ML19353A004
| ML19353A004 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/14/2021 |
| From: | Margaret Doane NRC/EDO |
| To: | NRC/OCM |
| Malave-Velez, Yanely | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19353A003 | List: |
| References | |
| 10 CFR Part 52, NRC-2017-0029, RIN 3150-AJ98 SECY-21-0004 | |
| Download: ML19353A004 (7) | |
Text
January 14, 2021 SECY-21-0004 FOR:
The Commissioners FROM:
Margaret M. Doane Executive Director for Operations
SUBJECT:
PROPOSED RULE: NUSCALE SMALL MODULAR REACTOR DESIGN CERTIFICATION (RIN 3150-AJ98; NRC-2017-0029)
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this paper is to obtain Commission approval to publish in the Federal Register the enclosed proposed rule (Enclosure 1) that will amend Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 52, Licenses, Certifications, and Approvals for Nuclear Power Plants, to certify the NuScale standard design. This paper addresses no new commitments.
SUMMARY
NuScale Power, LLC (NuScale Power) submitted an application for certification of its NuScale standard design (hereafter referred to as NuScale) on December 31, 2016. In August 2020, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff completed its review and issued the final safety evaluation report for the standard plant design application and recommends that the Commission approve the proposed design certification rule for public comment.
BACKGROUND:
Subpart B, Standard Design Certifications, of 10 CFR Part 52 presents the process for obtaining standard design certifications. By letter dated December 31, 2016, NuScale Power CONTACTS: Yanely Malave, NMSS/REFS 301-415-1519 Prosanta Chowdhury, NRR/DNRL 301-415-1647
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1 Confirmatory items are items which point to the changes that the applicant and the NRC staff have agreed would be completed, reviewed, and closed before the final safety evaluation report is issued.
2 These portions of the design would not be part of this design certification, if approved. Without the licensing benefits of issue finality that attach to a valid design certification, issues related to these portions of the design could be the subject of contentions in a petition for a hearing on a future application referencing the NuScale design certification because the issue finality provisions would not apply. Future applicants may also have to update these portions of the design to meet regulatory requirements imposed after the design was originally approved.
filed its application for certification of the NuScale design (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML17013A229). The NRC published a notice of receipt of the application in the Federal Register on February 22, 2017 (82 FR 11372).
On March 30, 2017, the NRC formally accepted the application as a docketed application for design certification (82 FR 15717) and assigned it docket number 52-048. The pre-application information submitted before the NRC formally accepted the application can be found in ADAMS under Docket No. PROJ0769.
NuScale is the first small modular reactor design reviewed by the NRC. NuScale is based on a small light-water reactor developed at Oregon State University in the early 2000s. It consists of one or more NuScale power modules (hereafter referred to as power module(s)). A power module is a natural circulation light-water reactor composed of a reactor core, a pressurizer, and two helical coil steam generators located in a common reactor pressure vessel that is housed in a compact cylindrical steel containment. The NuScale reactor building is designed to hold up to 12 power modules. Each power module has a rated thermal output of 160 megawatt thermal and electrical output of 50 megawatt electric (MWe), yielding a total capacity of 600 MWe for 12 power modules. All NuScale power modules are partially submerged in one safety-related pool, which is also the ultimate heat sink for the reactor. The pool portion of the reactor building is located below grade. The design utilizes several first-of-a-kind approaches to accomplish key safety functions, such as reduced control room staffing, no class 1E safety-related power (no emergency diesel generators), and no need for pumps to inject water into the core for post-accident coolant injection.
DISCUSSION:
Final Safety Evaluation Report NuScale Power submitted the final revision of the NuScale Design Certification Application (DCA), Revision 5, in July 2020 (ADAMS Accession No. ML20225A071). In August 2020, the NRC staff issued a final safety evaluation report (ADAMS Accession No. ML20023A318) after the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) performed its final independent review and issued its letter to the Commission in July 2020 on its findings and recommendations (ADAMS Accession No. ML20211M386). The final safety evaluation report is a collection of reports written by the NRC staff documenting the safety findings from its review of the standard design application, and it reflects all changes resulting from interactions with the ACRS as well as changes in the final version of the DCA. The final safety evaluation report reflects that NuScale Power has resolved all technical and safety issues (no open items) and all previously identified confirmatory items.1 The final safety evaluation report also includes a description of portions of the design that are not receiving finality in this proposed rule.2 The final safety evaluation report includes an index of all NRC staff requests for additional information, a chronology of all documents related to the NuScale design certification, and summaries of public meetings and audits.
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Resolved Technical Issues Several technical issues associated with the following design areas were identified by NRC staff and resolved by NuScale Power during the review:
comprehensive vibration assessment program;
containment safety analysis;
emergency core cooling system inadvertent actuation block valve;
conformance with General Design Criterion 27, Combined Reactivity Control System
Capability, of Appendix A, General Design Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants, to 10 CFR Part 50, Domestic Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities; absence of safety-related Class 1E alternating current or direct current electrical power;
and accident source term methodology.
Section IV, Technical Issues Associated with the NuScale Design, of the proposed rule (Enclosure 1) provides the staffs analysis and resolution for each of these technical issues.
Issues Not Resolved by the Design Certification There was insufficient information available for the staff to resolve three issues within the meaning of 10 CFR 52.63(a)(5):
the adequacy of shielding wall design in certain areas of the plant with the presence of
penetrations; the potential for containment leakage from the combustible gas monitoring system; and
the method of analysis to predict the thermal-hydraulic conditions of the steam generator
secondary fluid system and resulting loads, stresses, and deformations from density wave oscillations from reverse flow, including the ability of the steam generator tubes to maintain structural and leakage integrity during density wave oscillations in the secondary fluid system.
Section III, Regulatory and Policy Issues, of the proposed rule (Enclosure 1) describes these issues in more detail. Because the staff requires additional information to make the ultimate safety finding about these three issues, these issues cannot be resolved within the meaning of
§ 52.63(a)(5). However, the NRC staff has determined that this information can be provided by a future construction permit or combined license applicant who references this appendix without a demonstrable impact on safety or standardization because these issues are sufficiently isolated from other aspects of the design such that providing the additional information at a later time would not affect the design aspects that would be resolved by this design certification.
Therefore, the proposed rule states in Section IV, Additional Requirements and Restrictions, that the combined license applicant or construction permit applicant is responsible for providing
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the design information to address these unresolved issues, and Section VI, Issue Resolution, states that these issues are not resolved within the meaning of 10 CFR 52.63(a)(5).
Compliance with Requirements Governing Incorporation by Reference The proposed rule would incorporate by reference NuScale standard design material into 10 CFR Part 52. Therefore, the NRC must comply with the Office of the Federal Registers regulations governing incorporation by reference. These regulations require an agency to include in a proposed rule a discussion of the ways that the materials the agency proposes to incorporate by reference are reasonably available to interested parties or how the agency worked to make those materials reasonably available to interested parties. The proposed rule includes this information in Section XVII, Incorporation by ReferenceReasonable Availability to Interested Parties.
Backfitting and Issue Finality Considerations The proposed rule for the NuScale design certification does not impose new or changed requirements on any NRC licensees or applicants and, therefore, does not constitute a backfit as defined in the backfit rule (10 CFR 50.109, Backfitting) and is consistent with the applicable issue finality provisions in 10 CFR Part 52. For these reasons, neither a backfit analysis nor a discussion addressing the issue finality provisions in 10 CFR Part 52 was prepared for this rule.
Public Comment Period Consistent with other recent design certification rulemakings, the staff is proposing to continue to use a 30-day comment period for this NuScale certification rulemaking. The most recently completed design certification rulemaking, for the APR1400 design, utilized a 30-day comment period for the associated direct final rule. The staff is also proposing a 30-day comment period for the direct final rule for the ABWR design certification renewal, as discussed in SECY 0112 (ADAMS Accession No. ML20170A489).
Previous design certification proposed rules have generally received very few unique public comments. In 2019, the APR1400 design certification rule was issued as a direct final rule with a 30-day comment period because, in part, the agency recognized the trend of receiving very few comments. During that 30-day period, only one comment was received on the APR1400 certification rule, and that comment supported issuance of the certification. Prior to that, the proposed rule for the ESBWR design certification in 2011 received only 10 comments and the subsequent supplemental proposed rule for the same design certification in 2014 received no comments.
In the past, the agency has generally observed more stakeholder participation for combined license review activities than for design certification review activities. For this review, the NRC staff has conducted hundreds of public meetings with NuScale Power during the pre-application interactions as well as during the review of the design. Only one or two members of the public occasionally attended these meetings and made comments. Similarly, during the numerous ACRS public meetings, only one or two members of the public occasionally participated and provided comments. During the public comment period for the draft NuScale Design Specific Review Standards, the vast majority of comments were submitted by NuScale Power itself rather than other stakeholders.
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As described above, the NRCs experience shows that public involvement in design certification rules is low, typically low enough to justify the use of the direct final rule process. In this case, the staff is not recommending the use of the direct final rule process for this design certification rule because it would be the first small-modular design to be certified by the NRC, and the staff believes it possible that novelty could generate more participation than usual. Nevertheless, because the staffs experience with this design and design certifications in general shows that public participation has been low, a shortened comment period is unlikely to affect any interested persons ability to comment, while also allowing the NRC to complete the rulemaking expeditiously. Therefore, the staff believes that a 30-day comment period is appropriate for this proposed rule. The staff will give prompt consideration to any requests received from stakeholders to extend the comment period.
RECOMMENDATION:
The NRC staff recommends that the Commission approve the enclosed proposed rule (Enclosure 1) for publication in the Federal Register and notes the following points:
Upon Commission approval, the NRC will publish the proposed rule in the Federal Register 1.
for a 30-day public comment period.
This proposed rule contains new information collection requirements that are subject to the 2.
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). The NRC staff will submit information collection requirements to the Office of Management and Budget for its review and approval on or immediately after the date of publication of the proposed rule in the Federal Register.
The staff prepared an environmental assessment that evaluated severe accident mitigation 3.
design alternatives for the proposed rule, which resulted in a finding of no significant impact (Enclosure 2).
The Office of Congressional Affairs will inform the appropriate congressional committees.
4.
The staff will work with the Office of Public Affairs on an appropriate public communication 5.
when the NRC publishes the proposed rule in the Federal Register.
The staff will follow a communications plan containing frequently asked questions on the 6.
design certification rule process and the use of a design certification rule in combined license applications, as well as questions specifically prepared for NuScale.
RESOURCE: includes an estimate of the NRC resources needed to complete this rulemaking.
COORDINATION:
The Office of the General Counsel has no legal objection to the publication of the proposed rule related to the NuScale standard design. The Office of the Chief Financial Officer has reviewed this Commission paper for resource implications and has no objections. The NRC staff will provide an information copy of the Federal Register notice to the ACRS after publication.
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Margaret M. Doane Executive Director for Operations
Enclosures:
- 1. Proposed Rule
- 2. Environmental Assessment
- 3. Resource Estimates Signed by Doane, Margaret on 01/14/21
PKG: ML19353A003; SECY: ML19353A004; FRN: ML19353A006; EA: ML19303C179; Resource Estimates: ML20269A474
- Via e-mail