PMNS20181280, 1/15/2019 - Transcript of Public Meeting to Discuss the Proposed Rulemaking to Align the Regulations in 10 CFR Parts 50 and 52, to Address Updates to the Licensing Processes, and Lessons Learned for Future New Reactor Applications
| ML19031A002 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/15/2019 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | |
| O'Driscoll, James | |
| References | |
| 10 CFR Part 50, 10 CFR Part 52, NRC-0052, NRC-2009-0196, PMNS20181280, RIN 3150-AI66 | |
| Download: ML19031A002 (101) | |
Text
CORRECTED Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Public Meeting to Discuss the Proposed Rulemaking to Align the Regulations in 10 CFR Parts 50 and 52, to Address Updates to the Licensing Processes, and Lessons Learned for Future New Reactor Applications Docket Number: NRC-2009-0196; RIN 3150-AI66 Location: Rockville, Maryland Date: January 15, 2019 Work Order No.: NRC-0052 Pages 1-105 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE PROPOSED RULEMAKING TO ALIGN THE REGULATIONS IN 10 CFR PARTS 50 AND 52, TO ADDRESS UPDATES TO THE LICENSING PROCESSES, AND LESSONS LEARNED FOR FUTURE NEW REACTOR APPLICATIONS
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2019
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ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND
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The Public Meeting convened in the Commissioners' Hearing Room at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, at 8:30 a.m., George Smith, Facilitator, presiding.
NRC Staff Present:
GEORGE SMITH, NMSS FRED BROWN, NRO JOSEPH COLACCINO, NRO JIM O'DRISCOLL, NMSS PATRICIA VOKOUN, NRO NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S Meeting Logistics George Smith......................................3 Opening Remarks Fred Brown.......................................10 Proposed Rulemaking to Update Regulations for Future New Reactor Licensing Applications Jim O'Driscoll...................................12 Patricia Vokoun..................................16 Joseph Colaccino.................................19 NEI Discussion Mike Tschiltz....................................30 Charles Pierce...................................33 Amy Aughtman.....................................34 Dan Stout........................................51 Peter Hastings...................................54 Open Discussion/Q&A Session.......................79 Closing Remarks/Adjourn..........................104 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 8:30 a.m.
3 MR. SMITH: Good morning, everyone. Good 4 morning, everyone on the phone. My name is George 5 Smith. I'll be your facilitator for today's meeting.
6 My role is to ensure that today's meeting 7 is both informative and productive. This is a Category 8 3 public meeting which means that it's structured to 9 provide opportunity for public interaction.
10 So we've provided an agenda including 11 questions where we're looking for the public input.
12 There will be an opportunity for those in the room and 13 those on the phone to ask questions and to make comments 14 after the NRC and stakeholder staff presentations have 15 concluded.
16 So today's meeting is scheduled for two 17 three-hour sessions. We'll have a one-hour lunch 18 break. We'll also have a 15-minute break every 90 19 minutes.
20 So before we get started I'll go over a 21 couple of housekeeping items. First, for those in the 22 room that I have a brief safety message. In the event 23 of an emergency you'll see that the back doors here 24 we have emergency exits that we can go out. Basically 25 what we'll do we'll go out the door. There may be some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 security out front giving us direction as to where we 2 should go and what we should do. We'll follow the 3 directions of the security folks.
4 But you can stay with the NRC folks. We're 5 going to meet over by the Harris Teeter over on Citadel 6 Drive. If you decide not to stay with the group, please 7 let me know or Jim O'Driscoll know. We just want to 8 have an accurate account of all the -- of those who've 9 signed up to attend this meeting -- that signed in, 10 I'm sorry, to attend the meeting.
11 So with regard to getting around the 12 building as a visitor, you have unescorted access from 13 the lobby area that you came into up through this 14 hallway. So we have a cafeteria down the hallway.
15 In Two White Flint we have unescorted access. We have 16 an NRC general store down there, a Starbucks. You also 17 have a cafeteria across the hallway. But again, just 18 make sure you display your badge.
19 As a reminder there's no eating and 20 drinking in this room, so I just want to remind you 21 of that. And if you're going to go in any other area 22 in the building you have to be on the escort.
23 So to get to the restrooms you can just 24 go out the double doors here and make a left. You'll 25 see the women's room on the left-hand side about five NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 feet down the hall, and before the double doors, the 2 glass double doors you'll see the men's room on the 3 right-hand side.
4 If you've not have an opportunity to sign 5 in, we have a sign-in sheet at the beginning of the 6 desk as you come in the door. Please sign in, everyone.
7 8 Also we have some public feedback forms 9 out at the table that's available for you to fill out, 10 so please take the time to fill those out. It helps 11 us with our process.
12 So I'll do my best to make sure that 13 everyone has an opportunity to participate in the 14 discussions and have a chance to express their views 15 without concerns as to how these views will be received, 16 so we appreciate your assistance in accomplishing that 17 goal also.
18 Also this meeting is being recorded and 19 transcribed for our reference so we can review our 20 communications for effectiveness. To ensure we 21 accurately document your feedback we ask that only one 22 person speaks at a time with no interruptions.
23 For those of you in the room please utilize 24 the microphones. You can -- if you're at the table, 25 you have a microphone. If you're not at the table, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 you can come to one of the two microphones. If you 2 can't come to the microphones, just wave at me, let 3 me know and I'll bring a microphone to you.
4 For those on the phone the operator will 5 place you in the queue to speak and I'll alternate 6 between the room and the phones for the questions.
7 And I'll do that based on the amount of questions that 8 the operator is indicating that we have on the line 9 and how many folks have indicated that they want to 10 speak herein the room.
11 If you choose to speak, please speak slowly 12 and clearly, state your organization affiliation, and 13 if you can spell your name the first time so we can 14 attribute your comments and questions. To minimize 15 any distractions please place your phones in courtesy 16 mode at this time so if your phone -- you can turn it 17 off or mute it, any electronic devices if they ring, 18 buzz or beep or alarm. We also ask that you minimize 19 side conversations. We understand that you may have 20 an important phone call, and that's fine, but please 21 take the phone -- you can just take the call outside 22 of the room. We'd appreciate that.
23 This meeting is being hosted by webinar, 24 so you can view the slides and participate via the 25 Internet by using the webinar link on the meeting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 announcement. If you are participating by this method, 2 we strongly encourage you to mute the sound on your 3 computer and listen to the meeting through the telephone 4 bridge line that's provided in the meeting 5 notice. If you are participating through the webinar 6 audio feed right now, please take a moment to call 7 1-888-848-6713. Again the number is -- for the audio 8 feed please call 1-888-848-6713. And you can use the 9 passcode 5107274. That's passcode 5108274.
10 Also to ensure we capture a complete 11 transcript we -- please make your comments by telephone, 12 not through the webinar. We have an operator on the 13 line to help us. Again her name is Robin.
14 For those of you dialing in to the meeting 15 you will be in listen-only mode unless you notify Robin 16 that you wish to speak. You can accomplish this by 17 pressing star-1 on your phone. I will remind you that 18 -- to press star-1 on your phone for those online 19 throughout the meeting.
20 Also for those on the phone, if you're at 21 a computer and do not wish to use the webinar and would 22 like to see the slides for today's meeting, you can 23 access them from the NRC home page, www.nrc.gov and 24 it will be under public meetings and involvement 25 heading. Click on the link to the public meeting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 schedule, scroll down to today's date and meeting time, 2 find the information for this meeting and click on the 3 link for the meeting info. You'll bring up the meeting 4 notice and agenda. On the third page click on the link 5 for meeting detail. Scroll down and you will find a 6 link to the presentation slide and related document 7 section. Please note that a list of ADAMS accession 8 numbers to the document referenced in the NRC staff's 9 presentations can be found at the end of the staff's 10 slide presentation.
11 And we'll say this throughout the meeting 12 today, please be careful not to discuss any safeguards 13 information, security-related information, classified 14 or proprietary information during this meeting.
15 Although we intend to have an open dialog 16 please note that the NRC will not make any regulatory 17 commitments during the meeting.
18 Slide 2, please. So this is the agenda.
19 Joining me today is Fred Brown, Director of the NRC's 20 Office of New Reactors.
21 Fred?
22 Also from the NRC Office of New Reactors 23 we have Joseph Colaccino.
24 Did I get it right?
25 MR. COLACCINO: Close.
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9 1 (Laughter.)
2 MR. SMITH: Adrian Muniz, Patricia Vokoun.
3 And they're all from the Office of NRC's Office of 4 New Reactors. Also joining me is Jim O'Driscoll from 5 the NRC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 6 Safeguards.
7 We have several other NRC staff here in the audience 8 as well.
9 After opening remarks we will have the NRC 10 staff presentation. The NRC technical staff will cover 11 the NRC staff's scope and activities to date and discuss 12 preliminary views for items to be considered in the 13 rulemaking. And then we will open up the floor for 14 stakeholder's presentations and discussion.
15 Slide 3, please. So the purpose of today's 16 meeting is to discuss the staff's plan for determining 17 the scope of a rulemaking that would better align Part 18 50 and 52 and will address lessons that have been learned 19 through new reactor licensing reviews. Our purpose 20 today is also to solicit and receive ideas from the 21 public on what they think should be considered in this 22 rulemaking. Please note that the NRC will consider 23 the input received today, but the staff will not prepare 24 written responses to that input.
25 Slide 4, please. And now I'd like to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 introduce Fred Brown, Director of NRO for the opening 2 remarks.
3 MR. BROWN: Thank you, George.
4 Good morning, everyone, and I appreciate 5 the attendance even in the aftermath of Washington, 6 D.C.'s snow storm. I know at least one person in the 7 audience who's from Wisconsin who did not think this 8 was a big snow storm, but we were shut yesterday 9 nonetheless. And so my thanks to the staff that 10 prepared through yesterday and for the members of the 11 public that came into town for this meeting.
12 Ho Nieh will also be joining us, the 13 Director of the Office for NRR for at least portions 14 of the meeting. Both he and I see this as a really 15 important opportunity. Part 52 and Part 50 have some 16 slight differences and the staff does have the 17 Commission's approval to enter into this rulemaking 18 and address them -- those differences, and we'll talk 19 a little bit more about that. But we also have an 20 opportunity to figure out how has the world changed 21 since the 1994 time frame when Part 52 was put into 22 place and what should we do as a learning organization 23 to reflect those changes.
24 So I think an analogy, when you go about 25 any project; for instance, if you decided to design NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 your own home or work with an architect to design your 2 own home, you have a paradigm in your mind of what you 3 need and how things will work and how things will flow.
4 And you build the home and after a couple of years 5 you figure out, gee, that kitchen island should have 6 been two feet to the left and a little wider doorway 7 in and out of the garage would have been good. And 8 that is just the nature of how things evolve as you 9 use something.
10 And so Part 52, we've now had the 11 opportunity to use most of the components of the rule.
12 We've got some experience with it. The staff is 13 identifying things that we believed did not go as well 14 as they could have or should have or cases where the 15 world has changed and now we need to focus on a different 16 aspect of the makeup of the rule. And this is an 17 opportunity for members of the public to provide us 18 the same sort of lessons learned and input on how the 19 world has changed and ideas in adapting the rule to 20 reflect the world as it exists today rather than as 21 it existed over 20 years ago.
22 So we'll talk much more, but my main message 23 in addition to the thanks for the input is that we will 24 go through a process of evaluating the difficulty and 25 the challenge and the clarity of a reg basis for all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 of the proposed changes that we get input on and we'll 2 make a -- likely make a recommendation to the Commission 3 based on resources and return on investment. What are 4 the things that should be added into this rulemaking 5 and what might need to be pushed out just from a resource 6 perspective or the time -- how quickly there would be 7 a benefit from a change?
8 So we are in a data gathering mode. We'll 9 engage on the ideas we hear to get input on them, and 10 I look forward to a very productive day. So thank you.
11 MR. SMITH: Great. Thank you, Fred.
12 Next slide, please.
13 Okay. Thank you for the remarks.
14 We'll now roll into the NRC staff's 15 presentation. I'll turn it over to Jim ODriscoll.
16 O'Driscoll. Sorry.
17 (Laughter.)
18 MR. O'DRISCOLL: Thank you.
19 Good morning. My name is Jim O'Driscoll.
20 I'm a project manager in the Rulemaking Group in the 21 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That's in NMSS, so 22 we're consolidated. Thank you for joining us today.
23 As we said in our opening, the purpose of 24 today's meeting is to discuss the staff's current plans 25 and activities for determining the scope of a rulemaking NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 approved by the Commission in the staff's Requirements 2 Memorandum SECY-15-0002. We also are here to solicit 3 and discuss ideas from the public regarding what they 4 feel the NRC should consider in the rulemaking.
5 Next slide. We hope this interaction will 6 help you better understand the staff's overall 7 objective for this activity and we hope this public 8 interaction will help the staff understand your 9 perspectives on the subject, including what you think 10 the staff should focus on when evaluating the scope 11 of the draft regulatory basis. We'll take this 12 information, perspectives and questions we hear today 13 into consideration when developing the rule scope and 14 the regulatory basis, but the NRC will not prepare 15 detailed written responses to the input we receive 16 today. We plan to hold additional public meetings if 17 there's interest.
18 This slide, slide 6, shows the rulemaking 19 process, which is another way of saying the development 20 of Government regulations. We're in the second box; 21 that's the green one there, Regulatory Basis, where 22 our present task is to define the scope and then develop 23 the draft regulatory basis. We anticipate completing 24 the activities to define the scope in late March of 25 this year. We plan to communicate the proposed scope NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 to the Commission, as Fred said, in some venue and then 2 develop the draft regulatory basis.
3 For a rulemaking of this scope development 4 of the draft regulatory basis takes about 12 months 5 after the scope is defined, so we anticipate publication 6 of the draft reg basis for public comment in the second 7 quarter of calendar year 2020, but this date may change 8 depending on the results of the staff's current effort 9 to define the scope of the activity. After we develop 10 and publish the draft regulatory basis there will be 11 a 75-day public comment period. We expect to hold a 12 public meeting during that public comment period.
13 The written responses we receive during 14 that comment period will go into the docket for the 15 rule. In the final regulatory basis we will include 16 a summary of the stakeholder interactions and the key 17 messages we received from the public during the 18 development of the regulatory basis. We should publish 19 the final regulatory basis about a year after publishing 20 the draft regulatory basis, so this would be around 21 the second quarter of calendar year 2021.
22 The next two major steps are the 23 publication of the proposed rule and the publication 24 of the final rule. We will continue to provide 25 opportunities for public comment in this process. Upon NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 publication of the draft proposed rule in the Federal 2 Register, you will have an opportunity to review the 3 proposed rule and provide written comments to the NRC.
4 We expect to hold public meetings during that public 5 comment period as well.
6 Next slide. So we're on slide 7. The NRC 7 requires a regulatory basis for most of its rulemakings 8 in order to ensure sound informed decision making 9 throughout the rulemaking process. The regulatory 10 basis documents the justification for why rulemaking 11 is the best way to resolve a regulatory issue. The 12 regulatory basis also describes the technical, legal 13 or policy information that would support the content 14 of the rule. The draft regulatory basis will include 15 a draft cost benefit analysis of the proposed changes.
16 The Commission's direction in SRM-15-0002 provided 17 the direction to the staff to proceed with rulemaking.
18 So now I'll pass the baton to Pat Vokoun 19 who will provide some details on our current activities 20 to update and further define the scope of the activity.
21 MS. VOKOUN: Thank you, Jim.
22 Beginning with slide 8, I will describe 23 the background for our activities. In SECY-15-0002 24 issued on January 8th, 2015, the staff made several 25 recommendations to the Commission regarding policies, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 rules, guidance updates to ensure consistency in new 2 reactor licensing applications reviews. In the SRM 3 to SECY-15-0002 the Commission approved the staff's 4 recommendations and as such, the staff is commencing 5 the rulemaking process.
6 In Enclosure 1 of the SECY paper, the staff 7 included recommendations on alignment of Parts 50 and 8 52. The staff in Enclosure 2 of the SECY paper also 9 made a recommendation to address staff-identified 10 lessons learned obtained through Part 52 licensing 11 reviews. We will provide additional details regarding 12 these recommendations in subsequent slides.
13 It should be noted that additional items 14 associated with these recommendations may be identified 15 as the staff goes through the rulemaking process. As 16 previously stated by Jim, we will consider the feedback 17 we obtain today as we develop the proposed scope for 18 this rulemaking.
19 In addition, the staff is considering 20 various transformational changes that were not included 21 in SECY-15-0002. The staff intends to address 22 editorial, administrative or easy-to-implement changes 23 as well.
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17 1 processes. Specifically, in SECY-15-0002 the staff 2 requested that the Commission confirm that the 3 Commission's guidance given in the Policy Statement 4 on Severe Reactor Accidents Regarding Future Designs 5 and Existing pPlants and other Commission direction 6 provided in response to SECY-89-013, SECY-90-016 and 7 SECY-93-087, would apply to any new applicants that 8 choose to use the Part 50 licensing process for their 9 application.
10 The purpose of SECY-89-013, dated January 11 19th, 1989, was to inform the Commission of the staff's 12 intentions regarding the ongoing reviews of the 13 evolutionary advanced light water reactors, or ALWR 14 designs. It was the staff's intent to pursue the design 15 review in a manner that might go beyond the acceptance 16 criteria defined in the Standard Review Plan, or SRP, 17 up to that time. The staff believed that the approach 18 to be in keeping with the intent of the proposed 10 19 Part -- CFR Part 52 to enhance safety through the design 20 certification process.
21 The purpose of SECY-90-016, dated January 22 12th, 1990, was to present the staff's recommendations 23 concerning proposed departures from the 1990 24 regulations of the evolutionary ALWRs.
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18 1 2nd, 1993, was to present the Commission with the 2 recommended positions pertaining to evolutionary and 3 passive light water reactor design certification.
4 SRM-SECY-15-0002 was that confirmation that the policy 5 issues applied to Part 52, applications should also 6 be applied to Part 50 applications.
7 See slide 10. Let's talk more about 8 aligning Parts 50 and 52. Based on the Commission's 9 approval the staff will consider revision of the 10 regulations in 10 CFR Part 50 for the new power reactor 11 applications to more closely align with requirements 12 in 10 CFR Part 52 incorporating as follows:
13 To develop a plant-specific probabilistic 14 risk assessment, or PRA, to submit appropriate 15 information describing that analysis as part of the 16 construction permit and operating license submittals, 17 and maintain and upgrade the PRA throughout the duration 18 of the operating license; to address the Three Mile 19 Island requirements of 10 CFR 50.34(f) with the same 20 exceptions given for 10 CFR Part 52 applications; to 21 provide a description of design features for prevention 22 and mitigation of severe accidents; and provide a 23 description and analyses of fire protection design 24 features and describe fire protection plans.
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19 1 52 for new reactor applications. However, the staff 2 is considering aligning Part 52 to Part 50 where 3 appropriate. The alignment may go both ways.
4 Joe Colaccino will now discuss lessons 5 learned.
6 MR. COLACCINO: Thank you, Pat.
7 Good morning, everybody. My name is Joe 8 Colaccino. Happy New Year to you.
9 In addition to the information that Pat 10 has just presented on aligning, the SECY also talked 11 about lessons learned reviews that would be conducted 12 to -- updating Part 52. This was always the intent 13 of the staff. It was written in a couple of places 14 where we would do this. Notably it's not noted in the 15 SECY. There was a bipartisan policy paper -- the 16 Commission where we -- in its Recommendation 7 where 17 we'd said we'd update the -- we'd update regulations 18 to incorporate lessons learned to contribute to 19 enhancing the licensing process.
20 So Enclosure 2, we provided some examples.
21 And just to let everybody know, Enclosure 2 is not 22 comprehensive, but we -- it is grouped into three areas 23 where we felt that would be illustrative of what we 24 were trying to do: corrections, clarifications and new 25 requirements.
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20 1 Since the update to Part 52, the last 2 comprehensive update in 2007, we had collected a number 3 of comments from the staff of areas that we should 4 consider in the future. It was approximately 150 that 5 we had.
6 So I'm going to talk about a couple of those 7 things this morning, and those issues are focused 8 -- I've kind of focused them on issues that have 9 unnecessarily, as I like to say, challenged the staff, 10 applicants and licensees.
11 So the first one I wanted to talk about 12 is the design certification renewal, and I'm going to 13 talk about renewal in the next slide as well. No fault 14 of either the staff or the applicant this has been under 15 review for a certain period of time. I'd like to say 16 it's just because of events and the way it was -- the 17 way we started in the renewal. So it's been lengthy 18 and it still undergoes. And this is for the GE ABWR.
19 The scope is non-specifically defined in 20 the rule. It's pretty high level. And we've -- I don't 21 think that there's anybody that's been involved with 22 the rule that would say there's been some challenges 23 with the implementation of this. So we did provide 24 some draft guidance to the applicant to do -- how about 25 -- go about to implement the -- this requirement. There NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 is an application in house and it's currently making 2 its way through review. But this is an area that we 3 think we want to at least consider in future rulemaking.
4 I'd like to talk that -- I'm going to talk about that 5 more in the next slide because it leads us 6 -- consideration of the renewal leads us to some other 7 change -- potential changes that we would consider in 8 the regulations.
9 The next one I wanted to mention was errors 10 in a certified design while renewing a COL application.
11 I don't think many people in this room understand 12 what the issues that were had. There's been a number 13 of correspondence on this with the AP1000 reviews with 14 -- particularly with a couple of COLs that were under 15 review that were held up because we were resolving some 16 issues that had occurred after one of the COLs was 17 issued.
18 So we're going to -- I think it's prudent 19 to ask ourselves what could be done in -- if anything 20 in consideration of the way Part 52 is constructed, 21 if there's anything that could be done to clarify and 22 make this situation more understandable. And I 23 understand there will probably be additional discussion 24 by that -- by the -- I've looked at the slides ahead 25 of what the industry has said. I know that this was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 on your issue -- list of issues. So that was no 2 surprise. You know, just -- I didn't see any surprises 3 in any of the -- that you provided to me. So there's 4 always been a lot of discussion about this.
5 The third one I wanted to mention, again 6 another topic that's been a discussion, certification 7 -- certifying information that's referenced in design 8 certification rulemaking; i.e., Tier 1.
9 Now there's nothing in the regulations that 10 says that you have to -- what's Tier 1, what's Tier 11 2, what's Tier 2 Stars? Matter of fact the only thing 12 that identifies a tier of information is in the design 13 certification appendices. The tiering is all policy 14 papers that were -- numerous policy papers that were 15 written in the '80s and the early '90s, yet there isn't 16 any specific thing in the regs that says that you have 17 to have -- your application has to come in tiers. And 18 I think most people in the room know that, but I think 19 it's just worthy of saying it because there is a lot 20 of policy construction associated with that.
21 And so I think now that we've gone through 22 -- that were, as Fred had said, in the later stages 23 of -- as implied, executing the Part 52 process; we 24 haven't done it completely yet, it's worthy to go back 25 and look at this especially since we see the experience NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 that we're having right now as a facility is being 2 constructed and looking at what the challenges are with 3 number of exemptions that we're receiving.
4 Next slide, please. So I titled this 5 slide, "Transformational Changes." I think everybody 6 understands what the meaning of that is, but we have 7 to recognize that after the issuance of the SECY paper 8 in 2015 and the Commission going ahead with allowing 9 us to do rulemaking on the alignment and also looking 10 at updating Part 52 a lot has happened since then.
11 We have the construction progress on Vogtle. We have 12 completion of other design certification and ESP 13 reviews. We're about to finish -- we're moving forward 14 finishing another one. Obviously the changes in the 15 nuclear industry that are happening and changes at the 16 NRC, quite frankly: Project Aim and the afore-alluded 17 to transformation paper. So in light of that it was 18 prudent to look and see -- and take a look that was 19 beyond what the scope in the Enclosure 2 of SECY-15-0002 20 is to see what other things could be considered.
21 And so I'd ask you to put renewal on hold 22 for a second. And so when you look at -- now I want 23 to come back to it. So expiration date of the 24 certification. Each certification has an expiration 25 date of 15 years. The 15 years was a compromise between NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 what the staff wanted at the time: 10 years, and what 2 the industry wanted at the time, which I believe was 3 20 years. At least from the records that we have we 4 have that. So that was to provide the backfit 5 protection as my research understands for that time 6 once you have certification.
7 Given what we know now and the efforts that 8 the Agency has done with backfitting and then also the 9 challenges with -- that we were experiencing with 10 renewal causes us to say what is the benefit of having 11 a certification expiration date? And so -- and of 12 course with that what are the impact on the Part 52 13 regulations? So there's a lot in there that's 14 associated with renewal and a lot of things would be 15 to unwind, but there may be some benefits in doing that 16 for -- quite frankly for not only someone that has the 17 -- that has provided the certification with the staff 18 that needs to conduct the review.
19 And as we've seen from the ABWR review -- I 20 won't say that the review has been futile. I mean, 21 I think it's good to get ahead of that. But we now 22 have in Part 52 an amendment process as well where the 23 certification can be amended. So that was not part 24 of the original Part 52 process. That was -- came about 25 in -- I think that was part of the 2007 rule change.
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25 1 So I think it's worthy for us to at least look at that.
2 And as Fred alluded to, our SECY paper -- the SECY 3 paper said that if there was anything that was beyond 4 what was in the scope of the SECY paper, we would come 5 back to the Commission and talk to them about that.
6 I think clearly this would be one of those things.
7 If you look at the -- then the -- so that's 8 a cascading change. You'd look at the change process 9 within the certification as well. That would be one 10 thing that you'd have to look at. But the change 11 process is in there. You know, we always talk about 12 the 50.59-like process. The "like" really is 13 associated with standardization. So there are tests 14 in there to make sure that you've -- that the design 15 is standardized. And for those of you who have done 16 the research -- and there is an extensive -- the 17 Commission spoke extensively on standardization 18 because the Commission believed at that time that 19 standardization would bring safer plants.
20 And so is there an opportunity now to look 21 at this? I mean, obviously they're not going to be 22 any safer, but what are -- to what level of 23 standardization do we need to have for these facilities 24 as described in Part 52?
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26 1 a lot of us lots of discussions about the phrase "what 2 does an essentially complete design mean?" It is 3 clearly defined in the papers. The policy is the scope 4 of the design so that you -- it would encompass all 5 the safety features. It was just -- not just the NSSS 6 system. It was -- and really we're focusing here -- I'm 7 thinking of the certification piece. It would be the 8 entire facility minus the site-specific pieces and 9 those interfaces would be described in the 10 certification.
11 There is a lot of discussion about the level 12 of detail in that scope. And again, we can look -- and 13 the proposal back in the '90s of the staff, the late 14 '80s, early '90s, about having four different 15 proposals, where actually the staff was -- at one point 16 was saying you need to actually produce all the design 17 blueprints and -- for it to be standardized. That piece 18 was rejected. But there is provisions in the 19 regulations that you have to provide enough information 20 such that the staff would have that available for audit, 21 the information produced design and procurement 22 specifications so that the staff could have it available 23 for -- if they needed it. So that's in the regulations 24 right now.
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27 1 level of information do we need for Tier 1? What 2 information do we need to standardize the design? What 3 information is Tier 2? And I'll use -- even though 4 I've just -- I said before Tier 1 and Tier 2 is not 5 in the regulations in Part 52, what information needs 6 to be within that that is standardized? And then that 7 also fits in with the change process. So it all kind 8 of fits together.
9 Okay. The last one. And this does fit 10 in, and give me a second so I can explain how it fits 11 in. So there's a requirement in Part 52 that you have 12 to provide a -- you have to -- what's the exact 13 alignment? You have to address the Standard Review 14 Plan six months before your application comes in. And 15 I know that when I was leading a branch of one of the 16 design certifications that came in, I believe they 17 produced an 800-page report describing how they 18 deviated from the Standard Review Plan.
19 So, and I understand that the staff used 20 this report and -- but at the same time I also understand 21 that the review -- the application was structured such 22 that it had to answer the SRP completely. And the staff 23 did its review, so it also did the SRP completely.
24 And just asking is that the right approach? I mean, 25 the application piece is -- if you looked at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 requirements of 52.47, it gives you exactly what you 2 need to apply for, for the most part. For the most 3 part. And one of those pieces is this provision 4 addressing this SRP six months ahead of time. Is this 5 the right way to go? So do we burden ourselves with 6 much larger applications that don't necessarily enhance 7 safety by going by this route?
8 Okay. So those are my examples. I have 9 others within the 150 and there's been lots of 10 discussion as we're going through and scoping out this 11 rulemaking. I'm interested -- like I said, I did read 12 what you all had ahead of time, so I'm interested to 13 hear what you all have to say. And of -- as Jim said, 14 our regulatory basis will consider looking at the 15 evaluation associated with these items and we have made 16 a commitment again to provide the Commission with items 17 that are outside the scope of this paper, as Fred had 18 mentioned before.
19 Okay. So with that I think I'm passing 20 it back to Jim, right? You finishing up? Thank you.
21 MR. O'DRISCOLL: So we're a little ahead 22 of schedule. We were going to -- at this point we were 23 going to take a break and then roll right into the 24 stakeholder presentations, but I think it's early.
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29 1 if that's okay by everyone.
2 So in our meeting notice we -- interested 3 members of the public were asked to let me know if they 4 intended to make a presentation. The Nuclear Energy 5 Institute informed me they would hold a discussion of 6 a list of items that pertain to the subject of the 7 meeting. I will ask the folks who will be discussing 8 this list to state their names and go ahead and start.
9 10 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay. Thanks, Jim. My 11 name is Mike Tschiltz from the Nuclear Energy Institute 12 and we basically are going to go through a list of items 13 that we've provided the staff that I think is up on 14 the webinar right now. We've assigned leads for 15 discussing each of the issues and we'd like to conduct 16 this as more of a panel discussion from the industry 17 perspective.
18 We appreciate the opportunity to provide 19 this input early on in the rulemaking process as a first 20 look or a sampling of the issues that the industry feels 21 are important to address with Part 52. I think we 22 anticipate providing additional input throughout the 23 process as the staff works through the rulemaking.
24 I think there is a feeling that we need 25 to make the most of this opportunity. If you look at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 the timing of everything it's probably a once-in-a-2 decade opportunity to fix what's wrong with Part 52 3 or what people have concerns with Part 52 and it's a 4 unique opportunity from the standpoint of it provides 5 a chance for us to address some of the concerns that 6 stakeholders have fundamentally with Part 52 as being 7 maybe a non-workable process for first-of-a-kind design 8 certifications. So it's the opportunity for us to 9 maybe address some of those concerns and make it more 10 attractive for advanced reactor developers to utilize.
11 So with that being said I'll transition 12 to the table. I'm not going to read these items, but 13 the first item is basically the ability to make changes 14 during construction to the licensing basis without 15 delaying construction. I think the industry feels as 16 if this issue is set apart from all of the rest of the 17 issues because it is singly the most important issue 18 that we feel needs to be addressed.
19 The distinction I'll make also with this 20 issue is we don't feel that rulemaking is necessary 21 to fix this. We think it's a process implementation 22 issue. That being said I think the rule could benefit 23 from language in the Statement of Consideration that 24 would specifically address this to prevent an 25 interpretation like is currently being implemented from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 taking place in the future.
2 So we -- the NEI issued a paper in October 3 of 2018 that basically looked at licensing impacts 4 during construction and experience using Part 52 to 5 make changes during construction. And we enlisted the 6 help of Southern who'd gone through this and had 7 firsthand experience. And basically what we 8 determined through the review was that the change 9 process for making changes to Tier 1 information, and 10 to Tier 2 Star for that matter, is too burdensome without 11 corresponding safety benefit. So we're looking for 12 that to be addressed through changes in NRC processes 13 as well as being addressed in the Statement of 14 Considerations for the rule.
15 I think if you look at the experiences with 16 the plants that were being constructed I think that 17 -- I don't think people can point out to the Part 52 18 change process as being a principal contributor to 19 delays during construction, however, the use of the 20 Part 52 process disrupted work, increased licensing 21 and engineering costs during constructions without a 22 corresponding safety benefit. And the NRC's 23 interpretation that construction has to be 100 percent 24 compliant with the licensing basis at all times creates 25 unnecessary ongoing risk throughout the entire NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 construction period without a corresponding safety 2 benefit.
3 So part of this also gets to the issue of 4 the level of detail that's captured in the licensing 5 basis in Tier 1, 2 Star. I think we have a number of 6 licensing -- or lessons learned with that. NRC I think 7 has made progress in its implementation of Tier 2 Star 8 and for future design certifications. It's 9 eliminating basically the use of Tier 2 Star unless 10 requested by the applicant. So we think that's 11 progress. However, I think there's more work that's 12 needed in this area, specifically with dealing with 13 first principles and identifying Tier 1 information 14 that goes into the design certification.
15 We've worked on industry guidance 16 documents. NEI 15-02 was out there initially and now 17 we've got a draft of NEI18-01, which talks about 18 industry guidelines for development of Tier 1 and ITAAC 19 under 10 CFR Part 52. So we feel that there's 20 significant work that needs to be done to cut down the 21 level of detail in Tier 1 and thus eliminate these need 22 for changes that require NRC review for things that 23 are very minor and don't present a safety issue.
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33 1 if they want to add anymore from their experiences with 2 changes during construction.
3 MR. PIERCE: Well, I'll just mention -- my 4 name is Charles Pierce. I work for Southern Nuclear.
5 And I'll just mention that the PAR process that was 6 developed either on went a long way to addressing the 7 immediate problem for changes during construction.
8 And without that I don't think -- I think there would 9 have been a -- Southern Nuclear would have had a very 10 difficult time with the construction program at Vogtle.
11 Having said that, just early on with the 12 -- in 2012 with the first issue that we had with rebar 13 we had to -- I mean, when it was identified, we basically 14 had to stop work and work on other things and work on 15 other issues and divert people, personnel and so forth.
16 And even though NRC was very responsive in getting 17 a PAR out to us very quickly, we got them in very quickly, 18 the PAR came out very quickly afterwards, there was 19 still construction impacts that were out there that's 20 -- and so we -- we've regularly had those types of 21 impacts where we don't necessarily -- it doesn't 22 necessarily impact a he construction milestone, but 23 it causes resource challenges within our organization 24 as we have to deal with an issue that comes up like 25 this. And we've had -- we have refocused the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 Westinghouse engineering organization to work on the--
2 a more complete design than initially we might otherwise 3 and so forth as we go through this process.
4 MS. AUGHTMAN: Amy Aughtman from Southern 5 Nuclear. I'll just echo what Mike and Chuck have 6 already said. I do think just as we also start 7 factoring in transformational changes opportunities 8 into this I do hope the staff will kind of take a step 9 back and just ask the question how much of what was 10 initially laid out and thought would be the process 11 by which a COL licensee would perform construction 12 -- how much of that is still necessary today? I mean, 13 now that we have lived some of these lessons what is 14 -- is there another point in time at which it makes 15 sense for the design, the license, the licensing basis 16 documentation, procurement information and all of that 17 to come into alignment?
18 MR. TSCHILTZ: So if there's no further 19 discussion on item 1, we'll shift to item No. 2 on the 20 list.
21 MR. PIERCE: Ah, that's mine.
22 MR. TSCHILTZ: Yes.
23 MR. PIERCE: There in the early days with 24 our Early Site Permit Program Southern Nuclear received 25 an early site permit in August 2009 and the limited NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 work authorization also in August 2009. As work began 2 and construction began under the limited work 3 authorization there were some changes that were 4 identified the need to be made to the SSAR, the 5 Supplemental Safety Analysis Report, in order to move 6 forward with construction.
7 10 CFR 52.39(e) specifically requires a 8 license amendment be required for any change to the 9 SSAR. It didn't -- without exception. So we couldn't 10 use the 50.59 process or a similar process to conduct 11 some evaluations and make changes to the FSAR at that 12 point in -- or SSAR at that point in time. That allowed 13 -- that created some complexity for us and required 14 us to make some license amendments that required very 15 quick turnaround in order for us to continue 16 construction at that point.
17 So my belief is that for individuals who 18 have an early site permit, particularly with a limited 19 work authorization, that some form of a change process 20 should be provided for to change the SSAR without going 21 back to the NRC necessarily for approval in all cases, 22 much like a 50.59 process.
23 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay. Any questions on No.
24 2? If not, we'll move onto No. 3. Zach?
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36 1 want, Zach.
2 MR. HARPER: Okay.
3 MS. AUGHTMAN: So Amy Aughtman again from 4 Southern. And so this is addressing the topic of Tier 5 1, and I was encouraged to hear Joe's comments earlier 6 about -- just acknowledging that there is no requirement 7 for a tiered application approach. And so while our 8 -- we make a suggestion here that there should be a 9 Tier 1 minor change process added; I'll just say that, 10 that was to -- I'm going to say that was kind of a 11 Band-Aid solution here. If there's a better solution 12 that limits what needs to be part of Tier 1 that would 13 allow for greater flexibility in changes, then we 14 certainly do encourage that.
15 MR. COLACCINO: Amy, can I ask a clarifying 16 question? You -- this is Joe Colaccino. When you say 17 "minor," you mean something that's not an exemption?
18 MS. AUGHTMAN: So I'll continue on --
19 MR. COLACCINO: I'm sorry.
20 MS. AUGHTMAN: -- with what I mean by that.
21 22 So what the thought was by requesting that 23 is that many of the exemptions we have had to submit 24 that were changes to Tier 1 certified material were 25 for things like typos, clerical errors. So by typos NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 I'm talking about: so this is a level-of-detail issue 2 I think, TAC numbers are in currently contained in some 3 of the Tier 1 information. Rad monitor numbers are 4 in the Tier 1 information. And then clerical and 5 administrative Like if we got a figure number incorrect; 6 we said 2.3-1 and we really meant 2.3.2-1, things of 7 that nature. Misspelled words. Elevator. We also 8 had a "lighting" change versus a "lightning" change 9 that we needed to make that we needed to make.
10 So the thought is for very minor changes 11 like that if there is -- if that isn't captured in Tier 12 1, would it make sense to provide for some type of change 13 process that doesn't require an exemption or other prior 14 NRC review and approval to fix minor changes like those?
15 Now if Zach has anything else to add.
16 MR. HARPER: Yes, I thought that was good.
17 I would just add onto that is that Tier 1 is lengthy 18 in many cases and the -- as a practical matter there 19 are going to be edits, there are going to be editorial 20 changes that need to be made and the -- what it causes 21 is resources are being pulled to work on an LAR or an 22 exemption for edits where those resources could be 23 better applied to more safety-significant issues than 24 changing a "lighting" rod to a "lightning" rod.
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38 1 everyone to please use your full name and organization.
2 Zach, your name is?
3 MR. HARPER: Yes, Zachary Harper, 4 Westinghouse, Plant Engineering and Licensing.
5 MR. SMITH: Oh, great. Thanks. And 6 that's for the transcribing for those on the phone so 7 we can understand who's speaking.
8 MR. TSCHILTZ: So that brings us to No.
9 4 on the list for those on the webinar.
10 MR. HARPER: All right. Again, this is 11 Zachary Harper, Westinghouse, Plant Engineering and 12 Licensing.
13 So I was going to address items 4, 5 and 14 6, which are all related to renewal.
15 As written, Part 52 in draft NRC guidance 16 make it prohibitively expensive to renew a design 17 certification. I'd like to propose three changes to 18 the rule that would make the renewal application process 19 more predictable and efficient. I believe that these 20 proposals have no impact on plant safety, can be 21 implemented quickly and would have a positive benefit 22 to the nuclear industry.
23 The first item that I'd like to talk about 24 is aligning -- so it will go in slightly different order 25 than what's on the table. So the first item that I'd NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 like to discuss is aligning a design certification with 2 a constructed operating facility's UFSAR. So Part 52 3 does not distinguish a design certification renewal 4 for designs that have been licensed and built in 5 verbatim compliance with a high volume of lessons 6 learned versus a design certification that has never 7 been built in the United States with a lower volume 8 of lessons learned.
9 I believe that the additional hundreds of 10 thousands of hours of scrutiny applied to those designs 11 that have been constructed in the way of license 12 amendment requests, ITAAC closures, audits, 13 inspections and licensing evaluations should be 14 appropriately valued during the design certification 15 renewal process. Currently the renewal does not 16 provide for an efficient process to align design 17 certification to a recently constructed operating 18 facility's UFSAR.
19 What I would propose is to revise 10 CFR 20 52 to allow a design certification renewal application 21 be submitted following a facility's construction and 22 initial operation. Essentially what -- the proposal 23 would be for changes within the design application that 24 align with an operating facility's UFSAR should be 25 considered resolved and need no NRC review and approval.
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40 1
2 For those changes that would be included 3 in the design application that go beyond what was 4 included in the operating facility UFSAR; essentially 5 optimization-type changes, they should be evaluated 6 by the DC applicant in accordance with Section 7 VIII(b)(5) of the design certification rule. There 8 changes that need NRC approval under (b)(5) would be 9 considered an amendment under 52.57(c) and changes that 10 do not need NRC approval would be considered resolved.
11 12 In terms of justification I think this is 13 safe, it can be easily implemented and would have a 14 positive benefit. So in terms of safety changes from 15 the original DCD that have been implemented, the 16 operating facility's UFSAR have already been determined 17 to be safe, meet regulations and have no adverse impact 18 on the facility. Therefore, implementing those same 19 changes into a renewal application is safe and meets 20 regulatory requirements.
21 Implementation, I think it would be easy 22 because Reg Guide 1.206 Rev. 1 already provides 23 precedent and includes the justification for this 24 proposal. The recent Reg Guide updated in October of 25 2018 allows the COL applicants to align their COLA with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 an operating facility's UFSAR with no NRC review.
2 So essentially the COLA application process already 3 has this provision. What we're proposing is that -- to 4 align the renewal rule with the COLA rule.
5 In terms of positive benefit I believe this 6 would ensure that lessons learned that are identified 7 during construction are included within the design 8 certification. It would also ensure that the design 9 certification matches the underlying engineering 10 technical documentation, it would greatly simplify the 11 COL application enhancing standardization, and also 12 changes that have already been evaluated to meet NRC 13 rules would not be unnecessarily reviewed.
14 So I'll pause there before I go onto my 15 second item.
16 (Pause.)
17 MR. HARPER: Okay. So the key point there 18 is that Reg Guide 1.206 already has precedent for this.
19 I believe for the COLA applicants we're looking to 20 take those -- what's provided for a COLA and make it 21 applicable to a renewal.
22 Okay. So for the second item that I was 23 going to address was related to the 15-year design 24 certification duration which you had previously brought 25 up. So per 10 CFR 52.55 a design certification is valid NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 for 15 years. This 15-year duration does not serve 2 the underlying purpose of the rule to, quote, "permit 3 more operating experience with a given design to 4 accumulate before the certification comes up for 5 renewal," end quote.
6 This duration is too short and does not 7 permit the desired outcome. In practice the 15-year 8 duration is causing design certification holders to 9 make a decision: either a renewal application and face 10 extensive NRC re-review as shown in the ABWR, or to 11 allow their safe design that has already been shown 12 to meet regulations and determined to be safe to lose 13 its certification. It should be the discretion of the 14 DC applicant when lessons learned have accumulated to 15 the point where it would warrant a DC renewal, not an 16 arbitrary date with no safety basis. So the proposed 17 resolution would be to revise 10 CFR 52 to remove the 18 15-year design certification duration.
19 In terms of justification I think this is 20 safe because the design certification rule -- they're 21 rules, they're not licenses. Rules should not expire.
22 They have been reviewed and approved by the NRC to 23 have met all regulatory requirements. Regulations 24 exist that allow the NRC to impose new requirements 25 on a design certification should a new NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 safety-significant issue come up. And I think the NRC 2 has shown its ability to do that.
3 And then in terms of positive benefit safe 4 designs that have been demonstrated to meet regulations 5 would maintain their design certification instead of 6 expiring at a predetermined arbitrary date. It would 7 also encourage new safe technologies to be introduced 8 since the DC applicant would have additional time to 9 recover up-front costs. It's very expensive and 10 time-consuming to get an original design certification.
11 To know that it's only going to expire in 15 years 12 gives a very limited time to recover the investment.
13 So I'll pause there before I go onto my 14 third item.
15 (Pause.)
16 MR. HARPER: Okay? All right. The last 17 item that I'd like to address is bringing the DCD up 18 to date. 10 CFR 52.57 currently requires an applicant 19 for renewal to contain all information necessary to 20 bring up to date the previous application. 52.59 21 provides the type of information that would be necessary 22 to bring the previous application up to date.
23 Specifically it states, "The Commission shall grant 24 a renewal if it complies with the Atomic Energy Act 25 and the Commission's regulations applicable and in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 1 effect at the time that the certification was issued."
2 Unfortunately -- so the NRC has issued 3 draft guidance that attempted to clarify 10 CFR 52.57 4 by saying that renewal applications must include all 5 -- the correction -- include correction of errors, typos 6 and effects that reflect design changes -- and reflect 7 any design changes. So there appears to be some 8 disconnect between what was actually written in 10 CFR 9 52.59 and -- i.e. -- what was written in 52.59; i.e.,
10 the changes that need to comply with regulations and 11 the staff's interpretation; i.e., the correction of 12 errors, typos, defects and design changes.
13 So what I would propose is to clarify 10 14 CFR 52.57 regarding what it means to bring up to date 15 the information in the certification. In terms of 16 safety changes that require to meet NRC regulations 17 -- changes required to meet NRC regulations would 18 continue to be on the DC application. The -- it's 19 fairly simple because you're just pulling what's in 20 -- already in 52.59 into 52.57 and I think it would 21 have a positive benefit because it would eliminate 22 confusion on what content is actually required in a 23 renewal application.
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45 1 the challenges that we have on renewal and should the 2 NRC be amenable to including these type of changes, 3 we can provide a more full explanation if you'd like.
4 Thank you.
5 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay. Moving on to item 6 No. 7.
7 MR. PIERCE: Item 7 deals with the 50.59 8 versus the departure process.
9 MR. SMITH: Full name? Sorry. Sorry 10 again. I'm sorry, but full name and organization.
11 Thanks.
12 MR. PIERCE: Okay. My name is Chuck 13 Pierce. I work for Southern Nuclear.
14 MR. SMITH: Thanks.
15 MR. PIERCE: So the -- I think the 16 challenge here is that when the departure processes 17 were put in place I think that it was meant to be 18 essentially the same as the 50.59 in terms of with the 19 part of that process that deals with the questions of 20 50.59. However, the 50.59 process does contain some 21 differing language such as dealing with tests and 22 experiments and some other language. That drove to 23 a need to have subsequent guidance on how to do 24 departures, which has been done. And so right now we 25 do both departures and 50.59s on various aspects of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 1 our FSAR.
2 Particularly going forward as you go into 3 operations what you're going to find out is that we'll 4 have engineering doing analyses, we're going to have 5 licensing doing work, we're going to have all the 6 -- right now today the entire organization, various 7 parts of the organization for the fleet does 50.59s 8 and this is going to be a human factors issue as when 9 do you do a 50.59 and when do you do a departure? It's 10 going to be pretty challenging as you get into the 11 operational phase and making those decisions and doing 12 them properly. Of course it can be done, but from a 13 process issue it would be far simpler in my mind to 14 make it clear that the 50.59 -- that the departure 15 process is actually a 50.59 process and you can apply 16 50.59 in lieu of the departure process. There's still 17 of course the aspect of severe accident sets that has 18 to be added at the end as well, but I think that's pretty 19 -- that's very doable.
20 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay. Moving onto No. 8.
21 Mike Tschiltz from NEI.
22 So this gets to an issue that was raised 23 during the NRC's presentation about delays in issuance 24 of COLs due to errors in the design certification that 25 are noted following certification of the design. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 so there's a fairly long history on this with -- over 2 the last several years with NEI interacting with the 3 NRC on this and trying to come up with what we would 4 consider to be viable options for addressing this issue 5 in the future.
6 There's no doubt in my mind this will be 7 faced by a future applicant, so the next person going 8 through the design certification process, the first 9 plant building it is going to undoubtedly find some 10 issues that could impact the certification itself, and 11 any follow-on COL would be impacted in a similar manner 12 than -- than they were in the past if we don't address 13 this. So that's why I think NEI keeps on coming back 14 to this because this is I think the opportunity we need 15 to fix this.
16 I think we had proposed in correspondence 17 to the NRC three different options, one of which -- I 18 think the industry felt was clearly the preferred option 19 was addressing this issue with errors in designs by 20 NRC issuance of a license condition. And I know there 21 was some concerns about legal precedent and the 22 Commission's views on the use of a license condition 23 and things that would limit that.
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48 1 this type of issue, here's what you should do so it's 2 not left up to interpretation. And I think we clearly 3 feel that a license condition is probably the best way 4 to deal with this out of the options that we developed 5 when we were engaging with the staff.
6 So I think in the example I have listed 7 here it lays out the process of requiring a license 8 amendment to correct the error prior to the 52.103(g) 9 finding and then specifying a design methodology for 10 correcting the error and acceptance criteria for the 11 design. So I think we think this is reasonable and 12 addresses the issue and that's what we're proposing 13 here for the staff to consider in the rule.
14 So I would say we would go onto item No.
15 9.
16 MS. AUGHTMAN: All right. Amy Aughtman 17 from Southern Nuclear. I'll cover items 9 and 10.
18 This again kind of comes back to -- item 19 9 comes back to Tier 1 again. One other item to consider 20 when examining Tier 1 is how much of it is necessary 21 to replicate in the COL itself? There was a desire 22 to have all the plant-specific ITAAC -- by the staff 23 to have all the plant-specific ITAAC reflected in the 24 COLs as an appendix.
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49 1 we needed -- that the Tier 1 information that supported 2 the ITAAC needed to be duplicated in the COL itself.
3 So that requires us to provide basically dual markups 4 for everything and it's not clear is there really a 5 benefit there for replication? I know it puts on us 6 a human performance error trap. And it's not that hard, 7 but again it's just extra work that we're not clear 8 if there's another -- if there is benefit there or not.
9 So that's what item 9 is about.
10 And then item 10 is just a potential 11 clarification to consider regarding the status of the 12 tech spec bases. Sorry, that's technical 13 specification bases. Technical specifications are 14 clearly articulated as not being considered part of 15 Tier 1 or Tier 2, however there's -- it's -- the rule 16 is silent on how the bases should be treated.
17 And right now our bases control program 18 is considered to not be in effect until 103(g) when 19 the tech specs become effective, however, we are having 20 to process changes to the bases as we're proceeding 21 changes now to the technical specifications themselves.
22 So perhaps a clarification on how the bases should 23 be managed prior to 103(g) could be beneficial.
24 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay. Moving on to No. 11.
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50 1 the Director of Nuclear Technology and Innovation at 2 Tennessee Valley Authority managing our small modular 3 reactor early site permit application for the Clinch 4 River site. I'll be addressing No. 11 and No. 15 and 5 Peter will get cleanup on these.
6 What we're doing is we're asking the NRC 7 to consider a more staged approach to application 8 acceptance and review of components of an application.
9 And I'm talking about design certification 10 applications, CPs, construction permits, COLAs, ESPAs.
11 And it's going to require a shift from the perspective 12 of the NRC staff away from the position that was taken 13 two to three years ago where you were looking for a 14 complete application in its entirety before you would 15 conduct the review. You move there from an application 16 that was ready to begin the review.
17 And what we're asking is to think about 18 accepting something that is a complete component that 19 is of sufficient detail to conduct and issue a Safety 20 Evaluation Report with open items because we do 21 recognize that the staff will need to see a component 22 of an application in the context of the complete 23 application. And so it's reasonable to have an open 24 item that says you need to conduct that final review 25 once you've seen the complete application.
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51 1 We think that this kind of an approach would 2 allow the applicant to get some needed finality and 3 predictability while also giving the NRC that -- the 4 ability to state its limitations on the finality that 5 they would be able to provide by seeing a component 6 of an application.
7 In terms of the clock it's reasonable that 8 the clock wouldn't start until you have a complete 9 application, but this would allow the potential for 10 more efficient use of resources in a case where the 11 staff had availability and the applicant had the ability 12 to get a part of the application in front of the NRC 13 and you could knock that out earlier and it reduces 14 the workload that's on critical path when that final 15 element of the application comes in.
16 MR. BROWN: This is Fred Brown with the 17 NRC. If I could just ask a quick clarifying question, 18 Dan. You used the word "providing needed finality,"
19 and there's different levels of finality within Part 20 52 that SDA has finality on the staff. DC has finality 21 relative to the Advisory Committee on Reactor 22 Safeguards and the Commission. Is this proposal -- how 23 does this proposal consider the degree of finality that 24 you would be thinking about with this change?
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52 1 question. The amount of finality that can be given 2 is what we'd be asking for. In other words, the SDA's 3 process does not achieve finality from the Commission 4 or the ASLB, and that's fine.
5 MR. BROWN: Okay.
6 MR. STOUT: You know that going into it 7 that the finality has limitations. So I think the more 8 important element is getting the finality from the staff 9 and to some degree getting the finality from ACRS 10 review. That takes you a long way down the path of 11 having alignment from a technical perspective.
12 MR. BROWN: So great. So the main 13 distinction here between -- and I used an acronym, I'm 14 sorry. Standard design approval. The main 15 distinction would be to have the staff include the 16 Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards which is not 17 currently laid out in the sub-part E of Part 52, which 18 is the standard design approval. We can do staged 19 reviews, but to extend that to engagement with ACRS 20 for portions of various applications it's hard.
21 MR. STOUT: I guess it would be my 22 suggestion that we try to accommodate that, that that 23 helps improve the degree of finality and I think it's 24 consistent with how the staff currently interacts with 25 the ACRS. You do bundle together like technical topics NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 and take them to ACRS. Sometimes you take them with 2 open items; sometimes you wait until you have no open 3 items. But that degree of engagement with the ACRS, 4 it is a level of increased finality that is helpful.
5 MR. BROWN: Thank you.
6 MR. HASTINGS: So there's a segue from this 7 to item 12 as well. This is Peter Hastings. I'm the 8 Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Quality for 9 Kairos Power. And this maybe a good time to introduce 10 sort of the advanced reactor spin on this whole thing 11 before I go on to item 12.
12 My team and I on the Kairos team have been 13 involved in one way or the other in new plant development 14 since the early days of NP-2010. I've got members of 15 my team that worked on the AP1000 COLA design 16 certifications, the mPower light water reactor, other 17 light water SMRs. We've been working for the last 18 several years on advanced reactor regulatory framework 19 and have been with -- I've been with Kairos now for 20 about a year. Just for reference sake, we're a small 21 modular reactor based on Triso pebble fuel and molten 22 salt coolant. So distinctly non-light water reactor.
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54 1 Joe talked about for the rule, this rule change won't 2 be ready in time for near-term deployment of some 3 advanced reactors. And that's fine. We want to 4 clarify and reinforce industry's position that a rule 5 change is not required for near-term development. For 6 longer-term efficiency it certainly makes sense.
7 There is some risk to rule development 8 while applications are being developed, but let's say 9 that there's no perfect time for a rule change. And 10 so we're very pleased to support this effort and to 11 recognize the importance of clarifications to the rule 12 for longer-term efficiency and licensing 13 predictability.
14 And I personally really appreciate the 15 staff's receptiveness to incorporating lessons, some 16 of which were hard-fought, some of which are pretty 17 obvious in retrospect, in hindsight, but to develop 18 an improved set of rules going forward. The suggestion 19 that Dan made on item 11 would require changes to Part 20 52(b), Part 2, Section 101(a)(5) and probably some other 21 areas.
22 But to Fred's question on finality, it's 23 helpful to think of it in terms of incremental finality.
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55 1 years ago was all about. It's getting some financial 2 predictability into the system earlier so that one 3 doesn't have to go spend numbers with lots and lots 4 of zeros behind it before the NRC's first conclusion 5 on the design.
6 For item 12, as I said, it's a good segue 7 to that issue. And item 12 is all about some of that 8 work that's been done in advanced reactor regulatory 9 framework, notably the NRC's draft regulatory review 10 road map for non-LWRs, which provides for non-LWRs to 11 use preliminary design information in an SDA. And 12 that's not entirely consistent with the rule which 13 provides for, quote, "final design information for an 14 SDA," but that was -- I'm hopeful and of the belief 15 that that was done on purpose.
16 This provision of the road map recognizes 17 the value of a phased approach and the use of an SDA 18 for that phased approach; that is, utilizing the 19 existing tools available to the staff in lieu of going 20 off and developing a new, say -- let's call it a 21 Canadian-vendor-design-review-type process that we 22 collectively between the Agency and industry decided 23 wasn't needed because there were enough tools in the 24 NRC staff's tool kit already.
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56 1 identification or information document, on the one hand 2 provides for a non-binding NRC staff review of 3 preliminary design information. Standard design 4 approval provides for a binding staff evaluation of 5 what's called final design in the regulation. We 6 believe that the NRC's road map recognizes that there's 7 a viable middle ground there that the SDA -- and SDA, 8 which is already established in terms of being able 9 to evaluate major portions of the design as opposed 10 to the complete design. That already sort of sets the 11 stage for the notion of a sliding scale, if you will, 12 of finality.
13 You get finality on what you present. And 14 so if you provide an SDA with preliminary information, 15 then the SER associated with that SDA is going to be 16 contingent on the satisfaction of that preliminary 17 information in what's ultimately set forth in future 18 license proceedings.
19 The industry owns all of that risk. If 20 we set forth an SDA with preliminary information and 21 the staff provides an SER and in a subsequent design 22 iteration the preliminary information becomes no longer 23 valid, then the impact of the SER and the finality 24 associated with that SER is the burden of the industry 25 to demonstrate that it's still acceptable or that it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 needs to be revised.
2 So that's a long-winded explanation behind 3 what's behind item 12. We think that the 4 reconciliation of the language in the rule and the 5 language in the non-LWR road map is easy to do and would 6 be a beneficial change to the regulations.
7 MR. TSCHILTZ: Thank you, Peter. This is 8 Mike Tschiltz from NEI. This may be a good point, Jim, 9 if you were to consider taking a break in our 10 presentation.
11 MR. O'DRISCOLL: You read my mind.
12 So why don't we take a 15-minute break and 13 come back at let's say -- why don't we just come back 14 ate a quarter after, a little bit more than 15 minutes.
15 Quarter after 10. Thank you.
16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 17 off the record at 9:54 a.m. and resumed at 10:14 a.m.)
18 MR. SMITH: Okay, if everybody could take 19 their seat, we're going to get started again.
20 Robin, I don't know if you heard me, but 21 we're going to go ahead and get started again.
22 OPERATOR: Yes, the lines are open.
23 MR. SMITH: Great, thank you.
24 Okay, before we get started again, just 25 wanted to remind everyone not to discuss any classified, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 safeguard, sensitive, or proprietary information.
2 Also, if you could state your name, your organization 3 prior to speaking, it'll help us to record information 4 and also for the folks on the line, for their benefit.
5 All right, you guys want to continue?
6 MR. BROWN: Mike, if I could, this is Fred 7 Brown with the NRC. I just want to correct confusion 8 that I inserted potentially into folks' minds in a 9 question on Item 11 about the staged approach. The 10 ACRS does review the staff's work under Subpart E for 11 standard design approval already. So my question was 12 really about finality, and Dan answered that question 13 that the industry does recognize there's a degree of 14 finality that doesn't involve the Commission and that 15 got to the point of the suggestion. So my thanks and 16 my apology for the confusion.
17 MR. TSCHILTZ: So this is Mike Tschiltz 18 from NEI. And so we're going to transition to other 19 10 CFR changes that kind of are corresponding changes 20 that come out of Implementation Part 52, and so I'll 21 turn it over to Southern for Item No. 13.
22 MS. AUGHTMAN: All right. Again, this is 23 Amy Aughtman from Southern Nuclear. And I'm pulling 24 up my notes to get them handy again.
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59 1 Okay, so this topic is on probabilistic 2 risk assessment or PRA requirements. And so this was 3 a fairly significant rule change from what has been 4 required for Part 50 applicants. And a couple of things 5 we want the staff to consider in this rulemaking; one 6 is Southern has found that the requirement to utilize 7 the NRC endorsed consistent standards that are in effect 8 one year prior to fuel load is probably not practical.
9 And Southern did seek relief from this through an 10 exemption request, which basically allowed us to use 11 the standards that are endorsed at the present time.
12 And so one suggestion we have is perhaps locking in 13 the standard that should be utilized at the time a COL 14 is issued. There may be other ways to accomplish that, 15 but just one year to get the PRA models developed and 16 peer reviewed, just is not really enough time by 17 considering everything else you have going on in that 18 one year leading up to fuel load. The second 19 requirement is in 50.71(h)(2) which requires an upgrade 20 every four years, so this is once you've achieved 21 operation and the upgrade must reflect endorsed 22 consensus standards in effect, again, one year prior 23 to the upgrade. Two things we'd like you to consider 24 there; one is, is the four-year frequency really the 25 right type of requirement upgrades or a little more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 significant than a simple maintain and update, which 2 -- I say simple; those are not necessarily simple 3 themselves -- but an upgrade is additional scope and 4 burden that I just think we should re-examine the cost 5 benefit for requiring upgrades. So then beyond that, 6 again, if there are requirements for upgrades, one year 7 to get the models developed and peer-reviewed, again, 8 is probably not very realistic and we would ask for 9 you to reconsider at what point in time is the right 10 time to lock in the standard that we should be working 11 to.
12 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay, I think we'll 13 transition to Item No. 14.
14 Is that Chuck or Amy?
15 MS. AUGHTMAN: Oh, okay. Amy Aughtman, 16 again, for Southern. So this is on -- this item is 17 about the definitions on use of Commission-approved 18 simulators. This is an area that Southern discovered 19 perhaps the rules are not very clear on -- or don't 20 provide enough allowance or in particular when you're 21 trying to get started with cold licensed operators in 22 a design for which a simulator hasn't been approved 23 on yet. There's some opportunity to get some clarity 24 there on using a Commission-approved simulator and how 25 that compares to what the rules allow for plant NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 reference simulators. So this is another area Southern 2 had to -- actually, we requested approval from the 3 Commission for the simulator to be used; during that 4 review NRC staff determined an exemption is appropriate 5 and needed to allow us to refer back to the 6 Commission-approved simulator. And so we provided the 7 ML number there for the exemption requested -- sorry, 8 the exemption that was granted -- so that you can see 9 perhaps the rules may need to be adjusted to reflect 10 that.
11 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay, so the next item is 12 No. 15. Is that Pete?
13 MR. HASTINGS: Yes, so for 15 -- this is 14 Peter Hastings -- Dan coupled the first half of this 15 with his remarks on Item 11, so we don't need to 16 reiterate that, but the latter half of this, the next 17 as being 10 CFR 2.101 (a)(5); we would suggest that 18 the staff take a look at areas of the environmental 19 report in EIS where the impact is effectively 20 predetermined by the licensing action underway. So, 21 for example, it doesn't make a lot of sense to require 22 an additional set of radiological impact assessments 23 when the license is being issued sets the parameters 24 around which that licensee is able to operate already.
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62 1 review that are duplicative of the work that's being 2 done elsewhere in the application, relatively 3 straightforward.
4 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay, No. 16.
5 MR. PIERCE: Chuck Pierce, Southern 6 Nuclear. I'm going to jump and talk a little bit about 7 Part 26. And during the construction phase for Vogtle 8 3 and 4 it was identified that the construct of 26.4(f) 9 does not provide for the use of -- or does not allow 10 for visitors to come on site and do safety or secured 11 work under escort. If you look at the construct for 12 the operating fleet, there is an allowance for visitors 13 to come on site and under appropriate escort -- I think 14 it's also in Part 73 -- to do work. So for the first 15 part here there will be a need as we get into the parts 16 of construction, particular as it deals with testing 17 and start-up for visitors to be engaged -- or for people 18 to come on site for very short terms and to support 19 the staff and get any equipment ready for start-up.
20 And so we anticipate that we will be using the 21 individuals a very short period of time; we would like 22 to use visitors under appropriate escort. We do have 23 a license amendment with an exemption applied for on 24 this, but I think it'd be appropriate to look at this 25 in a broader context of what might be appropriate for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 a rule change.
2 Likewise, on the second part, we also use 3 Subpart K workers which are construction workers, 4 there's a provision in Part 26 for construction workers 5 specifically. And Subpart K is silent on certain, what 6 I call administrative provisions that are provided for, 7 for other works in Subpart's A-H, N and O. And the 8 one that particularly jumps out is the authorization 9 reinstatement provisions of 10 CFR 26.59. So if 10 somebody is, for example, off the site for 30 days, 11 there's a reinstatement provision for them to come back 12 on; so this is -- there are no similar provisions in 13 Subpart K, so it's silent on it -- and so we would like 14 the regulations clarified to how those provisions apply 15 back in the Subpart K provisions.
16 17, jumping forward. 17 deals with annual 17 fees of Part 170.15(e); currently annual fees begin 18 at -- for a plant, begin at 103(g) or when the 103(g) 19 decision is made. Historically, it appears to us that 20 the appropriate time for annual fees to begin is when 21 there's a derived economic benefit. And there's some 22 history to that being an appropriate time as well.
23 So our recommendation in looking at the annual fees 24 is that the annual fees begins, rather than beginning 25 at 103(g), they begin at commercial operation, the date NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 of commercial operation when there's a derived economic 2 benefit.
3 MR. TSCHILTZ: Okay, this is Mike 4 Tschiltz, NEI. This brings us to No. 18 and I think 5 we're going to add one after 18 to the list here. But 6 for No. 18 I'd like Tom Bergman who's on the phone to 7 lead the industry discussion on that. So I don't know 8 if the operator can bring Tom in. He's going to press 9 Star 1 so he can talk.
10 OPERATOR: Thank you. If he'll please 11 press Star 1 so I can get his line open.
12 Okay, one moment.
13 Okay, your line's open.
14 Please unmute your line. Your line's 15 open.
16 MR. BERGMAN: Oh. Good morning, 17 everyone; this is Tom Bergman with NuScale Power. I 18 hope you can hear me clearly.
19 I am going to address 18 and then our 20 up-comments so I don't pop on and off the line. With 21 respect to 18, and it's broader than 20.1406, that some 22 clarity in to what extent the requirements in Part 20 23 need to be addressed by the DCA. The DCA in Subpart 24 B points to Part 20, but many of the requirements in 25 Part 20 refer to licensees. In general we need to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 address questions on those requirements, though it 2 isn't clear they actually apply to a DC applicant.
3 So the applicability statements in Part 20 should be 4 modified to indicate what applicants under Part 52 are 5 required to comply with which requirements in Part 20, 6 because in our view the amount of information that we 7 provide on Part 20 goes beyond what's necessary for 8 a safety finding and it has little lasting regulatory 9 control because most of that information will be changed 10 by the COL applicant and/or holder, the licensee, later 11 as they actually get operating data from the plan, and 12 those changes typically would be made without engaging 13 the NRC at a later point. So that review provides an 14 appearance of regulatory control while actually 15 providing little. And that's sort of a general theme 16 of our comments and they do overlap some of the comments 17 the staff made, as well as the other participants with 18 NEI. And we do support the NEI comments. We have our 19 own lessons learned being a design to deviate 20 significantly from those that were considered when the 21 regulations were written using Fred's analogy of a 22 house; we're kind of a different kind of home -- not 23 a house -- I don't know what kind to call it, but we 24 look like a house, but we are different than the typical 25 house.
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66 1 And that theme I mentioned on Part 20 2 carries to the others that having applicants spend 3 effort in developing information for an application 4 and having the NRC review that information where it 5 has little or no effect on safety and can be changed 6 later without subsequent NRC reviews of limited value, 7 and this gets to the essentially complete requirement.
8 And Joe, I can't remember Joe Colaccino's exact 9 language, but it was along the lines of related to the 10 safety findings, and yet we feel our application goes 11 in the systems that there is no safety finding to be 12 made, other than perhaps a very high level along events 13 some of the general design criteria like 2, 4 and 5, 14 and there may be a way to modify application such that 15 the information in the FSAR is limited to that type 16 of finding, but the details that the staff may find 17 of interest are in a non-regulated, descriptive 18 document. And I bring it up because in the NuScale 19 design, once you leave the reactor building there's 20 almost nothing that has any safety significance at all.
21 And we think that will be typical of future advanced 22 reactor designs as well that you keep the safety stuff 23 close to the NSSS, and once you get into the balance 24 of plant, there's lower or no safety significance.
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67 1 staff's effort to enhance the RAI process that tries 2 to tie them to sound regulatory basis, but clarifying 3 that whether it's in a state in consideration or within 4 the rule where essentially complete would be helpful.
5 The next, going to earlier discussion on 6 ITAAC; we do think more consistent regulatory guidance 7 on ITAAC would be beneficial. NEI 15-02 was a good 8 effort that was stopped; we understand it will soon 9 be resubmitted as NEI 18-01, but endorsed guidance on 10 appropriate ITAAC would be a regulatory improvement.
11 And in that guidance, and one thing we do appreciate 12 NRO's discussing with us is that acceptance of criteria 13 for ITAAC could without -- as a supplement to reduce 14 the burden on a change process that the ITAAC themselves 15 have flexibility for licensee's to meet the acceptance 16 criteria without necessarily changing the ITAAC. The 17 one example we typically use with the staff is the demand 18 and capacity ratios pointing to the code rather than 19 to the analysis that's part of FSAR that would give 20 the COL flexibility to modify the design, but because 21 it would still meet the code, it would still be safe.
22 Another comment Joe Colaccino, again, 23 brought up the SRP evaluation requirement, and I do 24 think that should be changed from a requirement to 25 guidance, but retained is an option. I think because NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 there may be a possibility a large light-water reactor 2 will be submitted or amended and they may find it useful 3 to do that analysis. NuScale is a light-water reactor 4 that's substantially different, the value of that 5 somewhat reduced that when you -- and the reason I bring 6 that up is when you deviate from the SRP substantially, 7 it's often times harder to explain to the staff why 8 that deviation is acceptable than just stating we had 9 an alternative approach to safety and we'd want that 10 evaluated on its merits. I recognize that that type 11 approach would require somewhat a function of change 12 of the staff that you're just saying we're not 13 conforming to certain reg guides in the SRP and here's 14 our approach to safety. We've no comparison at all, 15 but it is a possibility if something could be done.
16 Much is with DCA; either eliminate or extend the 17 duration of SDA's or develop a SDA renewal process which 18 isn't currently in there. I think this may be part 19 of the EPZ rule, or more appropriate there, but the 20 distance from population centers and 10 CFR 100 needs 21 to be rethought in light of the new designs.
22 And it was on Slide 9 a number of SECY papers 23 for reference, and it goes beyond those reference on 24 Slide 9. But SECY's should be converted into 25 regulatory guidance or requirements if the Commission NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 1 deems a requirement necessary. That would allow a more 2 public participation process than occurs with a SECY 3 paper, and it would also make sure that we understand 4 what the regulatory guidance is and reduce debates over 5 interpretation of SECY papers.
6 But overall, I just want to say we've 7 learned a lot working with Part 52 and we do encourage 8 the NRC to continue its consideration of improving the 9 Part 52 process.
10 That's all I have.
11 MR. TSCHILTZ: Thanks, Tom. This is Mike 12 Tschiltz, NEI. So we're at the point in the 13 presentation where we've ended our list of 18. I should 14 note that we provided the NRC with the list of 20 other 15 additional changes that we don't intend to cover at 16 the meeting, but we would like the NRC to include those 17 issues in its meeting summary. But there is one item 18 from that list that we'd like to mention, and I'm going 19 to ask Amy Aughtman of Southern to cover 10 CFR 73.58.
20 21 MS. AUGHTMAN: So this would be Item 15 22 for those that maybe want to follow along on the webinar.
23 And again, Amy Aughtman from Southern. This item has 24 to do with the provision in 10 CFR 73.58; that's the 25 safety security interface requirements. And in SECY-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 1 15-0002 there's a recommendation made for clarifying 2 that this rule should in fact be effective for Part 3 52 licensee's after issuance of the license, whereas 4 right now it indicates it applies to operating reactors.
5 And so I think this falls in the bucket of items that 6 the staff are calling issues that unnecessarily 7 challenged the staff and applicants and licensees where 8 we went through several months of debate with the staff 9 on whether this provision actually did apply for some 10 licensed amendments we were seeking shortly after we 11 got the COL. And there was a letter issued to clarify 12 that it should not apply until 103(g), and that ML number 13 is provided in these written comments, just to go back 14 and refer to. And again, recognizing the SECY is a 15 few years old, we'll just ask that the staff reconsider 16 the position that was stated in the SECY on revisiting 17 that, and keeping it at the stage of operation. The 18 way, at least 73.58 is implemented for operating plants, 19 is pretty involved in terms of you have significant 20 interface with various groups with an operating plant, 21 operations, maintenance, engineering, radiation 22 protection, not all those groups are available at the 23 time we're making changes early in a construction 24 environment. And so I think what was alluded to in 25 the letter that we reference here should be sufficient NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 for assuring that safety and security are balanced 2 during the change control process after a license is 3 issued. So we do have in our procedures, we do make 4 sure we're assessing security impacts for design 5 changes along the way. And certainly as security plans 6 are developed and further refined, those are taken into 7 account the state of design as they're developing those 8 strategies as well.
9 So just wanted to point that one out in 10 particular since it appears to be different than what 11 was proposed in the SECY.
12 MR. TSCHILTZ: So Mike Tschiltz from NEI.
13 We're transitioning back to the other list where we're 14 shifting to the section on recommendations for policy 15 statements or guidance associated with Part 52.
16 So there's two items on here, and I'll ask 17 Amy to talk about the first one.
18 MS. AUGHTMAN: Again, Amy Aughtman from 19 Southern. So what this is just offering as something 20 to consider is Tier 1 is issued, or identified I should 21 say, at the DCD phase and the licensee's then maintain 22 a plant specific Tier 1 document. And we have been 23 maintaining it separate and apart from our plant 24 specific DCD. So we have our USFAR which incorporates 25 the plant specific DCD, but the plant specific Tier NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 1 document -- so this is really just a technicality.
2 I don't know that there's a whole lot implication 3 either way here, that it's just something that has 4 caused a little bit of confusion that you may want to 5 look at does there need to be some clarification here.
6 For the avoidance of doubt we do maintain a plant 7 specific Tier 1 document; it's just a question of should 8 it be treated or identified as part of the USFAR.
9 MR. TSCHILTZ: So the second item on the 10 list involves the issue of standardization and finality 11 and the challenges it creates for especially 12 first-of-the-kind Part 52 licensees or applicants.
13 So I think what we're asking is part of the rulemaking 14 there be some kind of consideration of this and some 15 statement that revisits the balance struck between 16 standardization, finality and flexibility. So I think 17 this is important for future applicants and there were 18 some things said a long time ago about the Commission 19 on this, things have been implemented; I think it's 20 time to reflect to see whether we can more clearly state 21 this or strike a better balance on this issue. And 22 so that's the end of our comments here.
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73 1 we've identified as potentially wanting to provide 2 input on at some point in time that we need to gain 3 consensus on. We need to see how the staff develops 4 a draft rule and what things are changed in there.
5 So we have an ongoing list of things to consider, so 6 it's important that we stay engaged and have public 7 interaction during the course of development of the 8 proposed rule.
9 And I think with that I'll offer to any 10 other of the industry panelists there to make a 11 statement.
12 MR. STOUT: I just want to follow up on 13 what Tom Bergman said on Part 100, and I'm not -- it 14 was my understanding that it wasn't part of the scope 15 of the EP rulemaking; if that's the case, then perhaps 16 this is the place to address it going back to the 17 alignment of 52 and that kind of stuff.
18 MR. TSCHILTZ: So that concludes the 19 industry panel's presentation.
20 MR. SMITH: All right, this is George 21 Smith, NRC facilitator. Robin, if you can ask those 22 on the line if there are any members of the public with 23 any other prepared remarks. We just want to find out 24 how many folks there, and I'll query the room here while 25 you're making that announcement.
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74 1 OPERATOR: At this time if there is 2 questions from the phone line, please press star 3 followed by the number 1. Please unmute your line, 4 record your name clearly as prompted to be introduced.
5 Again, with questions from the phone line, please press 6 star followed by the number 1.
7 MR. SMITH: And again, Robin, just for 8 clarification, we've not began the Q&A session yet.
9 This was just -- we just want to find out if there are 10 any other members of the public with any prepared 11 remarks that they'd like to present at this time?
12 OPERATOR: Again, you can press star 1 with 13 any remarks.
14 MR. SMITH: Also, is there anyone in the 15 room here with prepared remarks they'd like to present?
16 Okay.
17 OPERATOR: And no one's queuing up for any 18 remarks at this time.
19 MR. SMITH: Okay, great. So at this time 20 we will transition into the open discussion Q&A session 21 where we'd like to hear your questions and comments 22 on the NRC presentation and discussions on what you've 23 heard so far today.
24 What we'll do, again, we'll query to see 25 how many folks may have questions in the room and on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 the line. If there are quite a bit of folks in the 2 room, I do have comment cards that we can use, but if 3 there are not, we won't use the comment cards. If there 4 are only a few folks in the room who would like to make 5 questions, have questions, then we won't sort of put 6 the hard time limit on that, but if we have a lot of 7 folks that would like to ask questions, then we'll try 8 to limit the time limit to about four minutes. Then 9 we'll let you have follow-up questions. But we do want 10 to make sure everyone has an opportunity to provide 11 their feedback.
12 Robin, if you can, if you can query on the 13 line to see if there's anyone who would like to 14 participate in the Q&A session, if they have any 15 questions at this time.
16 OPERATOR: And if there is questions on 17 the phone line, that is star followed by number 1.
18 Please unmute your line and record your name clearly.
19 I'll be standing by for any questions.
20 MR. SMITH: So I'm showing one individual 21 in the room. Do I have two?
22 Okay.
23 OPERATOR: And I'm not showing any on the 24 phone line at this time.
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76 1 line, if you have questions, we'll open the lines up 2 again for you to have questions if you hear something 3 during this process that you'd like to follow up with 4 a question.
5 So, we only have three people in the room.
6 We still would like to get -- try to be succinct at 7 your questions, and we'll try to get them to answer.
8 But if you can come up to the microphone up front and 9 ask your questions. Please state your name and the 10 organization that you're representing, please.
11 And also, before you get started, please 12 do not provide any kind of safeguards, sensitive 13 information, proprietary information with your 14 questions and your feedback.
15 Thanks.
16 MR. DOLLEY: Thank you. Steven Dolley, 17 S&P Global Platts. My question is just a clarification 18 on the industry recommendation No. 17 on 10 CFR 171, 19 the question of when annual fees will begin, should 20 they begin with the 103(g) decision or with the 21 beginning of commercial operation. But my 22 clarification question is when do the most significant 23 increases in NRC oversight, or rather the shift I should 24 say to oversight of an operating reactor take place?
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77 1 beginning of commercial operation? I'm trying to get 2 a sense of whether the recommendation matches up, the 3 recommendation for when the annual fees begin, matches 4 up with when NRC transitions from construction 5 oversight to the ROP, basically I guess. And would 6 it end up being a situation where if it did begin only 7 with commercial operation that there were a gap period 8 where there were increased NRC oversight that would 9 not be covered by annual fees if this proposal were 10 adopted.
11 MR. BROWN: Yes, so this is Fred Brown with 12 the NR -- I'll address the part of the question regarding 13 fees and the NRC activity. So we charge two types of 14 fees, 10 CFR Part 170 fees which are essentially a fee 15 for service and the license holder is currently paying 16 those fees for all of our inspections or licensing 17 reviews, so they are in fact paying for everything that 18 we do that's directly tied to the COL. The Part 171 19 fees which I understood the suggestion to focus on are 20 the cost recovery for the agency fees that are required 21 by separate statute which include the cost of the agency 22 that are attributable to the functional area, so in 23 this case reactor safety, and are spread across all 24 of the holders of operating licenses, which 25 historically have been Part 50 OL's. So I will defer NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 to Southern to their thoughts, but just to clarify on 2 the question; for the direct activities that the agency 3 perform that support Southern today, we are charging 4 fees. 171 fees would be for the infrastructure of the 5 agency.
6 MR. PIERCE: That's correct; today you're 7 charging the 170 variable fee structure. So its hours 8 -- and this is Chuck Pierce, Southern Nuclear; I should 9 have started out by saying that. As direct hours are 10 being used by the NRC for like NRC inspectors, there's 11 a direct charge for that going to Southern Nuclear, 12 so we do see fees today. With regard to when we 13 transition from construction operation, we're clearly 14 under construction today; when you move to start-up 15 and testing and particularly at 103(g) it started in 16 a transition area stage where you're still in a -- where 17 you were testing the plant and going through various 18 tests to demonstrate that the plan will work, and then 19 you end up in commercial operation after demonstration, 20 at some point, maybe six months in the future. And 21 then that's clearly operation, but you do load fuel 22 at 103(g) in order to be able to continue that start-up 23 program. So it's sort of a transitionary, sort of 24 transition over a period of time from what I'd call 25 construction into an operations program. It's not a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 1 clear date that you go from one to the other.
2 MR. DOLLEY: But there would have to be 3 a specific time that had been reviewed under a 4 construction permit or the construction aspect of a 5 COL that goes over to operation in the ROP, right?
6 I mean, there's not a grey area on whether you're in 7 the ROP or not, as I understand it? Or is there?
8 MR. PIERCE: It's not a ROP, no.
9 MR. BROWN: Yes, this is Fred Brown again.
10 So the ROP is charged as 170 fees, as fee-for-service 11 direct fees.
12 MR. DOLLEY: Okay.
13 MR. BROWN: So to further -- I should have 14 -- I said the 171 covers infrastructure, so to be a 15 little clearer, rulemaking, the cost of the ACRS, the 16 cost of the computer systems, the docket, the 17 applications and all of our public outreach, the 18 Commission work devoted to reactor safety; all of those 19 things are covered under 171.
20 MR. DOLLEY: Generic.
21 MR. BROWN: So, in fact, the holder of the 22 COL has benefitted from all those things for the 23 existence of the COL, just not directly, not covered 24 under 170. So it's a policy decision to some extent.
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80 1 probably more background that I'm not familiar with 2 in how that, what shapes that policy because it's not 3 in my part of the organization, but the real distinction 4 here is in this particular case Southern Nuclear is 5 paying 170 fees for all the direct service and they 6 will continue to pay 170 even after whether it's 103(d) 7 or commercial operations. It's a matter, though, of 8 when the rest of the allocated cost get distributed 9 out to the 171 payers, at what point they enter that 10 group.
11 MR. DOLLEY: Thanks, I appreciate the 12 clarification.
13 MR. SMITH: Please, again, state your name 14 and organization you're representing.
15 MR. WILLIAMS: I will. Joe Williams; I'm 16 a Senior Project Manager in the Office of New Reactors 17 and the Advanced Reactor and Policy branch. I was 18 actually one of the authors of SECY-15-0002. My focus 19 in that effort was on the Part 50 alignment with Part 20 52. I do have remarks on that and also some 21 observations regarding the Part 52 discussion. These 22 are thoughts for consideration both of the staff and 23 by the stakeholders here today. First of all, 24 pertaining to Part 50, there needs to be a what I would 25 think of as a line by line comparison of the regulations NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 1 within Part 50 and Part 52 to ensure that any gap has 2 been identified and dispositioned. An example of an 3 item that was not described in the Commission paper 4 that I realized was there, and it's related to some 5 of the items in the Commission paper; the paper talks 6 about the need to address severe accidents in some Part 7 50 applications. In Part 52 the 50.59-like change 8 process reads the same as 50.59 in the Part 50, except 9 it does also add some criteria for evaluation of changes 10 to severe accidents. And so there's an administrative 11 burden on Part 52 applicants to address changes for 12 severe accidents that would not appear for Part 50.
13 So supporting, adding severe accident issues to Part 14 52 -- or Part 50 reviews, I should say, supporting adding 15 those requirements to Part 50 you'd need to consider 16 whether or not, what changes need to be made to 59 or 17 other regulations. I think you also need to examine 18 other regulations that reference Part 50 and 52 to 19 determine whether or not the two different licensing 20 approaches are handled consistently. A particular 21 example that comes to mind is in Part 51, the regulation 22 51.50 says that an environmental report for a combined 23 license must address fuel cycle impacts for non-LWR's.
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82 1 in that regard as well would be worthwhile, not just 2 for that line item, but any other items that might 3 appear.
4 Similar to some of the issues that were 5 described in the paper, there's a need to consider what 6 level of risk and severe accident information is 7 appropriate to provide with the construction permit 8 application. It's easy to contemplate how an operating 9 license would address those issues; you would expect 10 a similar level of the information that you would have 11 with the combined license application. But a CP is 12 based upon preliminary design information, not final 13 design information. So what would be the appropriate 14 level of preliminary severe accident information.
15 I'll note that that topic has some implications for 16 the ongoing licensing modernization project that we're 17 pursuing for advanced reactors, and so some clarity 18 in that regard for people that might be contemplating 19 a CP application would be beneficial.
20 A couple other topics that were addressed 21 in SECY-15-0002; there was discussion both of 10 CFR 22 50.54(h)(h) and also the Aircraft Impact Assessment, 23 Rule 10 CFR 50.150. In both cases the paper said that 24 the staff would provide some guidance to clarify 25 expectations for future applicants in that regard, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 perhaps also there should be some consideration given 2 to whether or not the rule language itself needs to 3 be clarified in those regards.
4 Also, now regarding the discussion of Part 5 52; some thoughts here, I'll note that I have some 6 familiarity with some of these topics. I was the author 7 of SECY-17-0075 that talked about the tiered 8 certification structure with a focus on Tier 2 Star; 9 regarding the tiered structure for design 10 certification, it occurs to me that the regulatory basis 11 development for the rule should assess whether or not 12 the challenges that we've seen lie within the structure 13 of the regulations themselves, the specific 14 implementation and a specific design certification, 15 or some combination of the two. It's certainly 16 reasonable to contemplate that we need a means to 17 address some of the simple editorial issues that were 18 described here today, but there's also, at least in 19 my mind, some challenges associated with basically some 20 sloppiness, if you will, that might have come about 21 in a rush to complete a certification review and what 22 obligation that might create for the certification 23 holder or the licensed applicant.
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84 1 that this is a personal view -- we should consider 2 whether or not a change like a process like the Notice 3 of Enforcement discretion that is applied to operating 4 reactors would be appropriate. It seems strange to 5 me that we can tell an operating reactor licensee that 6 they're permitted to deviate from their licensing basis 7 for a designated period of time, and that's for a 8 facility where there's actually a radiological hazard, 9 and nonetheless, have a different burden that supply 10 to a facility that doesn't even have any radionuclides 11 present on the site. So I think some consideration 12 of a process like that might be beneficial.
13 And finally, regarding standard design 14 approvals; I'll note that the Part 52 update in 2007 15 removed the preliminary design approvals that had been 16 previously in place, that process had previously been 17 in place and had actually been used quite a number of 18 times during the 1970's. There was quite a number of 19 preliminary design approvals that were issued and they 20 were often referenced in construction permit 21 applications. Reinstating a process like that might 22 address some of the questions and concerns that were 23 being described here earlier this morning regarding 24 the type of clarity that one might, finality if you 25 will, that one might obtain.
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85 1 Thank you.
2 MR. SMITH: Thank you very much.
3 One moment, please. Robin, do you have 4 anyone on the line that's showing that they have a 5 question at this time?
6 OPERATOR: Yes, I do. I have Brian 7 Medders. Your line's open.
8 MR. MEDDERS: Thank you. My question was 9 previously answered, so I'm good.
10 MR. SMITH: Okay. Thank you, Brian.
11 Is there anyone else on the line, Robin?
12 OPERATOR: I'm showing no further 13 questions. But as a reminder, it's star followed by 14 1.
15 MR. SMITH: Do we have someone else behind 16 the column? I can't see.
17 No.
18 Okay.
19 OPERATOR: And I'm showing no further 20 questions.
21 MR. SMITH: Great, thank you. You going 22 to go up?
23 MS. CUBBAGE: Hi. Amy Cubbage, NRO staff.
24 I'd just like to support the comments that Joe Williams 25 just made and also add to a comment that he made at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 the end about the preliminary design approval process 2 and the standard design approval. One, a factor that 3 will need to be considered going forward whichever way 4 we go with that, is what is the ultimate purpose of 5 the approval and how it will be referenced in a 6 subsequent application. So, for example, is the SDA 7 or PDA were to be referenced in a construction permit 8 application, then a preliminary level of design 9 information may be appropriate. However, if the intent 10 is that the SDA be referenced in a combined license 11 application, then a final level of design information 12 would be warranted.
13 MR. SMITH: Thank you.
14 MR. MUNIZ: This is Adrian Muniz with the 15 Office of New Reactors; I'm a Project Manager in that 16 office. This is a question to, I believe, NEI on, 17 relates to Items 4 and 6 of your list that you discuss 18 on Page 2. The question is, if the staff were to move 19 forward and eventually remove the duration of the design 20 certification, therefore removing the requirement of 21 renewal, do you see still the need to then implement 22 Item 6 to allow for DC renewal applications following 23 a facility construction, an initial operation, given 24 that current regulations allow for amendments of the 25 design certification that subsequently get put into NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 1 the rule through rulemaking?
2 MR. HARPER: This is Zach Harper, 3 Westinghouse. So I think that the three ideas that 4 were presented related to renewal are all independent 5 and could be implemented separately from each other.
6 I think all three are good proposals and I think that 7 it would depend on how it were implemented. If the 8 15-year design certification duration were to be 9 removed, I think it would depend on how, whether it 10 would apply retroactively to applications that have 11 already been submitted, or if it were just applied to 12 design certifications going forward. If it were 13 applied retroactively, then the need for some of the 14 other ideas would be become less important. If it were 15 just applied to those design certifications going 16 forward, then the need for a change to align the design 17 certification with a constructed operating facility, 18 USFAR would still exist.
19 MR. SMITH: Are there any other questions 20 here or statements here in the room?
21 Robin, do you have anyone indicating on 22 the line that they have a question or a statement they'd 23 like to make on the phone?
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88 1 followed by number 1.
2 I'm showing no statement or question at 3 this time.
4 MR. SMITH: Okay. Jim, it's showing that 5 there's no questions or statements. You can decide 6 if you'd like to continue on or you'd like to take a 7 little break or a lunch.
8 MR. O'DRISCOLL: Well, it's 11 o'clock.
9 I think we could probably finish through and be done 10 by noon, and then be done. But if there's -- we can 11 go along and see how this goes. But anyway, the next 12 step in our discussion is a facilitated Q&A. So I'm 13 just going to go ahead and do that.
14 So in our meeting notice we provided 15 several questions to the public on this activity. I'll 16 start the discussion by asking if there's anyone in 17 the room who would like to provide input on this 18 question; what elements of the Part 50 licensing process 19 should be aligned with Part 52 licensing process to 20 achieve equivalent outcomes under both new reactor 21 application or review processes? And along the same 22 lines, what elements of the Part 52 -- excuse me, Part 23 50 licensing process should not be aligned with Part 24 52 licensing process?
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89 1 your input on what elements of the Part 52 process should 2 be aligned to match or to be aligned with Part 50 as 3 well, so either way.
4 MR. SMITH: So anyone here in the room, 5 any feedback on this question?
6 Again, please state your name and 7 organization.
8 MR. WILLIAMS: Once again, this is Joe 9 Williams, the Office of New Reactors. Consistent with 10 what I was saying a few minutes ago, my belief is that 11 a systematic look is needed both at the two regulatory 12 processes and across the entire regulatory set of other 13 regulations, Part 51 and so forth to ensure that we've 14 actually identified in this position all the 15 distinctions between the two regulatory processes.
16 MR. SMITH: Is there anyone else in the 17 room that would like to make a statement or have a 18 question?
19 Robin, is there anyone indicating on the 20 phone that they have a question or would like to --
21 or I'm sorry, would like to make a statement on this 22 question?
23 OPERATOR: Again, as a reminder, that's 24 star followed by 1 with a statement or question.
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90 1 at this time.
2 MR. SMITH: Okay. Jim, if you can go to 3 the next --
4 MR. O'DRISCOLL: Okay, we're on Slide 17.
5 I'll ask the second question; what elements of the 6 Part 52 licensing process should be changed to address 7 difficulties encountered during previous licensing 8 reviews or improve clarity and provide more efficient 9 and effective reviews for future applications?
10 MR. SMITH: Is there anyone in the room 11 that would like to make a statement on this question?
12 MR. TSCHILTZ: This is Mike Tschiltz from 13 NEI. I think our presentation was focused on trying 14 to identify that those are common.
15 MR. SMITH: Thank you. Anyone else?
16 Robin, is there anyone on the line 17 indicating that they would like to make a statement 18 regarding this question?
19 OPERATOR: I'm showing no question or 20 statement at this time.
21 MR. SMITH: Jim?
22 MR. O'DRISCOLL: Okay, I'll go through the 23 third and final question. What transformational 24 changes can be implemented in the Part 52 licensing 25 process which would improve effectiveness and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 1 efficiency within the framework of reasonable assurance 2 of adequate protection of safety and security?
3 MR. SMITH: Please.
4 MR. PETERS: This is Gary Peters from 5 Framatome. Both 50 and 52, a transformational is a 6 powerful word, but what we've been talking about here 7 basically tweaks, all right. If we do everything that 8 we said, we get what, 2, 3, 5 percent improvement in 9 schedule and cost maybe at the best. So 10 transformational you need to think differently; what 11 would it take to cut the schedule in half, to cut the 12 cost in half of going through this entire process.
13 And in order to do a transformational change, I mean 14 you got to start on a blank piece of paper; what are 15 we going to do that provides the highest safety for 16 our plant designs and regulate that; what are we going 17 to do second, what are we going to do third. And then 18 when we get to half of our schedule and our total cost 19 budget, well the rest of that probably isn't as 20 important because we've already did the top ten things, 21 we're not going to get through Items 11 through 150 22 because we've done the most important things to ensure 23 the adequate protection of the public.
24 So, again, the transformational concept 25 is you got to start from a blank piece of paper; you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 1 can't tweak tweak, it's not going to happen.
2 MR. SMITH: If you can, again, restate your 3 name and organization just so we can --
4 MR. PETERS: Gary Peters, Framatome.
5 MR. SMITH: Great, thanks.
6 MS. CUBBAGE: Amy Cubbage, NRO staff.
7 Gary, thank you for that comment. I wanted to also 8 note that just yesterday the president signed as 15 9 which is a bill that directs the NRC staff to take a 10 look at rulemaking for a so-called sheet of paper, what 11 some have called a Part 53; the intent of that would 12 be to facilitate non-LWR reviews in the future, building 13 on what we're doing now with the licensing modernization 14 project. So I think a lot of the transformational 15 changes are coming in those arenas and hopefully there 16 may be some things that can spill over and help the 17 LWR community as well.
18 So, I just wanted to make that point.
19 MR. SMITH: Great, thank you.
20 MS. AUGHTMAN: Hi, Amy Aughtman from 21 Southern. I'll just add to a couple items there. I 22 also echo Mr. Peter's comments about the need for 23 transformational change; Mike Tschiltz from NEI alluded 24 earlier that industry does have some items that we put 25 in a parking lot type approach. What we presented today NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 were things that we felt could be most expeditiously 2 addressed. And so while certainly appreciate wanting 3 to think bigger, broader, get things done quicker with 4 less cost, there's also a recognition on how much the 5 staff can bite off at once. And so to the extent there's 6 an appetite for bigger thoughts and taking those on, 7 I think we're also prepared to address some of those 8 at a future time. So again, we recognize there's a 9 balance in how much you can take on; and so from a scoping 10 perspective if there's additional dialog the staff 11 wants to have on that type of topic, we'll be happy 12 to support that.
13 MR. TSCHILTZ: So this is Mike Tschiltz 14 at NEI. I think we did touch on a couple of issues 15 that I would consider the transformational; the first 16 one's the level of detail in the application and the 17 level of detail is captured in Tier 1 which would shorten 18 the duration of NRC's reviews if the focus was on only 19 those things most important to safety and reasonable 20 assurance.
21 So that was one thing. The second thing 22 I think is transformation is the interpretation of Part 23 52 concerning the compliance with the licensing basis 24 during construction. So from my perspective that's 25 transational from a viability perspective for new NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 1 construction in that, I think the options that we are 2 proposing have no impact on safety whatsoever. There 3 are licensee programs that maintain plant 4 configuration, there's the ITAAC that verifies that 5 there's the NRC's 103(g) decision that provides a number 6 of different opportunities for that flexibility. And 7 I'll note that operating plants that are in outages 8 make changes to their facility and submit license 9 amendments that aren't approved prior to them making 10 them during the outage, plants not operating, there's 11 no safety issue there. So a plant under construction 12 is in a similar circumstance; there's numerous 13 opportunities for NRC to, if there ever were a situation 14 where there would be concern for safety to interject 15 and regulate in that regard.
16 So those are the two things that we 17 discussed here that I would consider to be 18 transformational and the activities that we are 19 proposing.
20 MR. STOUT: This is Dan Stout, TVA. I'll 21 amplify a little bit on what Mike talked about in terms 22 of level of detail; just planting a thought that there's 23 the ability to have an application specific regulatory 24 engagement plan where you risk inform what an 25 application needs to look like in advance, and depending NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 1 upon the design there could be some hazards that are 2 NA, some accidents that are NA, like there could be 3 some accidents that require, they're unique and they 4 require lots of information, lots of level of detail 5 to address that. But I think if you start with the 6 4600-page standard review plan, there's a whole lot 7 of checklist items that are not necessarily an efficient 8 use of time by the applicant or the staff. And so if 9 we can somehow risk inform applications during the 10 application phase, documented in some kind of a 11 regulatory engagement plan that's application 12 specific, that industry can feel comfortable that an 13 application submitted with skinny sections in areas 14 that aren't important to safety won't get rejected.
15 Then there's savings to the applicant and there's 16 savings on the NRC side. At the same time, that 17 application better have lots of detail on areas that 18 are hazards or accidents that are unique to this 19 application. Having that alignment up front focuses 20 on what's important.
21 Thanks.
22 MR. SMITH: Anyone else in the room?
23 Robin, is any indication on the phone of 24 any statements?
25 OPERATOR: I'm showing no statements on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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96 1 the phone line at this time.
2 MR. SMITH: Okay. Jim, I'll turn it over 3 to you.
4 MR. O'DRISCOLL: Okay. It looks like 5 there's no more questions, so we're going to come to 6 the close. And I'll discuss next steps, so view the 7 next slide.
8 All right. As I stated previously, the 9 staff will consider the public's feedback from this 10 meeting when determining the scope of the regulatory 11 basis. We continue to identify the scope of the changes 12 to be included in the regulatory basis. We expect this 13 scoping work to be complete in late March 2019. We 14 intend to communicate a path forward to the Commission 15 in some venue soon after the scope is adequately 16 defined. We will then use that scope to develop a 17 regulatory basis; we expect this to be complete early 18 in the second quarter of Calendar Year 2020. We intend 19 to issue the draft and regulatory basis for public 20 comment and we also plan to hold additional stakeholder 21 meetings if there is interest.
22 Next slide.
23 So you can find information about this 24 rulemaking activity on regulations.gov. Please note 25 that if you search on regulations.gov on the docket NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 1 number NRC 2009-0196, you won't find anything right 2 now because there's no documents posted there, but 3 you'll see documents including the meeting slides.
4 This meeting summary will be there in about 30 days; 5 you'll be able to use that as your go-to, one-stop shop 6 to determine where we are with the rulemaking.
7 So --
8 MR. BROWN: Can I --?
9 MR. O'DRISCOLL: Sure.
10 MR. BROWN: So this is Fred Brown and I'm 11 going to do an unscripted, unplanned before Jim gets 12 to the closing of the meeting, administrative part.
13 I do want to thank everyone for their 14 participation today, both those in the room and those 15 on the phone. I appreciated actually all the comments; 16 I thought there was a lot of good input. I think that 17 the last thing that we talked about, the 18 transformational changes is an important one and I think 19 Mike kind of talked about how the industry has 20 structured their specific proposals to allow us to 21 consider the level of effort and the return on the 22 investment in proposing the expansion, the scope of 23 this approved rulemaking, because we do only get every 24 decade or so an opportunity to go back and look at these 25 rules.
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98 1 I actually think that the level of detail 2 combined with SRP, combined with SRP modernization 3 efforts that the staff are undertaking now is 4 potentially transformative and I recognize the interest 5 on changes during construction is potentially 6 transformative. I would actually argue that our 7 willingness to look at design certification renewal 8 is transformative for a design cert holder and what 9 they have to do.
10 I think that I would ask -- I heard the 11 offer that there are things that were considered but 12 felt like not achievable in the near term. I would 13 ask that those be put on the docket and sent to Jim 14 so that we can include them in our background. As we 15 go through our set -- and Trish is going to kill me 16 from a rulemaking perspective -- I'm not making a 17 commitment that we're going to evaluate everything in 18 a way to where it slows down our ability to move smartly, 19 but we may look at some ideas that felt really 20 transformative but really hard to the industry, and 21 we might conclude there's a reg basis that we can put 22 together pretty easily for that. So give us that 23 chance; go ahead and send us what you have. And the 24 same holds true for the other members of the public 25 that are listening today and are in attendance on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 1 phone today; please send us what you have. And then 2 I'll now turn back over to Jim who will cover how to 3 do that and when.
4 MR. O'DRISCOLL: On Slide 21, thanks very 5 much. So if you need that information, which you will, 6 please contact me at that information there.
7 So we also appreciate your feedback on the 8 public meeting itself, so we want to make sure that 9 you're satisfied with today's meeting if you have any 10 suggestions or how we should make it more effective.
11 So that QR code is for your use. On your way out please 12 take the public meeting feedback forms on the sign-in 13 table; once you complete the form you can leave it with 14 us or mail it in. You can access a link on the online 15 -- to the online feedback form in the meeting details 16 for this meeting on the NRC's public meeting schedule 17 page. Alternatively, you can scan this QR code that 18 can bring you directly to the online feedback form.
19 It should be up in the notification system today. Also, 20 if not, you can try it again tomorrow; in a couple of 21 days it'll be working if it's not working now.
22 Also, if you didn't sign the attendance 23 list, I would appreciate it if you could do that before 24 you head out. Thank you for attending. Have a great 25 afternoon.
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100 1 MR. SMITH: Thank you, all. Robin, if we 2 can get a final count for the line, we'd appreciate 3 it.
4 OPERATOR: Yes, thank you. At this time 5 all phone lines can go ahead and disconnect. And thank 6 you for your participation.
7 MR. SMITH: Thank you, all. That's the 8 end of the meeting.
9 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 10 off the record at 11:22 a.m.)
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