outcome of a standards that's set?

20 MR. BAJOREK: Well, I will try to address that. Although, 21 that's not my -- my main area. I am more the -- the code guy and the 22 thermal hydraulics. But I think what there's -- there's two areas that are very 23 important. One has been that ASME Section 3 for the -- the high 24 temperature materials. We want to try to make sure that we're in agreement 25 with the standards that they're going to set -- that they have a sufficient 26 database to cover the physical phenomena and concerns that we're going to

83 1 have when we want to try to have outlet temperatures of 600, 700, 800 2 degrees C. It's well above, more or less, 450 or 500 degrees. And we 3 want to make sure that that database is there. And that if we go ahead and 4 accept what that standard is, it's consistent with the ASME boiler and 5 pressure vessel code. And, you know, it covers the types of things that 6 we're going to see in these new applications.

7 Some of the others is coming up with the -- the safety 8 standards for each one of these technologies -- the sodium fast, the molten 9 salts, the -- the gas-cooled reactors. And we're hoping to participate on 10 those in sufficient amount of detail that we'll be able to take consensus and 11 agree to it and adopt that at the NRC.

12 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: To return to an area that is more 13 familiar to you -- on the codes and the code integration and code coupling, 14 you made a comment that the high-performance computing environments at 15 DOE are not accessible to NRC experts because of either our security 16 requirements, or theirs -- or maybe a combination of the handoff of the 17 various security requirements. That sounds solvable to me, and I know that 18 the government model is that, you know, not every agency needs to have 19 individual high-performing platforms, but we should be able to be users on 20 the platforms of others. What is the staff's plan to move forward and resolve 21 that?

22 MR. BAJOREK: I'd say it's sort of three -- three-pronged 23 effort right now. One, we are working with our security protocol in order to 24 try to find a way that we can access those computers directly from 25 headquarters. We can actually do that, but people have to go home and 26 telework, okay? There are secure tunnels by which we can get into the --

84 1 the DOE computers. We're just not equipped right now to do that. But my 2 understanding is they're nearing a resolution on that.

3 The other way of addressing that computational need is to 4 do things more on what they call the cloud, where the computing resources 5 are there. Okay, that's -- you get the same equivalent computing capacity, 6 but you would be purchasing it from the cloud as opposed to accessing it 7 from the DOE computers. The other -- and this might be the best in the 8 long run -- is to realize that we aren't going to have to model the fidelity that 9 they do for some of the -- the DOE work. We don't need to model every 10 single pin. We tend to focus on the hottest assembly, the hottest rod, the 11 hottest point in the reactor -- that type of thing. We can be less detailed.

12 And when you do that, it's point towards a direction where I 13 don't need to have tens of thousands of CPUs to address that, but now we're 14 getting back to several dozen -- maybe 100. And that's a little bit more 15 right-sized for the type of systems that we do have access to, or could grow 16 into the NRC. So we are looking at each of those -- those three, and I think 17 maybe a year from now we'll be able to -- to have a better approach forward.

18 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay, thank you. Brian, turning 19 to your area for a moment -- and we heard a little bit about this on the 20 external panel. It has to do with how do we pace all of these moving pieces, 21 but one of which is, oh, this sounds like a bad pun, but it's transportation and 22 packaging as one of the moving pieces there. I know that this was 23 manifested in a very real way for the staff as we looked at lead test assembly 24 insertion. And I know this goes back to our previous meeting on 25 accident-tolerant fuels. But, just getting materials to a location where they 26 can be irradiated and then subsequently examined is again, one of many

85 1 long poles in the tent that seem to be -- we seem to be coming up against.

2 Is there anything that NMSS is undertaken in this area just to bring forward 3 kind of a contemporary pacing of the things that will allow materials to be 4 moved from one location to another? Or is it -- is it simply premature right 5 now for NMSS to be -- oh, and we have someone coming to the microphone.

6 Okay, please identify yourself and respond.

7 MR. LAYTON: Yes, good morning. I am Michael Layton.

8 I am the division director for the Division of Spent Fuel Management.

9 Transportation packages and storage packages are -- or, storage systems 10 are under my division. And it's a very good question, particularly in regards 11 to how things proceeded with the accident-tolerant fuel review. One thing 12 that I would like to echo is what Brian said in his remarks, is that the 13 regulations both for storage and transportation can accommodate what --

14 things that we're seeing in the future for advanced reactors and fuels.

15 What I would comment on from the standpoint of us 16 looking back on what things that we can focus on, particularly with getting 17 new designs or new fuels or things like that that have to be addressed within 18 the regulatory framework -- much of what I would see as an opportunity is to 19 have much more early outreach with industry and with fuel developers to 20 understand what exactly they're bringing forward and how to focus the type 21 of information that's going to be necessary for us to incorporate the -- the 22 information into the reviews. That's very much what we've looked at thus 23 far.

24 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay. You know, on that point, 25 Fred was talking about the benefits of having core teams. Have we had 26 NMSS expertise on the teams? Or could we add that as we think issues

86 1 are going to show up?

2 MR. BROWN: Yes, as Brian said, we have had 3 participation from the front end, not necessarily transportation, but that is 4 something we need to do. And I mentioned the idea of an Integrated 5 Program Plan that would pull together the applicant-prepared design-specific 6 regulatory engagement plans. As they develop what their model is we 7 would engage with them early to make sure they thought through what they 8 need.

9 Some applicants may well need the fuel to be enriched in 10 this country, built in this -- made and fabricated in this country, transported in 11 this country before it ever gets into a reactor. Others might have a slightly 12 different business model and it would be incumbent on us to sit down, 13 engage with them, and lay out a Fully-Integrated Agency-Wide Program Plan 14 for what their needs are so we make sure we don't miss anything and we've 15 engaged in a timely way as early as possible. So very long-winded way to 16 say yes, you are correct. We need to broaden our core team.

17 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Victor, did you want to say 18 something?

19 MR. McCREE: The only thing -- so again, Chairman, 20 great question. It's a conversation that Fred, Mike and Dan and I have had 21 in recent weeks actually leading up to the accident-tolerant fuel briefing in 22 recognition that this is an agency-level opportunity and that the need for, as 23 Fred alluded to, an Integrated Program Plan perhaps slaved to each design 24 and resourced and strategized to achieve success is the right approach.

25 So we're on the front end of -- the vision is clear. Now 26 we've got to build a strategy that would produce such artifacts that would

87 1 guide our development and resource allocation associated with it.

2 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay. Thank you for that.

3 Commissioner Baran?

4 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thanks.

5 Well, thank you all for your presentations and for all the 6 hard work that's gone into the regulatory framework for advanced reactors 7 so far. I think you've accomplished a lot in a short period of time.

8 I'm going to start by asking about our preparations for 9 near-term license applications. The fiscal year 2019 budget request 10 includes funding to begin reviewing one advanced reactor application.

11 Putting aside who that applicant is likely to be, what work specific to an 12 application would need to be done to be ready to begin a review in 2019 or 13 2020?

14 MR. MONNINGER: Yes. So this John Monninger. So 15 it's a good question.

16 So with regard to an application we would have to know 17 the application. Of course you have to make sure that your staff is trained 18 and qualified in the area. We'd have to, working with our counterparts in the 19 Office of Research, make sure we have the appropriate codes to model that, 20 make sure that there is either sufficient data coming in from the applicant or 21 one way or the other that the NRC could receive the data to be able to be 22 used in that licensing review.

23 So regardless of the particular design there are steps that are generic that 24 we would need to do internally for our staff.

25 On a broader level a lot of the issues out there, the policy 26 resolution issues are needed for the near-term applicants. The ARDCs

88 1 which have been issued out there, they're very important for the near-term 2 -- for potential near-term applicants. In addition, the Licensing 3 Modernization Program that's going in -- going on, we would expect that 4 would potentially be used also. So there are some generic activities that 5 would be very beneficial to any near-term applicant, plus there's activities 6 that we would need to do to prepare our staff.

7 COMMISSIONER BARAN: That sounds like quite a bit, 8 not to -- I don't want to overstate the challenge, but that's a long list of things 9 for a year that's one year or two years away from now. How would you 10 assess our readiness to receive an application in that time frame? If 11 something actually came through the door in late 2019 or in 2020 --

12 MR. MONNINGER: Yes.

13 COMMISSIONER BARAN: -- would we be ready for that?

14 MR. MONNINGER: Yes. So Fred had a very good slide 15 out there of the various designs and the RIS responses. In terms of 16 providing feedback on readiness, what's important to the staff is our 17 pre-application interactions, RIS responses, et cetera. So dependent upon 18 the particular design, we're significantly more advanced than others. The 19 potential ones that may come in earlier, we believe that there is test data out 20 there. Steve had mentioned the availability for NRC to shift resources to 21 accelerate the modeling and analysis for potential ones.

22 So there's a broad spectrum of companies and 23 organizations out there, and then there's a smaller set that may come in 24 earlier. That smaller set, there's much more information on them and their 25 much more developed testing analysis, et cetera.

26 MR. BROWN: And as John tries to talk around the -- who

89 1 the applicant would be and the nature of potentially proprietary information, I 2 think that it is a challenge. I think that we are as prepared as we can be 3 given the history that we've had over the last several years of the 4 technology-inclusive approach. I'm confident that John and his staff and 5 Steve are well on the way to be prepared to deal with the applicant that we 6 expect next year given the specifics.

7 And the reason that I talked about the tension between 8 design-specific and technology-inclusive is I think that we need in the office 9 to be accelerating our focus on a near-term arriver or arrivers to ensure that 10 we are prepared and ready to be both effective and as efficient as possible.

11 COMMISSIONER BARAN: You talked a little bit about 12 that in your earlier remarks. If we did get an application in 2019 or 2020, 13 how would you balance the review work for that application with the broader 14 advanced reactor regulatory framework work?

15 MR. BROWN: Yes, and so I think that any application in 16 hand is always the highest priority for the agency. We'd establish a review 17 schedule and work to meet that schedule. And as John was addressing, 18 the details of the design greatly impact what that schedule looks like and the 19 level of resources necessary. But we have constructed the budget given 20 our workload in the entire office to be successful at what we believe is the 21 right level of effort and we will be focusing our preparatory actions on that 22 design in the coming months.

23 I think the appropriation we got this year significantly helps 24 us do that and be prepared. And I hope that we have the stability of funding 25 going forward to not only be prepared for the early arriver and potential other 26 early arrivers, but also to aggressively pursue the technology-inclusive

90 1 framework in its entirety.

2 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. We talked with the 3 first panel about the reactor physics and fuel performance data from some of 4 the legacy reactors. How is the staff approaching that data? What do we 5 need to do to access the data or validate the data and how big a challenge 6 do you expect this to be?

7 MR. MONNINGER: Yes. So I think DOE and the various 8 technology groups -- and Rita provided a good discussion on the efforts to 9 collect the data, put it into databases, the searching, et cetera. What's 10 important for the NRC is the -- is ensuring that the information is sufficiently 11 robust to be used for the purposes for regulatory applications, for safety 12 decisions, et cetera.

13 You discussed the notions of quality assurance in the '40s, 14 '50s, '60s, etcetera, and how it's varied over the years. There are 15 processes out there within NQA-1; and the right word is "commercial grade 16 dedication," but you can look at data out there and run it through a process 17 to essentially say that information is suitable for use.

18 So we've had several discussions with DOE. What is in I 19 think our interest and in developers' interest is to come up with a process 20 such that we address it generically. We don't want to adjudicate the merits 21 of the data on Applicant A, Applicant B, Applicant C. We want to take all the 22 DOE potential data, have a process out there that has been agreed to, and 23 the output of that data would then be acceptable for use for any developer.

24 So that's been our discussions with external parties out 25 there. Let's nail down this process such that once the data goes through 26 this process it is acceptable for regulatory uses.

91 1 COMMISSIONER BARAN: How far along are we on 2 getting to a process of that sort? It seems like this legacy data is going to 3 be a pretty significant factor for a number of these designs.

4 MR. MONNINGER: Yes. So we're still in the discussions 5 of that process. I think the notion of collecting the data and putting it in the 6 databases, et cetera, is much, much more advanced than we are in terms of 7 NRC engagement on how it when then be qualified.

8 MR. BROWN: I would if I could just expand on John's 9 comment a little bit that we talk about data a monolithic -- it's all the same 10 and it doesn't matter what the use is. And that's actually not the case, 11 obviously.

12 And so as we talked about the area of criticality safety and 13 the standards, the experimental data for enrichments between 10 and 20 14 percent, you can use what we've -- we can use what we've got. It's just that 15 we then apply a level of conservatism that might not be fully beneficial to the 16 applicants. And so they could benefit from spending the resources and 17 taking the time to get additional data.

18 I think we went through this in a licensing action, not in the 19 advanced reactor area, recently where I did a little research online, and just 20 the concept of gravity, to use an example; has nothing to do with that we're 21 talking about, but the concept of gravity and an equation for gravity and 22 attraction between bodies has been around for over 300 years now. It was 23 200 years ago when the first reasonably accurate value for the constant g 24 was developed at a time before computers, no nuclear QA standards, and 25 yet even with our best technology today, while we have many more 26 significant digits, the value we use for g is within 1.2 percent of what it was

92 1 over 200 years ago.

2 And so as long as you're familiar with that and apply 3 conservatism around the use of the data that's appropriate for the data that 4 you have, the -- there's no question that the reactors that developed the data 5 that we're looking at operated and operated safely and produced 6 information. What we have to decide, as John was saying, is what degree 7 of specificity or the pedigree to we assign to that data? How much margin 8 do we -- and Dr. Lyman kind of talked around this in the first panel -- what 9 margin do we have to establish working with Steve in the codes, in the 10 validation of the codes and the values that will be used to have confidence 11 that it's good enough for the reasonable assurance of adequate protection 12 decisions that we'll need to make?

13 So I -- John's absolutely correct in terms of the generic 14 process, but it's not that we have no confidence in the information. We 15 have -- empirically there's a lot of confidence in that data. It's just how 16 many significant digits do we give it credit for, in my view, not with 17 -- obviously not specific to any licensing decision, but in general.

18 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. On the first panel Ed 19 Lyman raised a concern about the amount of information being withheld by 20 vendors as proprietary. At least that's how I understood the concern. What 21 does the staff think about that concern and can someone discuss how we're 22 making determinations about what information is proprietary and what 23 should be publicly available?

24 MR. MONNINGER: Yes. So the NRC's requirements 25 out there for proprietary material and withholding of proprietary material are 26 no difference between materials, waste, advanced reactors, new rectors,

93 1 non-power, et cetera. So we follow the exact same process out there.

2 When an applicant submits a report, they'll include an 3 affidavit and the logic or rationale for potentially withholding it. The staff 4 then reviews the material and either agrees or disagrees with it.

5 I think one of the issues out there is there's a lot of 6 discussion with regards to advanced reactors, but in terms of actual 7 documents being submitted to the NRC there's actually very few. We are 8 having a pre-application interactions with a company Oklo. They have 9 submitted a few documents. For example, the QA topical report. It is 10 publicly available. Other reports that they've submitted would not be, 11 however, there would be the forwarding letter that is.

12 In addition to that we've had public meetings. They 13 generally have an open portion of the public meeting. The slides are out 14 there and then closed.

15 So I think one of the differences, there's a lot of talk, 16 there's a lot of discussions out there about advanced reactors, but then the 17 actual meetings or applications or submittals into the NRC are relatively low.

18 So there's not a huge population of documents out there.

19 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. Thank you.

20 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Well, again I thank you all for your 21 presentations. Something -- feedback that I have heard about the staff's 22 work in this area has been very complimentary of -- I'll use the term "agility,"

23 although we've been using that a lot since Project Aim. But just the ability 24 to have an adaptive application of the frameworks, whether they be things 25 like design reviews that again we're kind of moving away from the design 26 certification as the only model. There's other -- the phased feedback that

94 1 you all are structuring that you're available to give should someone prior to 2 applying wants to engage the NRC.

3 So I hear a lot of favorable commentary, but it's so curious 4 to me because I also receive critical commentary or concerns that we don't 5 have one generic approach, but the technology development community 6 seems to be very complimentary of coming in, describing how they're pacing 7 their development and what would best be of utility to them in terms of 8 regulatory feedback. So I don't know how we solve that conundrum. I 9 think again technology developers are complimentary of our adaptive 10 approaches. It's a little bit stylized depending on what they need and when 11 they would requests that they receive it from us. So I think that there are a 12 lot of moving parts, as Commissioner Baran mentioned, and it's a lot to keep 13 all pacing along together just internally between the offices and then with the 14 external community. So I appreciate all you're doing.

15 I walk away from this meeting feeling it is a pretty -- it's a 16 tall challenge, but I can't really find anything that I could suggest to you that 17 you're not thinking of or doing or keeping at the ready as something that 18 might be of use in resolving something or giving feedback or solving 19 something. So again, I appreciate all of the staff's hard work, not just the 20 presenters, but all of the subject matter experts who've contributed to what 21 you're doing today.

22 And I know we're keeping OGC busy as well, because the 23 novelty of a number of these things require the technical experts to go back 24 to their legal colleagues and receive just a fundamental confirmation that 25 they're applying the existing requirements with the correct paradigm.

26 So again, thank you for that work. And if there's nothing

95 1 further, then we are adjourned.

2 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 3 at 11:54 a.m.)