ML19108A104
| ML19108A104 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/02/2019 |
| From: | Vechioli L Office of New Reactors |
| To: | Steven Lynch Office of New Reactors |
| Vechioli L, NRC/NRO/DAR/ARLB, 415-6035 | |
| References | |
| Download: ML19108A104 (9) | |
Text
May 2, 2019 MEMORANDUM TO: Steven Lynch, Acting Chief Advanced Reactor Licensing Branch Division of Advanced Reactors Office of New Reactors FROM: Lucieann Vechioli, Project Manager /RA/
Advanced Reactor Licensing Branch Division Advanced Reactors Office of New Reactors
SUBJECT:
SUMMARY
OF MARCH 28, 2019, PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS REGULATORY IMPROVEMENTS FOR ADVANCED REACTORS On March 28, 2019, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a Category 2 public meeting with stakeholders, including the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), to discuss ongoing initiatives related to the development and licensing of non-light water reactors (non-LWRs). The meeting notice can be found at Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML19067A033. Enclosure 1 contains a list of meeting attendees and participants who joined via webinar. Enclosure 2 contains the meeting agenda. The presentation slides are available at ADAMS Accession No. ML19093B830.
John Segala, Chief of the Advanced Reactor and Policy Branch in the Office of New Reactors (NRO), provided an overview of recent organizational changes. Beginning April 2019, NRO reorganized into three divisions: the Division of Advanced Reactors (DAR), the Division of Engineering, Safety Systems, and Risk Assessment, and the Division of Licensing, Siting, and Environmental Analysis. The new DAR is comprised of three branches: the Advanced Reactor Licensing Branch, the Advanced Reactor Technical Branch, and the Advanced Reactor Policy Branch. This reorganization happens in advance of the merging of NRO and the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR), which is scheduled to happen in October 2019.
The NRC staff discussed the provisions and planned implementation of the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA or the Act). The Act specifies three objectives: (1) to provide a revised framework for fee recovery by the NRC to ensure the availability of resources to meet industry needs without burdening existing licensees unfairly for inaccurate workload projections or premature existing reactor closures; (2) to support the development of expertise and regulatory infrastructure necessary to support the development and commercialization of advanced nuclear reactors; and (3) to foster more efficient regulation of uranium recovery.
CONTACT: Lucieann Vechioli, NRO/DAR 301-415-6035 The DAR staff is currently developing reports to Congress that will address the NEIMA provisions related to the regulatory framework of commercial advanced nuclear reactors. Staff from NRRs Research and Test Reactors Licensing Branch is also developing a report related to
S. Lynch 2 NRC preparations for the licensing of research and test reactors within the existing regulatory framework to support advanced reactor licensing. To support the development of both reports, NRC staff is required to solicit input from a diverse set of technology developers, and other public stakeholders. This public meeting provided a forum for the required stakeholder interactions. Once the reports are completed, the NRC staff will discuss progress toward implementation of the activities described therein during future periodic advanced reactors stakeholders meetings.
Trevor Cook from Department of Energy (DOE) provided a status update on several DOE activities, such as the versatile test reactor project led by Tom OConnor, work with Department of Defense on micro-reactors, and the digital instrumentation and controls projects.
The remaining portion of the meeting was focused on the NRC development of revised guidance on siting criteria related to population density and mechanistic source terms supporting the licensing of advanced reactors. These discussions were supported by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL), respectively.
Randy Belles from ORNL provided a presentation on regulatory improvements for advanced reactor designs. ORNL has developed a siting tool that provides insights on the challenges and benefits of deploying small modular reactors. This tool uses geographical information systems and spatial modeling techniques to visualize data.
Matthew Dennis, Dave Luxat, Andrew Clark, and Zac Jankovsky led the SNL presentation on the mechanistic source term study for non-LWRs. The goal of the analysis was to identify accident scenarios that could lead to off-site radiological releases for non-LWR design concepts. The presentation included accident scenarios for high-temperature gas reactors (HTGRs), sodium fast reactors (SFRs), and molten salt reactors (MSRs). Some of the overall conclusions of the study included that the four-factor approach to mechanistic source term may be applied across different reactor types and early releases were identified for each reactor type in a way that allows for further examination and quantification of risk.
The discussion about source term continued in presentations from each of the technology working groups (TWGs). Nicholas Smith of Southern Company represented the MSR TWG, and during his presentation he discussed several topics that included information about the Molten Salt Component Test Facility and the upcoming training on Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) that will be held in Los Alamos National Laboratory during summer 2019. Jacob DeWitte from Oklo, Inc. presented the Fast Reactor TWG discussion and provided a SFR example for source term phenomena. The HTGR TWG presentation was led by Darrell Garner from Kairos Power LLC, who talked briefly about TRISO fuel and the interest of the TWG to meet on a monthly basis.
William Reckley of the NRC ended the meeting with an update on each of the NRCs advanced reactor licensing strategies and other topics, such as the status of the different policy issues that the NRC staff is currently working on. The next Advanced Reactors Stakeholder Meeting is scheduled for June 27, 2019.
Enclosures:
- 1. List of attendees
- 2. Agenda
ML19108A104 NRO-002 OFFICE NRO/DAR NRO/DAR NAME LVechioli* SLynch DATE 04/15/2019 05/02/19
Attendance List - Attended at least part of meeting in person Name Organization Kati Austgen NEI Steven Kraft Kraft-Contente, LLC Farshid Shahrkhi Framatome Dave Grabaskas ANL Tanju Sofu ANL Wayne Moe INL Christian Rabiti INL Jason Redd SNC Darrell Gardner Kairos Power Jill Monahan Westinghouse Amy Cubbage NRC Lucieann Vechioli NRC Steven Lynch NRC Jordan Hoellman NRC John Segala NRC N.P. Kadambi Consultant Jane Accomando Morgan Lewis Stewart Magruder NRC Bo Saulsbury PNNL Nick Smith Southern Co.
Attendance List - Webinar Attendees Name Organization Randy Dins DOE Matthew Bucknor ANL Edwin Lyman UCS Andrew Clark SNL Salman Haq NRC Zachary Jankovsky SNL Nanette Valliere NRC Michelle Hayes NRC Brian Anderson Michelle Gonzalez NRC chantal Morin CNSC Enclosure 1
Bob Meyer Mohammad Sadollah NRC Jason Schaperow NRC Alan Jelalian EPM Inc.
Tom Newton NIST Amir Afzali Southern Co.
Alex Popova Oklo Inc.
John Monninger NRC Randall Gauntt SNL Mark Holbrook INL Jon Barr NRC Hanh Phan NRC Steve Bajorek NRC Keith Compton NRC Brian Robinson DOE Steven Kline BECHTEL Daniel Carleton Terrestrial Energy USA Jim Kinsey INL Adrian Muniz NRC Jan Mazza NRC Arlon Costa NRC Robert Beall NRC Jim Hammelman NRC Nicholas McMurray NRC Jana Bergman Curtiss Wright Kenneth Thomas NRC Robert Fitzpatrick NRC Rob Burg EPM Inc.
Elijah Dickson NRC Trevor Cook DOE James Corson NRC Michelle Hart NRC Steve Philpott NRC Daniel Cronin University of Florida Bill Reckley NRC Thomas Steinfeldt NRC Suzanne Dennis NRC Donald Palmrose NRC Joe Williams Ken Muramatsu Tokyo City University 2
Pranab Samanta BNL Gordon Clefton Caleb Ward NIC Randy Belles ORNL Jaeger Wells Westinghouse Derek Widmayer NRC 3
AGENDA Advanced Reactors Stakeholder Meeting Nuclear Energy Institute 1201 F. Street NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC Thursday, March 28, 2019 TIME TOPIC LEAD 9:00 - Opening remarks and agenda NRC/NEI 9:15am 9:15 - Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act All 10:00am 10:00 - DOE/Office of Nuclear Energy DOE/NE 10:15am 10:15 - Break All 11:30pm 10:30 - Siting Criteria related to Population Density NRC/ORNL/NEI 12:00pm 12:00 - Lunch All 1:00pm 1:00 - Mechanistic Source Term NRC/SNL 2:30pm 2:30 - Break All 2:40pm 2:40 - Mechanistic Source Term (if needed) TWGs/NEI/Others 3:30pm 3:30 - Status updates, planning for future meetings and public All 4:30pm discussion Enclosure 2