ML20035H299
| ML20035H299 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 04/20/1993 |
| From: | Taylor J NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| SECY-93-104, NUDOCS 9305040143 | |
| Download: ML20035H299 (8) | |
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POLICY ISSUE (NEGATIVE CONSENT)
FOR:
The Comissioners FROM:
James M. Taylor Executive Director of Operations
SUBJECT:
PROGRAM ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC) REVIEWS OF THE ADVANCED REACTOR (PRISM, MHTGR, AND PIUS) AND CANDU 3 DESIGNS 1
l PURPOSE:
To provide the Commission with a program analysis and recommendations con-cerning NRC preapplication reviews of advanced reactor (PRISM, MHTGR, and PIUS) and CANDU 3 designs.
BACKGROUND:
The NRC staff is conducting preapplication reviews with applicants for three advanced reactor designs - PRISM, MHTGR, and PIUS - and the CANDU 3.
The Department of Energy (DOE) is sponsoring the PRISM and HHTGR designs.
ASEA Brown Boveri-Combustion Engineering (ABB-CE) is the preapplicant for the PIUS design, and Atomic Energy of Canada, Limited, Technologies (AECLT) is the pre-applicant for the CANDU 3 design. The objective of the preapplication review is to identify major safety issues requiring Commission policy guidance, major technical issues, and research needs to support future design certification.
In SECY-92-393, " Updated Plans and Schedules for the Preapplication Reviews of the Advanced Reactor (PRISM, MHTGR, and PIUS) and CANDU 3 Designs," the staff informed the Comission of its latest schedules to complete preapplication reviews for these designs.
CONTACTS:
Michael J. Case, NRR 504-1134 Robert C. Pierson, NRR 504-1111 SECY NOTE: TO BE MADE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE IN 3 WORKING DAYS FROM THE DATE OF THIS PAPER.
IN THE ABSENCE OF INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CONTRARY, SECY WILL NOTIFY THE STAFF ON THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1993 THAT THE COMMISSION, BY NEGATIVE CONSENT, ASSENTS TO THE ACTION PROPOSED IN THIS PAPER.
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The Commissioners DISCUSSION:
t The Commission has asked the staff to expedite a program analysis and recom-mendations concerning NRC reviews of advanced reactors (PRISM, MHTGR, and PIUS) and the CANDU 3 design. The Commission has also asked the staff to make adjustments to its budget requests to meet guidelines established by the Office of Management and Budget and President Clinton.
In light of these requests, the staff reexamined its resource expenditures in the area of preap-plication reviews of advanced reactors (PRISM, MHTGR, and PIUS) and the CANDU 3 designs.
Two of the designs, PRISM and MHTGR, are sponsored by D0E. As part of their FY 1994 budget planning, DOE has announced changes in its priorities that will phase out the funding for advanced nuclear reactor programs. The PIUS and CANDU 3 designs are being proposed by ABB-CE and AECLT, respectively.
Neither of these vendors relies on DOE funding for preapplication work and neither has expressed a change in design certification plans presented in SECY-92-393.
Neither, however, has committed to a firm schedule for a design certification application.
i The staff has issued a draft of its position on many of the key policy and technical issues affecting these designs.
Comments have been received from j
industry and the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), and the staff expects to issue the final paper shortly.
In addition, some of the issues will likely be refined during the design certification review of passive designs.
A significant portion of the preapplication review involves identifying key safety issues related to a specific design. The policy-issue paper has identified those issues which require Commission guidance and has informed the preapplicants about areas for which departure from current reg-ulations should be considea v' as well as areas for which the staff does not believe departures are justifiable, at least at this time. Also, in the pre-application review, the staff would assess (1) research and development programs planned by the preapplicant to support and justify the design and (2) the alternatives proposed by the preapplicant to show an equivalent level 4
of safety for design features that differ from those in current light-water reactor designs.
The staff would also have the opportunity to become familiar with new reactor concepts.
Given current and projected funding levels, the staff believes research work on the evolutionary reactor designs and on the AP600 and the simplified boiling-water reactor (SBWR) should take priority over research on any of the four designs discussed in this paper.
Design-certification-stage research work in particular, would be delayed until after the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) issuance of a preapplication safety evaluation report (PSER) on any of these designs, when a better schedule for a design certification application will become available.
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1 The Comissioners ;
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A short description of the status of the preapplication review for each of the I
advanced reactor and CANDU 3 designs follows.
FTE resources are direct staff effort.
l PRISM j
The staff issued a draft PSER in September 1989, NUREG-1368, " Draft l
Preapplication Safety Evaluation Report for Power Reactor Inherently Safe i
Module Liquid Metal Reactor."
In March and May 1990, DOE amended the j
preliminary safety information document (PSID) to address some.of the issues discussed in that draft PSER. With that information from DOE, the staff can now complete its review of the PRISM design. DOE has not told the staff about its latest plans for the PRISM design as a result of revised priorities.
The staff has completed its review of this material.
Contractor and RES l
support for this preapplication review are also complete.
The NRR staff is t
now preparing the PSER and expects to be able to issue it for comment to the
' ACRS, the Commission, and the public in June 1993.
Following completion of ACRS and Commission reviews, staff could publish the final report in December j
1993.
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The staff could pursue three courses of action for the PRISM design:
(1) stop l
all work on the preapplication review and spend nothing more, (2) complete the staff effort (about 0.8 FTE) to issue a draft final PRISM PSER in June 1993_to j
the ACRS, the Commission, and public, or (3) if DOE continues to fund this project, continue the review as planned and expend approximately 1.5 FTE more to complete and publish the final PSER in December 1993.
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MHTGR l
The staff issued a draft PSER in March 1989, NUREG-1338, " Draft Preapplication i
Safety Evaluation Report for the Modular High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor."
l Since that time, DOE has submitted a significant amount of new information revising the design.
This new information will likely cause the staff to revise some of the conclusions drawn in this draft PSER. To date, the resources expended on the final PSER have been those of the project manager l
and some limited technical personnel, principally time spent to attend
'l meetings, and $343K of NRR technical assistance funds.
All of the information j
needed for the preapplication review has been submitted, but none of this material has been reviewed.
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Befve priorities changed, DOE planned to submit an updated Technology I
Deveiopment Plan (TDP) and containment study for this project.
The staff can comp 10te its review without this information, however.
Although DOE has not stated when it may submit a standard design certification application for the MHTGR, in its letter of January 27, 1993, it asked NRC to move up the date for the final PSER to June 1994 to meet the advanced reactor schedules specified in the Energy Policy Act of 1992.
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The Commissioners In response to that letter, the staff was revising the schedule given in SECY-92-393 to complete the MHTGR preapplication review by December 1993 and submit the draft final PSER to the Commission and the ACRS by June 1994. The expectation was that the Commission would issue the final PSER under this new proposed schedule by December 1994. The estimated resources needed for the preapplication review are 2 FTE in FY93, 2.1 FTE in FY94, and 0.4 FTE in FY95.
This includes a full-time project manager for the entire review effort. No further contract technical assistance by NRR beyond that completed in early 1993 is needed for the preapplication review.
The staff could pursue three courses of action for the MHTGR design:
(1) stop all work on the preapplication review and spend nothing more, (2) continue a limited review to discuss only the 10 policy issues for the design which would require an expenditure of 3.75 FTE, including a project manager through FY95, or (3) continue the review as previously planned and expend the 4.5 FTE discussed above.
CANDU 3 As noted earlier, the CANDU 3 application is not funded by DOE, and AECLT is supporting the preapplication effort.
In SECY-92-393, the staff gave December 1994 as the date for completing the PSER for the CANDU 3.
To date, the resources expended have been those of the project manager and some limited technical personnel time, principally to attend meetings and perform preliminary technical review, and $81K of NRR technical assistance funds. The preapplicant has stated that it will apply for a standard design certification sometime in 1995 or 1996.
The staff still needs a significant amount of information for the review.
AECLT, the preapplicant, and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the designer, are not prepared to submit that information until the staff writes specific requests for additional information. To accommodate DOE's requested increase in priority for the MHTGR design review, the staff was considering revising the schedule given in SECY-92-393 to delay the completion of the preapplication review of CANDU 3 from December 1993 to June 1994 and to delay the submittal of the draft PSER to the Commission and ACRS from June 1994 to December 1994.
The expectation is that the Commission would issue the CANDU 3 PSER by June 1995.
The estimated resources needed for the review are 1.0 FTE in FY93, 4.3 FTE in FY94, and 1.1 FTE in FY95. This includes a full-time project manager. Tech-nical assistance by NRR is needed and four contracts that will cost $479K have been identified with potentially an additional $150K which may be needed before the review is complete. The identified contracts are currently on hold until this reassessment of resources and priorities has been completed. Two contracts that cost $81K were completed in the first quarter of 1993.
The Commissioners !
AECLT will not favorably receive NRC's elimination of resources for the CANDU 3 preapplication review.
AECLT sent letters to the Chairman on March 10 and March 31, 1993, strongly requesting that NRC continue this review.
The staff is just starting the detailed technical review of the CANDU 3 design.
Therefore, the staff has not yet made a significant commitment of its resources.
However, the vendor has spent a significant amount of resources to develop and supply the technical information necessary to support the NRC review, and AECLT and AECL appear ready to expend whatever the NRC staff needs to continue the review.
The U.S. Canadian Free-Trade Agreement requires that the Commission treat AECLT as it would an American preapplicant seeking a similar review.
The staff could pursue four courses of action for the CANDU 3 design:
(1) stop all work on the preapplication review and spend nothing more, (2) continue a limited review to discuss only the 10 policy issues for the design, which would require an expenditure of 3.75 FTE through FY95, (3) continue the review as planned and expend the 6.4 FTE discussed above, or (4) continue the full review, but on an extended schedule, expending only 1.7 FTE per year (this includes 0.7 FTE for the project manager) through FY95.
i PIUS In SECY-92-393, the staff gave April 1995 as the date for completing the PSER for the PIUS design. To date, the resources expended have been those of the project manager and some limited technical staff time, principally to attend meetings and address some early technical policy issues, and $193K of NRR technical assistance funds.
ABB-CE last indicated their intentions for the PIUS program in a letter to the staff dated April 22, 1992. They stated, in part, that it was their
" expectation, given some time for due consideration of pertinent factors, to follow on with the design certification process for PIUS in calendar year 1994 or 1995." ABB-CE also indicated that they "would use the results of the preapplication review along with consideration of the commercial environment to make a final determination regarding continuance of the design certification process."
ABB-CE has submitted the following informatien for staff review:
(1) the PIUS Preliminary Safety Information Document (PSID), (2) responses to requests for additional information generated by the project manager and the limited technical policy review, (3) a recent supplement updating the PSID to cover recent design changes, DBA, and PRA information; and (4) information necessary to continue the thermal-hydraulic analysis of the PIUS design at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (sponsored by RES).
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The Comissioners '
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- To accomodate the requested increase in priority for the MHTGR design by DOE, the staff was considering revising the schedule given in SECY-92-393 to delay the issuance of the PIUS PSER to March 1996.
The estimated resources needed for this review are 0.5 FTE in FY93, 1.2 FTE in FY94, and 2.5 FTE in FY95.
l The PSER would be issued in March 1996.
The staff could pursue one of four courses of action for the PIUS design:
(1) stop all work on the preapplication review and spend nothing more, i
(2) maintain a minimal project maintenance effort for coordinating _
comunications with other organizations that are developing data and analysis for the design (would require about 0.3 FTE per year through FY95),
j (3) maintain project support to review key policy-issues that could affect e
licensability of the design, utilizing available information and that being developed by national laboratories, (3.4 FTE total through FY95), or l
(4) continue a revised complete review as planned and expend the 4.2 FTE i
discussed above.
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ABB-CE will not favorably receive NRC's elimination of resources for the PIUS preapplication review. However, because of the limited staff involvement to date,-coupled with the uncertainty of a design certification application,'and i
given the staff's budgetary and staffing considerations, the staff has determined that a very low level of project maintenance would be reasonable and prudent. This effort is described as Option 2 above.
Enclosed is a matrix diagram showing the total FTE expenditures, and l
expenditure by fiscal year, estimated for the various options discussed.
RECOMMENDATION-I 5
Unless the Commission directs otherwise, the staff intends to stop all work on t
the preapplication reviews for the MHTGR design and spend nothing more. The staff also intends to continue a small effort (about 1.7 FTE per year) on 'the CANDU 3 review on an extended schedule. A small PIUS effort, about 0.3 FTE i
per year, will continue in order to continue open communications with ABB-CE, i
to maintain current documentation, and to monitor the work of other organizations.
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The staff also intends to complete its effort to issue, in June 1993, the i
PRISM PSER in draft form to the ACRS, the Commission, and the public.
Unless i
DOE continues to fund this project, the staff will expend no more resources on l
this project after it issues the draft PSER.
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The Comissioners,
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The staff will ensure that appropriate research efforts are planned to support the approved level of effort to he applied to this work.
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wy M N. Tay or E ecutive rector for Operations
Enclosure:
FTE Expenditure Matrix DISTRIBUTION:
Chairman Commissioners OGC CAA IG OPP EDO ACRS SECY 1
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t FISCAL YEAR DIRECT FTE EXPENDITURE FOR ADVANCED REACTOR AND CANDU 3 DESIGN REVIEWS FY93 FY94 FY95 Design Option No.
Option No.
Option No.
1 2
3 4
1 2
3 4
1 2
3 4
PRISM 0
.8 1.0 N/A 0
0
.5 N/A 0
0 0
N/A MHTGR 0
.75 2.0 N/A 0
1.5 2.1 N/A 0
1.5
.4 N/A J
CANDU 0
.75 1.0 1.7 0
1.5 4.3 1.7 0
1.5 1.1 1.7 PIUS 0
.3
.9
.5 0
.3 1.25 1.2 0
.3 1.25 2.5 TOTAL DIRECT FTE EXPENDITURES Total FTE expenditures f
E PRISM MHTGR CANDU PIUS 1
0 0
0 0
f 2
.8 3.75 3.75
.9 3
1.5 4.5 6.4 3.4 4
N/A N/A 5.1 4.2 i
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ENCLOSURE
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