ML20336A180
| ML20336A180 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/18/2020 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Beall, Robert | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20318A005 | List: |
| References | |
| 10 CFR Part 53, NRC-1216, NRC-2019-0062, RIN 3150-AK31 | |
| Download: ML20336A180 (115) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
10 CFR Part 53 "Licensing and Regulation of Advanced Nuclear Reactors" Subpart B Preliminary Proposed Rule Language Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: teleconference Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2020 Work Order No.: NRC-1216 Pages 1-109 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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10 CFR PART 53 "LICENSING AND REGULATION OF ADVANCED NUCLEAR REACTORS" SUBPART B PRELIMINARY PROPOSED RULE LANGUAGE
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WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 18, 2020
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The Category 3 public meeting was held by teleconference at 12:00 p.m., Robert Beall, Rulemaking Project Manager, facilitating.
NRC STAFF PRESENT ROBERT BEALL, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards BILL RECKLEY, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation JOHN SEGALA, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation NANETTE VALLIERE, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 ALSO PRESENT CYRIL DRAFFIN, U.S. Nuclear Industry Council MARC NICHOL, Nuclear Energy Institute NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 AGENDA Welcome/Introductions/Logistics ...................4 Part 53 Rulemaking Strategy & Schedule Nan Valliere ...............................13 Cyril Draffin ..............................21 Subpart B - Technology-Inclusive Safety Requirements Bill Reckley................................30 Marc Nichol ................................52 Additional Public Comments/Closing Remarks........94 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 P R O C E E D I N G S 12:06 p.m.
MR. BEALL: Thank you. Good afternoon. I want to welcome everyone and thank you for participating in today's public meeting to discuss the risk-informed technology-inclusive regulatory framework for advanced reactors or the Part 53 rulemaking.
My name is Bob Beall and I'm from the NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. I'm the project manager for the Part 53 rulemaking and will be serving as the facilitator for today's meeting. My role is to help ensure that today's meeting is informative and productive.
This is a Category 3 public meeting to encourage active participation and information exchange with the public to help ensure, excuse me, to help facilitate the development of the Part 53 rulemaking.
The feedback that the NRC receives today is not considered a formal public comment, so there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 will be no formal response to any of today's discussion. Slide two, please.
The agenda for today includes NRC staff and external stakeholder presentations on two topics related to the Part 53 rulemaking. Topic one will be an overview of the Part 53 rulemaking strategy and schedule, and the second will be the discussion of the preliminary proposed rule language for Part 53, Subpart B, technology-inclusive safety requirements.
Questions from the public and further discussion will follow each topic presentation. We will also have one 15-minute break after topic number one. Slide three, please.
I would now like to introduce John Segala.
John is the Branch Chief of the Advanced Reactor Policy Branch in the Office of Nuclear Regulator Regulation. John will be giving the opening remarks for today's meeting. John?
MR. SEGALA: Thanks, Bob. Can you hear me?
MR. BEALL: Yes, we can.
MR. SEGALA: All right, thank you. Good afternoon. As Bob mentioned, today's meeting is the first of many webinars the NRC will be having every NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 four to six weeks over the next year to provide an opportunity for external stakeholders to provide feedback on NRC's development of Part 53 preliminary proposed rule language for advanced reactors.
Today, we will be discussing the strategy and schedule for developing Part 53 and seeking input on the preliminary rule language for Subpart B, technology-inclusive safety requirements.
Although NRC's mid and long term implementation action plans for enhancing our readiness to effectively and efficiently review and regulate advanced reactors included a future activity to assess whether a new regulatory framework should be developed for advanced reactors, in January of 2019, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act or NEIMA was signed into law and required that NRC complete a technology-inclusive, risk-informed, performance-based regulation for advanced reactors by no later than the end of 2027.
On April 13, 2020, the staff issued a rulemaking plan in SECY-20-0032, and on October 2, the Commission issued its staff requirements memorandum approving the staff's proposed approach for the rulemaking and directed the staff to provide a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 schedule and key uncertainties to publish the final Part 53 rule by October 2024, three years earlier than the date required by NEIMA.
On November 2, the staff submitted a Commission memorandum responding to the SRM direction provided a schedule and key uncertainties that could impact publication of the final rule by October 2024.
Although completion of the Part 53 rulemaking by October 2024 requires changes to the resource estimates by fiscal year and may involve reallocation of resources and reprioritization of activities, the staff's primary goal is to develop a transformational rule that provides reasonable assurance of public health and safety for advanced reactors.
To achieve this goal, the staff plans to focus the scope of this rulemaking on the essential elements that will enable safety-focused timely licensing decisions and construction and transition to operation for new advanced reactors.
A totally clean sheet approach, as some stakeholders have been seeking, is certainly something that we are embracing in our thinking for this rule to the extent practical.
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8 That said, certain proposals, such as revisiting the linear no-threshold model for assessing health effects of radiation, could divert attention and resources from the staff's primary goal of developing a technology-inclusive regulatory framework and negatively impacting our ability to deliver the rule on schedule.
It is the staff's top priority to have early engagement with stakeholders today and in the coming months in a discussion of the Part 53 rulemaking scope to ensure a shared understanding of what will be included in the final rule.
We are expecting to leverage our ongoing advanced reactor readiness activities to serve as guidance for this new rule as one acceptable way for meeting the regulations.
For example, in June of 2020, we issued Regulatory Guide 1.233 which endorses the licensing modernization project or LMP methodology described in the NEI 18-04 document as one acceptable method for non-light water reactor designers to use for establishing key parts of the licensing basis and content of applications.
LMP focuses on identifying the licensing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 basis events, classifying the structure systems and components, and ensuring adequate defense-in-depth.
As a follow up to LMP, we have started to engage during several public meetings with the Southern-led, NEI-coordinated, and DOE cost-shared Technology Inclusive Content of Application Project or TICAP.
The purpose of TICAP is to provide guidance for developing the content for the specific portions of an application that are within the scope of LMP.
In addition, the NRC is leading the Advanced Reactor Content of Application Project or ARCAP which will provide technology-inclusive, risk-informed, and performance-based application content guidance.
ARCAP is broader and encompasses the industry-led TICAP project. ARCAP includes those portions of an application outside the scope of LMP.
Our next public meeting in TICAP and ARCAP is scheduled for December 10, 2020.
We are looking forward to having discussions today and hearing any feedback you all may have. Thank you, and that completes my opening NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 remarks.
MR. BEALL: Okay, thank you, John. I would now like to introduce the NRC staff who will be making presentations for today's meeting, myself, as the rulemaking project manager and the meeting facilitator.
We also have Nan Valliere and Bill Reckley from NRR. Bill and Nan are the Part 53 technical leads for this rulemaking. In addition, we will have members from the public who have requested to make a presentation on one or more of the topics from the Nuclear Energy Institute and the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council.
If you are not on the Webex system and would like to view the presentation slides, they are located in the NRC's ADAMS document database and on regulations.gov. The accession number for today's slide is ML20318A007. Slide four, please.
The purpose of today's meeting is to exchange information, answer questions, and to discuss the Part 53 rulemaking. This is the first of many public meetings over the next 12 months where the NRC staff will be presenting and discussing the Part 53 preliminary proposed rule language.
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11 This is a Category 3 public meeting, which means that the public participation is actively sought as we discuss the regulatory issues.
Because of the number of attendees, we may need to limit the time for an individual question or discussion on a topic to make sure everyone has a chance to participate.
After everyone has a chance to ask their questions, we will circle back and allow people to ask additional questions as we have time. If there is a particular topic you would like to discuss, please send me an email after the meeting and we'll try to include it in a future public meeting.
This meeting is being transcribed, so in order to get a clean transcription and to minimize distractions during the meeting, we ask the panelists to mute their phones when they are not speaking.
For attendees on the phone, you will be in a listen only mode until the discussion portion of this meeting. If you would like to speak, please contact the operator by pressing star, one, and they will put you in a queue and announce when it is your turn.
We will not be using the Webex chat NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 feature to take written questions. All questions have to go through the operator. A summary and transcript of today's meeting will be publicly available on or before December 18, 2020.
Finally, this meeting is not designed, not intended to solicit or receive comments on topics other than this rulemaking activity. Also, no regulatory decisions will be made at today's meeting.
Please note that the last two slides in today's presentation contains acronyms and abbreviations that may be used during this public meeting. Slide five, please.
To start today's presentation, I would like to provide an overview of the Part 53 rulemaking process. There are many actions that may trigger the start of a rulemaking process. In our case, the passage of the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act or NEIMA statute was our trigger.
During the spring and summer of 2020, the NRC staff completed the Commission review and approval of rulemaking plan stage for the Part 53 rule. We are currently at the public outreach and stakeholder input step. You can locate this step on this slide by following the line on the you are here circle.
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13 During this stage, the NRC staff will hold public meetings every four to six weeks and meet with the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards every month or two to discuss various sections and topics related to the Part 53 rulemaking. These interactions will help inform the staff as you move through the finalized and draft proposed rule stage over the next 12 months.
Once the staff has completed the draft proposed Part 53 rule package, the Commission will then review and approve the proposed Part 53 rule and direct the staff to publish the proposed rule in the Federal Register for public comment.
During the published proposed rule for comment stage, the staff will hold one or more public meetings during the public comment period to address stakeholder questions on the proposed rule.
Once the comment period has closed, the staff will evaluate all of the comment submittals and finalize the draft final Part 53 rule. The Commission will then review and approve the final Part 53 rule and direct the staff to publish the final rule in the Federal Register by October 2024.
As you can see from this slide, there will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 be many opportunities for stakeholder interactions before the final Part 53 rule is published in 2024.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to Nan to continue the discussion of the Part 53 rulemaking strategy and schedule. Nan?
MS. VALLIERE: Thank you, Bob. Good afternoon. As Bob mentioned, my name is Nan Valliere and I'm a Senior Project Manager in the NRC's Advanced Reactor Policy Branch. So, we are on slide six now.
As was noted on the previous slides, the trigger for this rulemaking was the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act or NEIMA, which was signed into law in January of 2019.
NEIMA requires the NRC to complete a rulemaking to establish a technology-inclusive regulatory framework for advanced reactors by 2027.
NEIMA defines an advanced reactor as a nuclear fission or fusion reactor, including a prototype plant, that has significant improvements compared to reactors under construction at the time NEIMA was enacted.
NEIMA lists those improvements in terms of proliferation resistance, safety, economics, fuel, and other attributes. In line with this definition, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 NRC is setting the scope of the Part 53 rule as including light water small modular reactors, non-light water reactors, and fusion reactors. Next slide, please.
Slide seven provides some information about the NRC staff's Part 53 rulemaking plan which was presented to the Commission in SECY-20-0032. In that plan, the staff told the Commission that we thought the goals of NEIMA would be best met by creating a new part in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations to construct a licensing framework that would be suitable for a range of technologies.
As John noted earlier, we plan to build on existing NRC requirements, Commission policy, and recent related activities such as those that resulted in the issuance of the recent guidance for technology-inclusive, risk-informed, and performance-based methodology for establishing the licensing basis for advanced reactors.
The rulemaking plan indicated that the NRC staff was planning extensive interactions with external stakeholders and the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. Next slide, please.
As John also mentioned, the Commission NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 provided direction related to the staff's rulemaking plan in a staff requirements memorandum on October 2.
In that memo, the Commission approved the staff's overall approach for the rulemaking by directing the staff to accelerate its timeline while balancing the need to produce a high quality, thoroughly vetted regulation.
The Commission directed the staff to provide the Commission three things, namely a schedule with milestones and resource requirements to achieve publication of the final Part 53 rule by October of 2024, key uncertainties impacting publication of the final rule by that date, and an option for Commission consideration on licensing and regulating fusion energy systems.
The Commission requested the first two of these items within 30 days. The Commission also directed the staff to develop and release preliminary proposed rule language intermittently, followed by public outreach and dialogue. Today's meeting is the first of many that will help us fulfill that direction. Next slide, please.
On November 2, the NRC staff issued a memorandum that provided the Commission with the first NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 two items it requested in its direction on the rulemaking plan. That memorandum provided a schedule with milestones and resources to complete the Part 53 final rule by October of 2024.
In addition, the memorandum included a discussion of key uncertainties that could impact publication of the final rule by that date. Next slide, please.
Slide ten replicates the milestone schedule that was provided to the Commission in the 30-day Commission memo. Highlights of the schedule include 19 months, starting last month, to interact with stakeholders and the ACRS, and to produce the proposed rulemaking package for submittal to the Commission.
Publication of the proposed rule in October of 2022 will be followed by a 60-day comment period. Fourteen months is our plan for generation of the final rule package, to include additional public outreach.
The draft final rule package is projected to be submitted to the Commission in March of 2024 in order to accomplish publication of the final rule by October of 2024. Next slide, please.
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18 This slide lists the key uncertainties associated with meeting this schedule that were provided to the Commission in the staff's 30-day memo.
Those key uncertainties include the ability to reach alignment on the scope of the rulemaking with external stakeholders, the time needed for engagement on key issues within the NRC and for communication with external stakeholders and the ACRS, the timing of guidance document development to support the rule, the ability of the public to review the proposed rule within the suggested 60-day public comment period, and the ability to include the regulatory framework and requirements for fusion facilities in the final rule by 2024. Next slide, please.
On slide 12, we have a slide that we have used in many public meetings in the past to talk about how we thought Part 53 might look. Although NEIMA defines the framework primarily in terms of licensing, the NRC staff determined that we had an opportunity to develop a more integrated approach.
In the rulemaking plan, we propose to build a whole regulatory framework from design through construction and operation, and eventually to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 decommissioning.
A key early focus would be to clearly define the highest level safety or risk metrics as described in the purple box, which is what we are here to talk about today.
The difference in the way this slide looks today as compared to past presentations is that we have added labels for the Part 53 subparts that the staff envisions will address each of the designated areas in the rule. Next slide, please.
Slide 13 is a graphical representation of how the staff plans to work through stakeholder interaction on each subpart of the proposed rule to support submittal of the proposed rule package on the milestone schedule provided to the Commission.
The yellow shaded boxes represent the time that the staff plans to present concepts to external stakeholders at a public meeting. The blue shaded boxes represent the time that the staff plans to hold discussions with external stakeholders on concepts previously presented. And lastly, the green shaded boxes represent the time that the staff and stakeholders need to come to closure on a topic in order to move onto the next topic.
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20 Before I explain the matrix further, I wanted to note an error that we noticed after the slides were made public. The first two rows should have white boxes in the design, siting, construction, and operations' column.
You'll see that we envision several months in the latter half of next year for discussion and closure on the consolidation technical subparts to support a presentation to the ACRS Full Committee in January of 2022.
Finally, you'll notice that the decommissioning blocks are not currently shaded. At this time, the staff has not determined if we will be able to include decommissioning requirements in the scope of the Part 53 rule by 2024. We will make that determination at a later date.
I also want to note that the staff recognizes that there are likely to be instances where developments in one subpart of the rule will have an impact on the subpart that was closed out earlier, and there will be occasions where revisiting previously closed out subparts will be unavoidable.
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21 depicted in this matrix. Next slide, please.
Slide 14 provides information about a letter that the Nuclear Energy Institute or NEI sent to the NRC last month presenting its views on the Part 53 rulemaking process.
The NEI letter focuses on three elements recommended for a successful rulemaking. First, a well-defined vision and goals for the final rule, second, a systematic approach to the rulemaking effort with a proposed five-step process, and third, predictable and meaningful stakeholder interactions.
NEI suggested a five-step process to approach the rulemaking effort as shown here. The dates in parentheses represent the dates each step would be completed. I'll note that the NEI's plan suggests waiting until step four to draft the proposed rule language. Next slide, please.
The NRC staff believes that the overall concepts in NEI's suggested process are reasonable.
However, the staff does not believe all steps can be done in series, as suggested, while still completing the rulemaking on the Commission-directed schedule.
As directed by the Commission in their October staff requirements memorandum, the staff will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 be using an iterative process to get stakeholder input as I laid out a few slides ago.
This concludes the first portion of the NRC staff presentation, and at this point, we are going to turn it over to USNIC to present some of their thoughts on the subject matter just discussed.
Cyril, are you prepared to present your slides on the rulemaking strategy and schedule?
MR. DRAFFIN: I am, on the next slide.
Hi, my name is Cyril Draffin. I'm the Senior Fellow for Advanced Nuclear at the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council, and we appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on rulemaking strategy and schedule.
On the next slide, which I think is 17, I wanted to point out that the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council was supportive of NRC's efforts to develop Part 53 as a transformational rule that provides reasonable assurance of public health and safety for advanced reactors.
The USNIC is engaged in the process and we think that having stakeholder meetings every six weeks has merit. We did provide comments at an NRC August 20 meeting. We commented on the 14 issues the NRC raised in their July white paper which is available on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 the site listed there, and provided comments at the September 22 meeting, and of course for today.
We think it's helpful that the NRC is providing their thinking regarding the planned Subparts A through J and how they fit together, so good comments that were presented already today.
On the next slide, which I think is 18, we want to ensure that the requirements for licensing and regulating advanced nuclear reactors are clear, appropriate, predictable, efficient, and focused on the adequate protection of public health and safety.
We'd like to have regulations avoided that are not needed to provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of health and safety, and eliminating or streamlining requirements which are overly prescriptive or not relevant will reduce the need for future exemptions.
On the next slide, we wanted to point out that because of the accelerated timeline, as the NRC indicated earlier, there's a tension between having broad, significant changes from the current regulatory framework, transformational, and just repackaging prior safety standards.
The preliminary language for the safety NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 requirements seems oriented toward repackaging prior standards rather than being transformational, but we'll provide comments on that later today.
On slide 20, next slide, the NRC mentioned the NEI October input that was on slide 14, and we support the vision and goals that was presented there.
We want Part 53 to be the most efficient option for all new reactor applicants, and that it meets the needs for schedule, cost, and predictability, consistent with Congressional directives and NRC's reactor policies, initiatives, and good regulation principles.
We think it's important to have it safety focused, technology inclusive, efficient, and flexible, and we might point out that we ought to consider a diverse set of uses, including process heat for industrial applications, hydrogen production, and desalinization that may be deployed, including by some of the reactors in the DOE Advanced Research Center program, with the ability to produce high-temperature processing. We think it should be informed and consider international regulatory frameworks, and also have clarity.
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25 wanted to comment on NRC staff's November 2 memo that was referred to just moments ago and touch upon two areas of uncertainty that were highlighted by the NRC.
First, we agree that it's important to reach alignment on the scope early in the process, and we agree with the staff's desire for a transformational rule.
But one topic that's really a consideration is that large studies undertaken suggest zero threshold associated with linear no-threshold model is not appropriate for assessing health effects or radiation, and if the timing doesn't allow a clean slate approach, at least Part 53 should add flexibility as science and analysis improves, such as if the NRC Commission decides that a zero threshold is no longer justified.
Also, the NRC pointed out that the timing of the document require focusing efforts of the NRC, and industry, and standards organizations. It might be helpful to talk about the possible role and the way NRC would engage the standards organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization, typically because of their ISO 9000 quality management standards, or ASME.
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26 So, I'll close there and see what other comments that people have on the approach the NRC has provided, and again, we do appreciate the NRC's effort to convey their ideas early in the process. Thank you.
MS. VALLIERE: Thank you, Cyril. And now we'd like to open up the floor for other comments and questions. Operator, can you please remind attendees on the line how to indicate that they have a question or comment?
OPERATOR: I sure can. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star, one.
Please unmute your phone and record your name clearly when prompted. Your name is required to introduce your question. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, one at this time. And speakers, it usually takes 30 seconds to a minute for the questions to queue up, so just give me one moment.
MR. NICHOL: Ma'am, this is Marc Nichol is I have an opportunity to make a few remarks?
MS. VALLIERE: Sure, go ahead, Marc.
MR. NICHOL: Okay, I really wanted to thank you for putting together the plan, and especially a focus on, I think it was slide five, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 shows us where we are in the total process. I like the graphical nature of it too, so that's really helpful for us to understand how far we've come, where we are, and what needs to be done.
And I also really appreciate slide 13, which is your matrix of topics for future meetings and timelines for addressing them. I think it was very well thought out, so I just wanted to thank you for that, and it will help us in preparing for these various topics.
I also appreciate that you provided your feedback on the NEI letter suggesting an approach for taking on the rulemaking plan. You know, we're not surprised that you're not able to or, you know, you're not going to do things exactly as we had said, but I do appreciate that you all reflected on our input, so thank you.
MS. VALLIERE: Thank you, Marc. Operator, do we have anyone in the queue that would like to ask a question?
OPERATOR: We do. We have a question coming from Ernie. Ernie, your line is open. You may proceed.
PARTICIPANT: Hi, thank you for all of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 this work you've done and I greatly appreciate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission relooking at, you know, reactor licensing. It's really very timely.
I just have one comment, and I did send this in writing to Dr. Beale, and I also posted a comment on the regulations.gov comment site, and my comment is that I see reasonable assurance as a new standard kind of coming up as opposed to -- I see it in the context of reasonable assurance of adequate protection.
And I mean, I've worked in nuclear power all of my career basically, and I'm very comfortable with the adequate protection standard. I understand that the NRC is the one who decides what that is, and I don't see a need to introduce uncertainty into whether or not a license meets the adequate protection standard for health and safety of the public.
And my main concern with introducing this qualifier on adequate protection is that it has the --
it can erode the public confidence in a strong statement that we've met adequate protection in regulation, so that's my comment.
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29 comment is that the phrase reasonable assurance of adequate protection is a standard that the NRC has been using for a very long time, so we are not introducing anything new when we use that phrase in the context of discussions related to Part 53.
MR. RECKLEY: Yeah, Nan, this is Bill Reckley if I can weigh in a little bit? I appreciate the comment and the possible connotations of the language, and I refer people -- personally, I think the best discussion of the phrase reasonable assurance of adequate protection that the NRC produced was actually in the Waste Confidence Decision in the early
'80s.
And it does address within that decision this connotation and it tries to explain that the term reasonable assurance is not really meant to either raise or lower the standards or the perception of adequate protection. It's just in recognition that there are uncertainties and there will be some needed flexibility and some engineering judgments when making that determination.
So, we thank you for the comment. I do understand the concerns about the connotation. If you'd like to look at it a little further and see the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 history of that, I again would refer you back to that 1980, or I think it was 1983 Waste Confidence Decision in the Federal Register, and there was a good discussion on the phrase and the meanings.
PARTICIPANT: Okay, I don't know if I'm still in this conversation, but thank you very much for the feedback. I guess my only response to that is if you submit a license, you either meet the NRC's requirements or you don't, and they don't -- adequate protection never has implied 100 percent risk-free operation or licensing. It just -- but anyway, that was -- I'll go back and relook at some of the history on that term. Thank you very much.
OPERATOR: Thank you, Ernie. Speakers, at this time, we do not have any additional questions in queue.
MR. DRAFFIN: Well, this is Cyril Draffin if I may add one more comment. One of the goals of this new Part 53 rulemaking is to improve the regulations for nuclear reactors, and also for the general public to understand what's happening and, you know, so they can build up the social acceptance if it's appropriate for these reactors.
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31 presentations as Marc mentioned on slides five, and 12, and 13, and then later today on 26 and 36, I think it's helpful to convey your ideas, not just for the people on the phone call today, but perhaps the general public.
So, I think the incorporation of trying to make these regulations understandable to the public at large is a worthy goal, and so I commend you for some of your planning and also for the way you're presenting it. Thank you.
MS. VALLIERE: Thank you, Cyril, appreciate that. So, at this point in time, Bob, I'm going to turn it back over to you. I know the agenda would show us having a break now, but I think it might be a little early, so I'll leave it to you as to how you'd like to proceed.
MR. BEALL: Yes, let's go ahead and continue onto the next topic. You're right. It's been less than an hour, so let's continue onto topic two, so next slide, please? There you go. So, Bill Reckley is going to go into the second topic for us today, which is Subpart B for the Part 53 preliminary rule language, so, Bill, take it away.
MR. RECKLEY: All right, thanks, Bob. So, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 as Nan laid out, we're currently working on this structure. It may change somewhat as we go through this process and interact with stakeholders, have discussions with the ACRS, et cetera.
But I think we talked at the last meeting that no matter how one would see the final structure turning out, the first step would be to agree on what are the safety objections, the safety criteria.
And our current plan, and I know it's difficult because you kind of have to think what's going to be in these other subparts as we have the discussion, but the general thought is that these other subparts, and we'll just take Subpart C on design requirements, would be coming back to these same safety criteria that we're going to talk about today and basically say what is the role of the design process?
What is the analytical support that's going to be provided in the safety analysis report, and how is that done to show that a particular design, a particular plant at a particular site is going to meet these safety criteria that we're going to talk about?
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33 on slide 18. We tried to lay this subpart out basically starting with some safety objectives, and then define the criteria that we would use in making regulatory decisions, and then what functions the design might have to retain the fission products or the other radioactive materials, and then the other subparts will start to go into how those safety functions are accomplished in terms of design analysis, siting, and so forth.
One important aspect is the licensing basis events, the challenges to the design presented by both internal and external events, how a design would incorporate defense-in-depth, and then all of those were generally oriented towards the public, and we added a section on protection of plant workers.
So, if we go on then to slide 19, you can start to see somewhat the logic that we thought we could follow, and it starts out at the Atomic Energy Act and the safety objectives that are defined within the Act.
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34 and property.
Using these two aspects of the Act and then reflecting it in actually two tiers of safety criteria with the first tier basically aligning generally with the adequate protection, these are going to provide a floor if you will such that at any given time, there will be at least a plant -- a plant will always be using the adequate protection requirements.
And so you can kind of go down that column, and we'll get to these in more detail in a couple of minutes, but for normal operations, you get the traditional Part 20 number of no more than 100 millirems to a member of the public in a year.
The traditional assessment of unplanned events in terms of the traditional siting criteria of using a major accident to show that the dose to individuals would be less than 25 rem.
Then you can get down into the safety functions of how you're meeting those requirements, and so what is retained in the radionuclides within the facility as we talk about what are the supporting safety functions, such as controlling reactivity or heat generation, controlling heat removal. For many, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 advanced reactor designs controlling chemical interactions becomes an important parameters.
And then those requirements, the first tier get captured in design features and programmatic controls that have the highest level of controls, so they're going to be safety-related components.
They're going to be addressed in tech specs. The analysis would be along the lines of the traditional Chapter 15 deterministic kind of approach where you only credit the safety-related equipment.
So, if you take that then as always meeting the adequate protection standard, the expectation is that plants are going -- their risk profile in advanced reactors is going to be significantly better than that.
And that is provided by the second tier requirements which are for normal ops, doing a design and having the programs in place to keep the offsite releases as low as reasonably achievable, and bringing in other safety metrics such as the NRC safety for unplanned events, which is looking at both frequency and consequences.
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36 the second tier would tend to be treated as or with special treatment requirements, but not the necessarily safety related, and in lieu of tech specs which you need prior NRC approval, the controls over those SSCs and programs would tend to fall under licensee-controlled programs to maintain the risk profile.
So, this is the general structure that we were thinking about. Again, we, in terms of previous conversations, we were trying to make sure that one way to meet this would be what was approved in NEI 18-04 through Regulatory Guide 1.233.
And so if you go down the left column, the first tier, that's going to be the required safety functions under licensing modernization, which leads to basically the same criteria if you look at the frequency-consequence curve in NEI 18-04.
For the DBAs, you're comparing it to --
for the design basis accidents, you're comparing it to the 25 rem traditional number out of Section 50.34 or 52.79, and those are the safety-related equipment.
LMP did not get into tech specs, but this would be an extension of that discussion, and we're going to get into it through the discussions as John NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 Segala mentioned in terms of TICAP and ARCAP.
The second tier requirements would be the equipment that's needed for the other licensing basis event categories, anticipated operational occurrences, the design basis events or beyond design basis events under LMP, and they get treated primarily through special treatment requirements.
So, we tried to make the language within this proposal such that we didn't 100 percent near LMP licensing modernization and NEI 18-04, but definitely did have in mind that NEI 18-04 would be one way to meet this structure.
So, we'll go into a little more details on the individual sections if we go to slide 20. Again, so the safety objectives, and these are at a high level and they are primarily just to explain the later criteria, which end up being ones we're actually going to use for performance metrics.
But the objectives are to maintain adequate protection, reasonable assurance of adequate protection, as we've talked about, and have additional measures to minimize danger to life and property, and then considering various factors, and as we just talked about, that's laid out in a two-tiered NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 structure.
So, if we go to slide 21, the first tier is, as I've already talked about, generally aligned with adequate protection. We have tried, and you'll see this as we develop the other subparts, to differentiate between normal ops and licensing basis events or unplanned operations.
The licensing modernization project under NEI 18-04 addressed licensing basis events, but consciously did not address normal operation, but we need to do that within the Part 53 effort.
And so as we talked about, the first tier for normal operation, we bring in the requirements from Section 20.1301, which is that the total effective dose equivalent to individual members of the public will not exceed 100 millirem or one millisievert in a year, and that's broken down also into a 0.002 rem in any hour criterion.
So, that has -- I'm not sure that that has traditionally been talked about in terms of an adequate protection provision, but it definitely has been the top tier and is familiar to everyone that normal operations, routine effluence would never be expected to result in a dose to an individual that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 exceeds the 100 millirem number.
So, though that's a traditional number, it may be a new concept to group it within the next section, which is what is needed in the first tier for a licensing basis event.
For that, we basically are defining an event frequency, and again, this is consistent, but we're trying not to overly integrate NEI 18-04 into this Part 53, so the concept is similar, but I think this will give applicants who choose to go a different route the opportunity to do that.
But it does say that any event with an upper bound frequency that would go over one in 10,000 years would be expected or required to show that that does not result in a dose exceeding the 25 rem at the exclusionary boundary in a two-hour period or the low population zone and over the duration of the release.
So, I know we talked about in previous discussions whether we would have the same boundary definitions like exclusionary boundary and low population zone. I think over the course of the next year, we can talk about that.
One of the reasons to use them here is that they are actually defined in terms of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 measured dose as opposed to being a fixed distance, and so they are flexible.
And we've talked in recent discussions on siting and emergency planning that the exclusionary boundary and the low population zone can, if it can be demonstrated, be basically the same, and can be basically the site boundary if that can be shown.
I mentioned before, and I think as we get into the other subparts, one of the things we'll talk about is the degree to which this licensing basis event does basically mirror the traditional design basis accident for currently licensed or certified plants, and also the design basis accident as it's described in NEI 18-04.
That's kind of what we were thinking here, that this would be the equivalent of a design basis accident approach, and as we go forward and talk about the design and analysis in the coming months, you would see basically that showing up, but we can talk about it a little bit today as well.
Based on the slides that we go, I know there will be some discussion on the last one. We included Item C under the first tier, which are additional requirements established by the NRC for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 reasonable assurance of adequate protection, and we added that just for the traditional flexibility of the agency to be able to define something as being needed for adequate protection.
What we thought -- and again, as we get past the concepts and into the language, we can talk about how to make sure that this is clear. What we meant by Item C was those things that the NRC or the agency would determine as being needed and put somewhere in an order or in a rule, not something an individual staff member could bring up.
A and B would be the starting point, and if the Commission and the agency were to make a decision and add an additional criterion, it would be done through that higher level approach is what we were thinking.
But again, if we need to make sure that the language would preclude -- what I'm getting out of the slides that we saw was some fear that individual staff members would be holding up an application and making reasonable assurance. That's not what we were thinking when we added Item C.
If we go onto then to slide 22, this is the second tier or what would be added more or less NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 lining up with Section 161, substantial additional protection.
The first criteria again, or the first bullet, or Item A under the preliminary language for 53.23 is basically the as well as reasonably achievable concept that's reflected in both Part 20 and also in Appendix I.
We didn't do a lot of work in kind of giving thought to whether the numbers would be the same. I will mention that what's in the preliminary rule language is the millirem number, so it's the dose equivalent, and the performance metrics that are in Appendix I related to dose.
The guidance for meeting Appendix I when it gets down into the specific radionuclides associated with either a PWR or BWR, pressurized water reactor or boiling water reactor, get fairly specific into light water technology, but what we were putting in here was actually the millirem number.
So, it's useful, I think, to have a performance objective just to actually be able to say we're meeting the performance objectives. We don't need to continue to go down, and down, and down because we're already meeting the performance goals as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 they're defined, in this case, in the preliminary language for 53.23A, but I understand that will be a topic of discussion looking at the slides that we got.
Item B goes to, or Paragraph B under the preliminary language for 53.23 gets in again to the unplanned events and it talks about basically design features and programmatic controls would have to be provided in order to show that a design, and operators, and programs combined to make sure that the capabilities and reliabilities of SSCs and people were sufficient to satisfy the licensing basis events, to provide measures for defense-in-depth, and as the higher level kind of numerical objective, to show that you maintain the cumulative risks from all of the licensing basis events within the NRC safety goals, and the NRC safety goals within the language are given for both immediate health effects and also for latent health effects.
So, that's the numbers that are given in terms of two times ten to the minus six for the latent, and let me make sure I get it right since I'm reading it, five times ten to the minus six for, or, yeah, it's five times ten to the seventh for prompt fatalities or immediate effects.
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44 So, if we can then go onto the next slide?
53.21, and the reason I'm giving these a little bit out of order is after we thought about it a little more, we thought it made more sense to have the criteria first and then to go into the safety functions, so we're already thinking that we might renumber these.
But in any case, getting back to the safety functions, the proposal of the preliminary language is to set out that for any reactor technology, and we're trying to be as broad as possible here because it has to address a whole range of possible technologies, the primary safety function is to limit the release of radionuclides from the facility.
Then the burden is put on the designer or the applicant to identify additional functions that would be needed in order to procure that higher level function, and so here is where you would get into the controlling power, controlling heat removal, controlling chemical interactions, and providing barriers for the actual retention of radionuclides.
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45 features and programmatic controls. You will have them and maintain them to make sure those safety functions are fulfilled.
If we go onto the example on the next page, slide 24, again this not a new concept, we don't believe, and I'm going back to the Next Generation Nuclear Plant white papers that were submitted and then these form basically much of the rationale that what ultimately was in NEI 18-04.
It's the same thinking we were just talking about under the actual rule language, that you start off with what is needed to maintain the control of radionuclides, and again, this is just for this particular approach that was taken for NGNP.
You can go down through the blue boxes and see that their required safety functions were to remove core heat, to control heat generation through the power level or reactivity control, and for a gas-cooled reactor as NGNP was, it was important to control air and water ingress into the helium circuits, so they had identified that those three were the necessary supporting safety functions.
So, under NEI 18-04, these might have turned up for any particular design as being the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 required safety functions because, it's a little hard to read, but these are what, in this particular exercise, were deemed necessary to meet the 10 CFR 50.34 for first-tier safety criteria under the preliminary language.
If we go on then to the next slide, slide 25, this requirement is basically to propose that any design is going to need to come up with licensing basis events, and we are using the language. This is a new term in comparison to either Part 50 or Part 52.
It's borrowed or taken from basically the Next Generation Nuclear Plant, and before that, the MHTGR even, and then ultimately incorporated into NEI 18-04 and Reg Guide 1.233.
And it basically lays out that the licensing basis events must address a combination of malfunctions, human errors, external hazards, and that they be used to confirm the adequacy of the design and associated programmatic controls to satisfy both the first and second-tier criteria.
Again, how you meet those criteria will differ between the first and the second tier, the first tier being primarily safety-related equipment and the second tier allowing more credit for special NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 treatment beyond safety-related designation.
And then to lay out the related functional requirements that will be needed from plant equipment, plant personnel, and plant programs, and so these would ultimately get picked up in future subparts in terms of the design and analysis study being needed, any -- but also go much into the operations section in terms of configuration controls and other measures associated with maintaining the capabilities and reliabilities of equipment and personnel.
So, I guess we can go onto the next slide, so we're on slide 26. The thought in the preliminary language was defense-in-depth is a philosophy and a concept that the industry and the NRC has long held, and we have various policies and white papers to support it.
It's integral into risk-informed decision making through its references in places like Regulatory Guide 1.174 on risk-informed licensing actions, and it's integral for NEI 18-04 for advanced reactors to have some assessment that you are providing defense-in-depth and ensuring that you're not overly relying on any single design or operational feature, and that you're adding the safety margins in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 terms of engineering margin or alternatives in terms of providing redundancy and diversity to accomplish safety functions.
So, I think this -- this concept, I don't think, is new to anyone. Actually, incorporating it into the regulations is a new step.
And then if we go on then to slide 27, and I know there's some discussion as to whether this should be there. We can get into it in the discussion.
We could add a provision for protection of plant workers. The thinking here is that as you're doing the design, as you're developing your programmatic controls, those will be needed to protect plant workers, and so we added the provision into Part 53.
However, we did simply refer to Part 20 in terms of the numerical guidelines for -- we didn't use the terminology, but again, somewhat like the two tiers, we really like the maximum dose to an individual under Part 20, and then also reference to the ALARA, as well as reasonably achievable goals that are laid out in Part 20.
So, let's go then to slide 28. There's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 two topics, I think, I just wanted to mention and have people give a little thought to. The first is the possible use of concepts that are used within the Department of Energy.
They also show up in some of the seismic design areas, for example, under American Nuclear Society Standard 2-26 on seismic design, and I'll just ask people to take a look at that standard.
The way it's used is there's a range of possible consequences for an unmitigated event. So, this is really looking at how you determine the other design feature is important.
So, for seismic design category five, the highest category, the criteria in ANS 2-26 is 100 rem, and that's a high number, but for large plants, an unmitigated event, you may get no credit for any of the barriers. You'll get numbers that large. We don't see it because those barriers are there, but that's just telling you the importance of the barrier.
Seismic design category four goes down to 25 rem, and then seismic design category three goes down to five rem. Seismic design category two is starting to say you might not need to do protective actions, so that number is down in the below five rem NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 number, and then all the way down to seismic design category one where there's no offsite consequences from an unmitigated event, and then there's another column that tracks the potential consequence for plant workers as well.
So, the thought, you know, or the question is whether there's a role for that kind of logic within Part 53. Again, it's already used in the ANS standard for seismic design, and then that gets carried over into the American Society of Civil Engineering standards for actually designing and building the actual structures and equipment.
So, it's already there. It's not something many of us deal with since it's in the kind of specialized area of the seismic design, but it's potentially useful, I believe, to look at that concept and see if we might be able to put use to that logic beyond the seismic design. So, I'll just leave that as a homework assignment for people to think about.
It's not currently the selected, but it still could be used, I believe, within what we've defined so far in this preliminary language, but it's not specifically incorporated. You won't see a reference in any of that preliminary language to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 unmitigated consequences.
The second bullet on this slide is also a challenge that we'll have as we try to construct this whole Part 53, and that is the expectation that we have anyway is that there will be embedded mechanisms to apply analytical safety margins to gain operational flexibilities.
And one example of this that's already working is to demonstrate for unlikely, unplanned events, that the dose, the potential dose is below another threshold, and so for emergency planning zones in the proposed rule, that's one rem over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br />.
For a siting paper that was the subject of previous stakeholder meetings and is now with the Commission, we used one rem over a month.
But in both cases, you're introducing an alternative threshold or alternative criteria and then using it to show that you have margins to either the first or second-tier safety criteria, primarily the second-tier safety criteria, and using that margin to gain a flexibility in an area like emergency planning or siting.
And so if we go to slide 29, this is a slide I've used many times, and it basically tries to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 show these embedded mechanisms. So, one, again, I just mentioned, one is the SECY paper on siting, and the other is the proposed rule on emergency planning.
Those are provided -- that ability to apply the margins to gain flexibility is accomplished by making sure your design is sufficient to show you don't need those protections or to at least reduce the reliance on those mitigating type programs.
And so the challenge to some degree here would be how to build it, how to build that in, and so again, the two that we're aware of, we know how to do because they've already been thought through. Even the alternative thresholds have been at least proposed.
Other areas of operational flexibility that often comes up, and it's harder to show on this particular graph, but staffing, for example, how to gain operational flexibilities in staffing level.
Ultimately, you know, the concept is similar, through design features potentially supporting programmatic measures to reduce the reliance on human actions, and you could use that to justify reduced staffing level.
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53 have these stakeholder engagements, to decide if we can, where people want those embedded measures for operational flexibilities. I guess I'll maybe leave it there. It's the challenge, but the results in the terms of the risk profiles, comes from considering all of these things, right?
And so to some degree, the operating fleet has some reliance on siting and emergency planning, that advanced reactors say they want to reduce the reliance on those features by adding additional features, whether it be passive or inherent design features, but maybe I'll just leave it there.
Again, the challenge is you have this integrated approach and it includes all of these things. Our current thinking is that we will embed measures where an applicant designer can select alternative thresholds like one rem over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br /> or one rem over a month, or maybe it's some other criteria for some other program, but we need to know how to weave that flexibility into Part 53.
And that's not so much for today's discussion on Subpart B, but, you know, the reason I bring it up is because we've laid out preliminary language that gives you basically the assurance that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 advanced reactors will be at least as safe as existing reactors as is the Commission policy.
The other aspect of Commission policy through the advanced reactor policy statement and other places is that the expectation is that advanced reactors will introduce safety margins that can be provided or reflected in other operational flexibilities. And so as we develop the other subparts, it will be done by basically adopting alternative criteria to what's defined in Subpart B, or at least that's the way we would envision it could work.
So, with that, we can go to slide 30 and I can turn it over. I guess there are presentations from NEI and NIC. So, Marc, if you want to go through your slides?
MR. NICHOL: All right, thanks, Bill. Can you hear me?
MR. RECKLEY: Yes.
MR. NICHOL: Okay, great, and thanks for that presentation, Bill. That was really helpful.
I'll be able to flex a little bit on some of my points based on some of the things you said.
I do want to preface my remarks by saying NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 that these are preliminary thoughts, that the industry is still working through this topic and we have not reached an industry position on this, so keep that in mind that these are all preliminary thoughts.
The point or the intent here is to really foster a thought because this is a complex and deep topic, so that we can all see the safety criteria from multiple perspectives in the process of coming out with the best product.
I also want to preface my remarks with saying that as I've looked through at the safety criteria, a lens that I try to use often is one where we're trying to create flexibility, efficiency, and clarity in the rule language.
The flexibility being that, you know, obviously different types of technologies and they're all -- the different designs are going to look different, but applicants may want to use different types of approaches to define their safety case and licensing basis, and so flexibility in that regard is important.
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56 or a not efficient way, and so we have to be thoughtful on how we construct the regulations in a way that is going to be efficient in its implementation, and implementation would be in the design of the plant, the licensing of the plant, the operation of the plant, demonstrating compliance throughout the lifetime of the plant.
And then clarity is similar to that.
Clarity is the ability to readily understand what the requirement means and how to demonstrate that you're meeting that requirement, so those are going to be some of the things.
When I wrap all of those together, to me, what it really means is keep it simple, and so that will be -- you'll probably see some of those elements in my comments, but I just wanted to make sure you understood where I was coming from. Let's go to the next slide.
MR. RECKLEY: And I now appreciate you leaving off the last S and keep it simple.
MR. NICHOL: Yeah. Yes. Keep it simple.
That's it. We just said it. We don't need the last S.
So, the first slide is also framing the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 problem. I call it a problem, but that's sort of engineering speak. It's not an issue.
And it's along the lines of what we put in our letter, which is, frame the project requirements up front.
And by project requirements, I mean, these are the requirements that at the end of the project you look at it and say, did we meet these requirements such that -- and specifically here, it's what does Part 53 need to be able to do?
What functions does it need to be able to serve? So, within these, the set of project, of requirements for safety criteria, what we looked at is, is the goal is really defining performance-based safety criteria that demonstrates adequate protection.
You all talk about minimizing danger. So, we're adding some of that in. This slide was developed before we saw some of your thoughts.
The constraints around it or -- in defining these project requirements, one is to try to define safety criteria in terms of direct radiological risks to the public health and safety, as much as possible.
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58 terms of dose and probability. And so, you all have done that to a great extent. And so, I'm really encouraged by that.
And then it's look at well, what categories of individuals need protection? Are there different categories?
And we split it the same way you did, there's the public and occupational workers. They should be treated differently. But nonetheless, both should be protected.
And then it's looking at well, what are the spectrum of plant operating conditions that might need to be treated? And in particular, which ones might be needed to be treated differently?
And we came up with normal, which includes anticipated operational occurrences, AOOs, as one.
Design basis accident or events is two.
And then beyond design basis events is the third category. I think that's pretty consistent with what you all did.
And then for con -- we looked at that as well, let's be consistent with what's being done in Part 50, the safety goals the NRC has out there, and NEI 18-04, which you talked a lot about.
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59 There could be advantages to being transformable and doing something grand and much different. I don't think that the Rulemaking Schedule allows for that. So, keeping it consistent with what's already been established, is a good place to start.
And then flexibility, I talked a little bit about different, different types of designs and different types of licensing approaches.
There's another element of flexibility.
One is being able to approve a design that does not have an identified site.
So, it would -- it is possible to define safety criteria that would require a specific site.
And so we'd want to avoid those types of criteria.
We want to move more toward criteria that would allow a design that didn't have a specific site.
To be able to get to like a Part 52 design certification.
And then also allow applicants to propose functional surrogates. So, there could be designs that come in and say well, yes, we could, we could do a lot of analytical work and demonstrate numerically exactly how we meet a very prescriptive, even NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 performance-based prescriptive requirement.
Or, we could actually, if you crafted a more flexible criteria, we could come in and say well, here are, here are some safety functions that if we meet these, it's clear that we would meet the intent of the Regulation.
So, to be able to provide that flexibility as well, would be the core. And I know these are pretty high level on a conceptual.
So, it's, you know, translating them into safety criterias, is a little bit difficult. But, they're sort of guiding principles that we had in mind. Next slide, please.
And I should say, if the NRC has a question at any point in my slides, feel free to interrupt me. I'm happy to answer questions.
So, looking at how you -- and this really was, we started to understand this when we saw your discussion table, how you split it between adequate protection and minimizing danger to the public.
So, we decided to split it that way as well. What you'll see between this, the first two slides are really protection of the pub -- protection of the public.
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61 And it's between normal operations, design basis events, beyond design basis events. So, when we looked at adequate protection that to -- it really spoke to the design basis accidents, or design basis events.
And so what you proposed in 53.22(b), we believe it's necessary and sufficient that -- just for everybody's memory, that's the 25 REM dose limits.
It's consistent with 50.34(a). So, that checks the box there.
There are a couple of things that we think merit further consideration. Certainly, we're going to continue to consider this.
The first is, the boundary. I know that 50.34(a)(1) and the NRC proposed 53 criteria use the exclusion area boundary.
But we also know that the NRC's emergency planning rulemaking, is using a term called site boundary. They could be one and the same. There might be some slight differences.
But, there could be advantages to using the same boundary. So, we want to look at whether it should be called site boundary or EAB. I think effectively, it's not much different.
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62 The other thing we want to further consider is where to locate the numerical probability?
The NRC's safety criteria, proposed safety criteria was one in ten thousand years. And so that's the numerical value.
To my knowledge, this would be the first time that a numerical probability is in the rule language. And so we want to really think through whether those -- there could be complications with that.
Certainly having the numerical probability and guidance is a viable option. So, we're also looking at, what are any benefits, or advantages to including the numerical probability in the rule language.
So, the question is, well, what's the alternative if it's, if there are, you know, have numerical value in the rule language?
It could be a qualitative probability.
Something like rare events that are, you know, not expected to occur over the life of the plant.
Or something like that. And then guidance could define it in numbers. So, we're going to continue to consider that.
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63 I don't know if the NRC had thought through advantages and drawbacks to having a possibility number in the rule versus not.
MR. RECKLEY: We've had the same conversation. And one of the same sort of benefits from, is if you guys give it thought and see if there's unintended consequences of having it in the rule versus the guidance.
And I think we would agree that if it's probably feasible to do it either way, that if there's advantages and disadvantages too actually putting the numbers in there, rule versus in the guidance, that you, I think that's a good, that's a point of discussion.
To be honest, at some point to me, if we agree on the concept facts, then we can work out that as almost the details of the language.
So, and as you said, there's ways --
MR. NICHOL: Yeah.
MR. RECKLEY: There's ways to put the same concept into words.
MR. NICHOL: Um-hum.
MR. RECKLEY: So yes, please continue to think about that.
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64 MR. NICHOL: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we're --
I think, I feel like we're aligned on that. And I agree, there's plenty of time to do that.
And yeah, I think NEI 18-04 uses the term infrequent event sequences that are not expected to occur in the life of a nuclear power plant.
MR. RECKLEY: Yes.
MR. NICHOL: We certainly agree with the numerical value you have there. So, the question is just whether it's the rule or not.
I would say we've had some discussion about this. And the advantage is by being in a rule, there's a lot more stability.
They would -- it would be a higher bar to actually change that value then if the, it was in guidance. So, that would certainly be an advantage.
On the drawback side, one -- one point that was made is well, is this something that is, sort of lacks clarity in terms of common language?
It's not something that's very easily understood by the general public. And so, you know, there would be a desire that the rules are accessible by the general public, and doesn't require a PRA degree to be able to understand.
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65 So, I mean, that was one point that we're thinking through. The other, the other point is, if the frequency is in the rule, does that expose the PRA calculation to more scrutiny during litigation?
And so, we don't know the answers to that quite frankly. We're starting to just wonder and think through the issues. So, just to provide more insight.
The last point in here is consideration of implications that most designs are expected to meet more restrictive EPA PAG at the site boundary EPZ.
Bill, I think this is exactly what you're saying later in your presentation. Which is, if you -
- if designs meet more stringent criteria, what are operational flexibilities they might get?
And I'll come back to maybe one or two areas where we could look at having some advantages.
But, the point here is if the criteria in the rule itself is 25 rem, but the designs all meet a 1 rem limit, you know, what does that mean in terms of all the other things that are in the regulations? So, we'll come back to that one.
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66 danger to the public?
And based on your description, and I think this aligns with what you were saying in your tier-two approach, two tier approach, which would be Tier 2, which is, well, minimizing danger really comes from minimal operations.
And your proposed 53.22(a), we believe is necessary and sufficient for normal operations.
That's 100 millirem limit. And it's consistent with 20.1301. So, it's a check the box there.
And then we get into well, what about beyond design basis events? And this is where it wasn't as clear to us, exactly how you were addressing beyond design basis events.
Partly because you lumped LBEs all together. And so the de -- the separation of those wasn't as clear.
We did notice that it -- that the approach did not focus on mitigation of beyond design basis events similar to what's done in 50.155. And I just called out (b) specifically.
Now, that's -- that's very LWR-specific.
So, if we went with a mitigation approach for beyond design basis events in Part 53, we'd need a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 technology-inclusive equivalent.
And for those that may not be familiar, the goal behind mitigation is to have additional equipment that would be able to cool the core or provide power until normal power and cooling could be restored.
The technology-inclusive comment here is that advanced light water reactors are expected to be much more robust in the area of those beyond design basis events. So, their considerations maybe different.
So, 53.22(c), which we put down here as problematic. We did read it the way that you had assumed we read it.
Which is that the NRC would develop requirements for each applicant that they felt would be necessary. So, I appreciate your clarification that that wasn't the case.
If I understand what you were saying right, is it's basically emphasizing the NRC's authority to establish any new rule, or regulation, or order that you see fit for adequate protection or minimizing the danger to the public. And we certainly recognize the NRC has that full right.
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68 As you explained it, I thought well, perhaps it's just the way it's written, and where it's located. I would see it more as an administrative part of the rule.
And I'd say administrative because your authority to create any new regulation is not just limited to the safety criteria, you could do it anywhere in Part 53 or across the regulations. And so perhaps it's more administrative in that nature.
And then I also thought well, you know, consistent with Part 50 and 52, the NRC's implementation of new orders, rules, and regulations, are typically done through a cost benefit type of analysis.
And especially when they are backfit onto existing licensees. So, perhaps that authority that's in 53.22(c) might be better paired together with a backfit rule equivalent in Part 53, in the administrative section of Part 53.
So, that's just a thought that I had as you were talking.
MR. RECKLEY: I know I'm going to repeat.
And what would likely be an equivalent to 51.09, the backfit provisions when we get to talking about the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 licensing provisions that will be in subpart H and I.
MR. NICHOL: Um-hum.
MR. RECKLEY: And so -- and I understand what you're saying.
MR. NICHOL: Okay.
MR. RECKLEY: So, we'll think about that as well.
MR. NICHOL: Okay. Excellent. So then the next one is 53.23(b)(2), which we have it here as not necessary.
That's somewhat considering well, if we instead took a mitigation approach to beyond design basis events, then that would effectively address beyond design basis events.
My presumption is that you included the QHOs for that purpose. Because obviously, the accident conditions were addressed with the 25 rem criteria.
I don't know if, specifically if that was your intent or not. So, we are -- we would like to learn more about the NRC's thinking about including the QHOs.
And we're still, we're still talking through, of course, the benefits and drawbacks.
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70 There's been a lot of discussion about the difficulty in implementing a rule that is written as the QHOs.
So, it does have the frequencies in there.
And so it's the same comment I made about frequencies earlier.
And as we mentioned, that's something that can be worked out later. But, the bigger problem with the QHO is that it doesn't specify the dose value for prompt fatalities and latent health effects.
And so the question is, well, what are those dose values? And if you're going to have to dem
-- if an applicant is going to have to demonstrate that they meet that, they need to know what those dose values are.
I'm not sure if the NRC has a published reference for those or not. Or if a guidance document would need to be developed.
Based on the digging that I've been doing, and talking to experts that I've been doing, the best location I can find that actually has the dose values, would be in the MACCS code.
And even there, I haven't been able to put my finger on what the actual numerical values are.
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71 in the rules.
Especially if they're buried in the MACCS code, then the question would be, if somebody were to challenge this, would you have to open up the MACCS code and evaluate the MACCS code to be able to demonstrate that you meet the criteria?
So, we would be interested in talking about whether there are other options to address the cumulative risk.
And when we looked at how we do it in Part 50, it's not in the regulations. It is in the safe goal policy, but they use surrogates, CDF and LERF.
And so obviously CDF and LERF don't translate into advanced reactors. Is there -- these are the questions we're asking ourselves.
Is there a surrogate that does translate into advanced reactors? If advanced reactors are being designed to lower levels of risk, even lower than the large LWRs, then they should be even lower than the QHOs than the LWRs are.
So, you know, what does that mean? And how can we take credit for that to make it more efficient?
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72 have in that area.
MR. RECKLEY: Right. And then just a big conversation, again, that's -- and we had some of these discussions as we were developing Reg Guide 1.223 on, and NEI 18-04.
And when you're trying to be technology-inclusive, it does drive you to the highest criteria you've talked about, which tends to be dose to the public.
And the provisions in those documents basically connect both the consequence and the frequency to come up with the risk metrics that show that you're meeting the QHO. Because it considers both parameters.
The other thing to think about as you're doing this, is again, how to build in that embedded mechanism. Or like the analysis is showing, that they're less than 1 rem in order to justify the emergency planning zone or some other flexibility.
If you're showing there at those low numbers, you're also largely showing you're going to meet the QHOs.
MR. NICHOL: Um-hum.
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73 low.
MR. NICHOL: Um-hum.
MR. RECKLEY: You know, if you can come up with a thought in that regard, that would be -- that would be great.
It's just hard to come up with a surrogate since we're talking about a whole host of different technologies for which -- it's hard other than the actual frequency consequence, to come up with what they have in common.
MR. NICHOL: Um-hum.
MR. RECKLEY: But, we'd be open if you can propose something.
MR. PALMROSE: Bill?
MR. RECKLEY: Yeah.
MR. PALMROSE: This is Donald Palmrose.
If I could add something on this discussion.
Because I do run the MACCS code for the environmental review. And so yeah, you get a value related to the safety goals, so it could be outputted from the MACCS code.
And what we've done on the environmental side is that we used that value and compared that to the values, to the similar values for the current NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 reactor fleet in order to make an assessment of whether or not the risks are lower or not.
So, that's the one thing I wanted to add in on there. So, we -- that we don't have a set criterion for a value, that you know, that one must meet. But, we use the current reactor fleets' risk profile as a measure.
Thank you.
MR. RECKLEY: Yes, thanks Don. And you know, --
MR. NICHOL: Yes, thank you. And --
MR. RECKLEY: And for current applications, we are in Chapter 19 under the Part --
under the PRA --
MR. NICHOL: Uh-huh.
MR. RECKLEY: Part of the application, looking also at the safety goals.
MR. NICHOL: Uh-hum. Yeah. And --
MR. RECKLEY: But, anyway, mark that part.
MR. NICHOL: And to be -- and to be clear, we're not disagreeing with the QHO.
We're not disagreeing that, you know, we're not disagreeing with -- we still fully support the NEI, you know, for an approach that does use the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 QHO.
The question is whether the QHO should be in the reg -- the rule text. Because this would be --
this would be new. It's not the way it is now.
Or whether the QHO should be treated more the way it is now as the safety goal policy. And there should be a different criteria in the regulations.
Or we can, you know, look at the 25 rem for design basis events and mitigation of beyond design basis events, and say well, that's sufficient.
And we know that you're going to demonstrate the QHO to meet the safety policy.
So, that gives us a reasonable assurance of adequate protection there. So, those are the questions.
And it really comes out, because, you know, if you don't have the dose values in the rule text, and you get a challenge and somebody litigates this and says, well demonstrate how you're meeting that regulation, there's some risk if the only way to do that is open up the MACCS code and evaluate the, you know, the source code and the data tables inside the code.
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76 There's some -- that introduces some risks. So, that's some of the things that we're thinking about.
So, I didn't want to talk about, I thought I had, as you were going through your discussion, Bill, on the Tier 1 and Tier 2. And I'll say, and don't take this the wrong way, it's meant in a kind way.
The two Tiers was a little bit complex and difficult for me to understand. As you explain it and become familiar with it, I, you know, I start to understand a little bit better.
But, I'm wondering -- I'll just throw out an idea of perhaps a more efficient way to organize it. If we were to agree that the slide before this was, what's adequate protection in this slide is minimize danger to the public, then a different way to construct it would be to have a requirement.
And let's just say it's 53.20, which is the requirement for adequate protection. And under that, that adequate protection safety objectives are, you know, sub-items for the 25 rem.
And then you had a 53.21, let's just call it, or minimizing danger to the public. And then you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 would describe what minimizing danger to the public is.
And underneath it you'd have the specific criteria here. That might be a little bit more clear and efficient.
So, it's just an idea to consider. It's something I came up with as we were talking through this.
So, it's -- it's not been vetted. But it was -- I did want to share it since we were talking.
MR. RECKLEY: Okay.
MR. NICHOL: And we can go to the next slide.
So, when it comes to as low as reasonably achievable, we looked at and thought to ourselves well, do you really need ALARA to meet the adequate protection?
Or even the minimizing danger to the public, considering the discussion that you all had on minimizing danger to the public?
And you know, the thought was, well no, you actually don't need it. We're not disagreeing with the concept.
We think the concept of trying to limit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 radiation exposure is a good one. But, the question is, does it really merit a requirement?
Or would it be better as just a philosophy to pursue that isn't, you know, doesn't have the requirement associated with it?
And so that's -- that's what we'd like to propose the NRC consider for Part 53, is not needing to have ALARA as a requirement.
If you did feel that the NRC still needed to have some encouragement of ALARA to make sure that the industry still pursued it, we would anyway, maybe set it as a Commission policy and goal similar to like the advanced reactor policy goal.
Or something like that. So, we'd -- we'd ask if you might consider that possibility?
In terms of ALARA, it failed. So, there are two ways that ALARA shows up in the requirements that the NRC proposed.
One is in ALARA that has root in Part 20.
And so if the NRC were to come to the conclusion that
-- or you know, would agree with our position that we don't need ALARA in Part 53, then we might look at Part 20 and see, how do you adopt Part 20 into Part 53 without bringing in the ALARA provisions?
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79 And there could be different ways to do that. I would say if the NRC determines that absolutely Part 53 has to have a requirement for ALARA, then I'd note that Part 20 would be largely intact.
And so, we -- one thing to do would be to look at, how is Part 53 bringing in ALARA? Because the way it's structured right now, you're bringing in ALARA under, from Part 20.
And sort of putting it in as something that needs to be designed against, as well as programmatic controls where Part 20 right now is largely based on radiation protection and programmatic controls.
So, it's a little bit different. Plus, Part 20 is going to exist. So, do you really need to call it out? And also, maybe Part 20, there may be more efficient ways to do it, is the point there.
On the Part 50 Appendix, Bill, I think you hit on some of the points I was going to make. Is that it's based on large LWRs.
So, if the NRC, you know, feels that there is a requirement for limitations on effluent releases during normal operations, I think, and we would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 suggest that you know, they may not be needed, that maybe look at a different way of doing it.
I don't know if it would, you know, specifically fall under the minimizing danger to public. And so, it might be lumped with the normal operations.
Or if it might be hauled out separately.
So, just consider those. We're still thinking through these topics as well. Next slide, please.
So, this links with the comment I just made in terms of, you know, how you might structure this. 53.20 is reasonable assurance of adequate protection.
This just describes what it is. And might have the sub-elements under there, the 25 rem. And I think there's a couple of benefits to that.
One is, reasonable assurance of adequate protection. We heard it from a comment toward the beginning of the meeting, which is not real clear.
Bill, I think you had said that it was more clear in the Waste Confidence Act. So, could we add some text to the rule language to help clarify exactly what reasonable assurance of adequate protection means?
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81 If we put actually the requirements, the specific criteria below that paragraph, that would really clarify that hey, if you meet these criteria, then you're demonstrating an adequate protection. So, there might be some benefits there.
I think the one concern we had just with the way it was presented, is that it could be interpreted as its own requirement.
And at some future date, and especially if somebody wasn't as familiar with the rulemaking, they could look at that and require an applicant to do just about anything in the name of reasonable assurance and adequate protection.
They could say well, I don't think you're meeting 53.20 because you know, I interpret the technical issue this way.
So, I think it's a little bit fraught to misuse in the future. So, that's why maybe locking it down a little bit better in the name of clarity would be helpful. Next slide, please.
There are a couple of the requirements that you put in there we think are important. We're not disagreeing with that.
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82 criteria, we thought about it more in the area of dose to the public. The radiological impact to the public.
And so there were some other topics in there that are important to what I consider the safety construct or safety paradigm. Which is, which is the how you demonstrate.
So, if the safety criteria are what do you need to demonstrate to show reasonable assurance of adequate protection, the safety construct is, how do you do that?
And so those things were like your safety functions and other things. I'll just hit on a little bit of detail in each of these.
So, the safety function one, when we get to this in the safety construct, I think the big question here is how prescriptive do we want to be?
I see that the NRC tried to not be prescriptive. And so I do, I do appreciate that. The question is, is it still not prescriptive enough? Or is -- so, for example, is it good this way?
Or would we want to be even less prescriptive and just basically say the applicant or licensee has to identify the safety, primary safety functions to be able to meet the safety criteria for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 example. So, I think that's a future question in terms of flexibility.
I did notice that in all of the criteria, it was -- it started out as design features and programmatic controls, blah, blah, blah, will provide and demonstrate that this value is met.
And I felt that that was getting a little bit into the what or how, and being a little bit more prescriptive in terms of the safety criteria.
And so if the safety criteria is just defining the radiological impacts that protect the public, how you do it, design features and programmatic controls can be defined under the safety construct, the what.
So, we do think it needs to be included in the rule. We do think it needs to be described and addressed. It's just the location of how it's addressed. And so, maybe that's a more minor issue.
The licensing basis events, this one, as I mentioned before, the NRC lumps it all together. So, if -- if it were -- if the safety criteria were constructed in way that you have design basis events and beyond design basis events, then perhaps we want to call out those different categories of events.
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84 And it seemed like the NRC might be preparing to do this. You reference a Section 53.3(x). And so it looked like you may be preparing to do that as well, already. But, just wanted to flag that.
The defense in depth, and we agree defense in depth is important. Two comments here, one is in the language that's used.
And I'll come back to the point I made earlier about making the regulation accessible to the general public. There are terms that are used, epistemic and aleatory, I'm not sure what those mean.
I'm sure they're defined in guidance somewhere.
But, the point being that in the rule language itself that that should be most accessible to the public. So, just something to keep in mind.
And then the other comment here for defense in depth, it was really focusing on that last sentence, no single design or operational feature, no matter how robust, should be exclusively relied upon to meet the safety criteria of Part 53.
And I do know that that's consistent with 18.04. But, I'm just wondering, well, I'm thinking that the rule should perhaps allow a little bit more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 flexibility.
So, for example, on this, this will come back to the earlier point. What if, what if rather than your design doesn't -- it meets the 1 rem criteria, the EPA PAG, it doesn't go all the way up to the 25 rem.
And so, because I think there's a difference. If your design basis accident is a 25 rem, add a probability of 10 to the minus 2, it's a much different case.
And you need much more defense in depth then if your design basis accident, let's just call it your worst case, is at a probability 10 to the minus 4, and the release is less than 1 rem. So, you know, do you really need as much defense in depth?
And I'd also point out, I think you had mentioned, this would be the first time that it's in the rule, it is a very deterministic requirement.
And I'll just point the NRC to the Commission SRM, SECY-19-0036, which talks about, you know, not having to apply a prescriptive application of deterministic criteria.
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86 necessary for reasonable assurance. So, I think that's the caution on how defense in depth might be incorporated there.
And then reliability, 53.23(b)(1). I think it just wasn't -- it wasn't -- reliability will be addressed. I just didn't think it needed to be there.
Let me see. Next slide, please. Just some general observations. I'm sure the NRC anticipated this.
That -- and some of these can be worked out as the rule lang -- specific rule language becomes more polished.
We did notice a couple of references to high confidence in the rule. Since the standard is reasonable assurance, we think the focus should be on that.
The use of terms like high confidence in the rule, start to open up questions about whether it's reasonable assurance or more than that. So, we would urge the NRC to avoid uses of the term high confidence in the rule language.
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87 MR. NICHOL: And we were --
MR. RECKLEY: Go ahead. I'm sorry.
MR. NICHOL: No. Go ahead.
MR. RECKLEY: I was just going to say, what we were -- what we were trying to lead to when we say high confidence, and maybe -- and certainly there might be better ways to word it, was that when you're looking at the -- this is bringing in the frequency of events.
And so, maybe I'm not tying it directly to NEI 18-04. But, NEI 18-04 would say basically, at a 95 percent confidence level, if the frequency is above that intended amount of score, then it is going to be a design basis event and have a corollary design basis accident.
So, what we were trying to get to when we say high confidence, is that 95 percent confidence level in the frequency for that specific reference.
And so again, there might be -- there might be better ways to word it. But when we said high confidence, that's what we were referring to, was the frequency component of that requirement.
MR. NICHOL: Okay. That -- that's helpful. I think the -- our point about trying to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 avoid the usage of high confidence is still valid.
Most of the point came from, well, if this gets litigated, it goes before a judge. And there's no real legal definition of high confidence, then there's a lot of ambiguity there. So, that's one risk factor.
MR. RECKLEY: All right.
MR. NICHOL: I think the way to address it, could either be to allow the concept of high confidence to be addressed in guidance.
And so, let's just assume that the numerical frequency is in the rule, you could just say that, you know, for events with frequencies less than one in ten thousand years.
And then guidance could say that you have to prove this to a high confidence and explain what that means. That's one way to do it.
Another way would be to put in the numerical value for high confidence. I just checked real quick, 50.68 is the criticality one that I'm familiar with.
It actually puts in 95 percent probability. And so it spells out exactly what it means in more detail.
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89 So, I think there's a couple of options to address that.
MR. RECKLEY: Okay.
MR. NICHOL: Okay.
MR. RECKLEY: Right. And then if we didn't have the numbers in there at all, then we wouldn't have to have the frequency and high confidence.
MR. NICHOL: Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
Yeah.
And then the last two points, it's just, I would say it's just a way to say that as we continue to go through this, I think there's tweaks to the language that we should be looking to make to help improve the rule text. But, I'm sure you were expecting that. Next slide, please.
The last one we'll address is occupational worker dose. And we kept it as separate from the adequate protection and minimizing -- minimizing danger to the public.
Because the occupationals really are, occupational workers really are different than the public. They receive training. They have informed consent. It's why they have different dose limits.
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90 And so, really to perhaps take them out of the safety criteria, but them more in the radiation protection program. And you even refer to the section of Part 20 that does that.
So, if it's really -- if Part 53 is going to require a radiation protection program, either Part 20 in whole, or as I mentioned before, if there's a decision to get rid of ALARA, then incorporating the relevant sections in Part 20, you could do that in a subpart or radiation protection.
Then, you could just -- you could just reference -- you could just address it that way. So, we're consistent.
We agree with you in terms of how the workers need to be protected. The question is, whether it's specific safety criteria, or if it's something outside of the safety criteria that we're raising.
So, with that, I think those are the end of my comments. Thank you.
MR. RECKLEY: Thanks Mark. And I think what we're going to do is take a break.
Bob, you wanted to -- how long a break did you want to take?
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91 MR. BEALL: Let's go to 2:30. So, it's about -- a little bit shorter than 15.
But, so Liz, can you bring up slide, I think it was 23. That's our break slide. And then we'll reconvene at 2:30.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 2:17 p.m. and resumed at 2:30 p.m.)
MR. BEALL: Thank you. Okay. I'd like to continue (telephonic interference). So (telephonic interference) Cyril from the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council. So, Cyril, please take it away.
MR. DRAFFIN: Thank you, Bob. Again, this is Cyril Draffin, the Senior Fellow for Advanced Nuclear at the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council. And we appreciate the opportunity to provide preliminary comments on Part 53 safety requirements planned for Subpart B.
So, if we move to the next slide, maybe slide 48, I think we all agree that the goal is complete adequate protection standards in a way that focuses on public health and safety.
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92 should be focused on what information is essential to demonstrating the safety case with a level of detail which is commensurate with its contribution to the safety case arguments and not include additional requirements not necessary for the safety case.
And, for instance, later, we had a discussion earlier on additional topics that shouldn't be added just because they're available.
Also, as we mentioned, because there's a reduced source term for advanced reactors and high level performance-based requirements, that brings significant opportunities to reduce the requirements just to provide adequate safety. And that added safety margin offers operational flexibility.
There was a comment made by the NRC about putting criteria first before the safety function. I think that makes sense just on a logical basis to get all the criteria in one spot.
On the next slide, I wanted to talk about some questions and some comments on the particular safety requirements. Because we've had some fairly robust conversation on that already today, I'll limit the duration of my comments.
For the additional measures as you go NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 forward in 53.20, it would be helpful to understand how NRC plans to balance the factors indicated, public health, economic costs, technical changes, operating experience, and what is needed for a facility safety program.
In 53.22(c), as already discussed, we really question why the NRC needs to have additional requirements. It seems like an open-ended path to load on requirements not required under the first tier safety criteria that will undermine NRC's goal of predictability.
Bill had addressed this in pointing out that it's not meant to allow individual staff members to add on additional things and add complexity and cost.
So, perhaps the idea of putting in the administrative area where the backfit requirements, because the NRC has that capability, but spelling out as a safety criteria just seems like an open-ended issue. So perhaps that can be easily resolved by changing the language and moving it.
For 53.23, we had already talked about, which is good, Appendix I. Bill clarified that not all would come over, because a lot of it really NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 doesn't apply we don't think.
If there's going to be particular criteria, they could be pulled out, rather than referring to it, maybe just selectively pulling out those relevant items and not otherwise referring to Appendix I. So, as you get into it, some things are simple without too many cross references.
We've already talked about ALARA, that it, we don't think it's necessary to include in this rule.
And as a philosophy, yes, I think that's important, and we want to do that. But putting it in the rule doesn't seem appropriate. It's covered in Part 20.
I guess one of the open questions is will Part 20 be referenced as required, the whole portion, or will a portion of it be pulled out and the rest of it not needed in Part 53. So clarifying that connection for Part 20, and for that matter other parts, are probably helpful for clarity and understanding.
We might just look at the language for risk to individual below two in one million years. Is that really necessary? I mean, the Atomic Energy Act doesn't require it. It's not a new term, pulling out its new term safety issue. There may be a desire.
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95 But is that something that should be embedded in the transformative Part 53 rule? At this point in time, we don't think so.
For 53.25, that's the defense-in-depth, that certainly has benefits. But as we've talked about it, it's kind of how do you decide how far to go. And it's deterministic. And it could be open-ended for future review.
So clarity on what is really required versus what might be desired is probably an important distinction as we go forward and actually write language that we would keep.
On the next slide dealing with protection of plant workers, we don't think that the plant workers need to be put in the safety requirements area of this rule. They're covered in Part 20, doesn't see many changes in exposure limits.
And just to kind of elaborate, although worker protection is important clearly, it's adequately covered elsewhere. And we oppose the inclusion of worker protection under this definition of safety.
Thresholds for public and worker protection are and should be significantly different.
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96 Workers are trained. They get substantial training.
They have informed consent. They have peer responsibilities in a way that the public is not.
And the inclusion of worker protection under the umbrella of safety criteria could lead to over-design and administrative controls and other issues that are considered safety, but it's not really for the public.
And probably if you want to address protection of plant workers, if it's really something that's needed in addition to Part 20, you can do that.
But the risk is that by putting it under safety, you know, you might dilute the safety focus on the most important issues for protection of health and safety.
So we've talked about already today how this could be perhaps moved and modified. And the question is what of Part 20 would be necessary to move over, including not needing to use ALARA.
So I think we had a robust discussion on this already. But we'll look forward to see how the NRC wants to move forward on that.
On the next slide, we talk about licensing basis events. We just need to flesh out -- we've talked a little bit about how that can be done and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 some of the issues associated with it.
But maybe just to elaborate a little bit, does it include the full spectrum of events covered in NEI 18-04, anticipated operational occurrences, design basis events, design basis accidents, and probably with clarifying that, if there is to be requirement for design basis events, maybe in a separate section of the rule that clarifies what provides the objectives.
And I don't think it's a defined term in Part 50 or 52. It may be in NEI 18-04. But if we're going to use the term, it certainly needs to be defined in this document in a way that's clear to people.
And it might have arisen from LMP. And so we're not really making a comment yet on its value to include in the rule, but more to clarify exactly what's meant by it and how it would be done.
Regarding the Atomic Energy Act, you started off by showing I guess in slide 26 how in Section 182 dealing with license applications and adequate protection and Section 161 dealing with minimizing danger and protecting health, kind of under the general provisions, how you're going to blend NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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98 those two.
We heard -- I think it was helpful to see your concept of two tiers. And we just want to see how that evolves as the language is firmed up over time.
Also, I want to add that operational flexibility is important and that staffing, and certainly reduced staffing because of passive inherent design features and improved safety, are important considerations, particular for microreactors and thinking about how that would be incorporated into the requirements and safety standards and maybe even in addressing people that don't even think they need onsite particular dedicated staff other than people that might be there for other operational environments. It would be helpful just to kind of think about as you draft the language.
Then on closing remarks on the next slide, we do support the timely development and implementation of a transformative Part 53. It's important in providing certainty and efficiency for future advanced reactor applicants. And I'm looking forward to this and seeing how it could be done.
And just to reiterate that the current NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 regulatory approval process should continue and licensing modernization efforts. DOE was going to be submitting, will be submitting applications under the advanced research and development program.
So the NRC has a lot on their hands. And this kind of harkens back to the comment we made at the beginning that there's a tradeoff in doing fully transformative but not just repackaging requirements and standards from the past.
So we look forward to future discussions.
And I'll return it to the NRC for comments or if other people and the stakeholders have opinions they'd like to share. Thank you.
MR. RECKLEY: Thank you, Cyril. To your point about terminology and licensing basis events, being just one example, we already have a fairly extensive list of terms that we'll have to include in the definition section.
So, as we go through this, that would be helpful for everyone to kind of think about what the terms that need to be defined to make the Part 53 understandable.
Operator, I guess at this point we can open it up if other participants want to offer a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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100 comment, a suggestion, a question.
OPERATOR: All right. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question or make a comment, please press star 1 at this time. Please unmute your phone and record your name clearly when prompted. Again, to ask a question, please press star 1.
Speakers, please stand by. All right.
Speakers, our first question comes from Ernie. Ernie, your line is open. You may proceed.
ERNIE: Thank you very much. I hope you guys don't regret inviting people like me to these meetings.
But I had a comment on this staffing.
Someone commented about staffing. And I think something that should be thought about, not to add requirements but to help with economic viability of plants, that the staffing requirements, especially as we consider probably to be economically viable multi-unit sites that could be geographically close or diverse, there might be some accommodation for thinking about that, how much staff has to be there in terms of ERO and maintenance and operations, operations support, because right now I know that that's in technical specifications, the exact staffing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 level for each unit.
And there's probably an opportunity with these new reactors that are much safer to have some flexibility with reducing staffing and having offsite staffing and so forth. In other words, you can respond to an accident in ERO. You have a lot more time I think in an advanced reactor than you do say in a PWR current generation.
Whoever came up with or mentioned the numerical probability, I 100 percent agree. Actually, this is something I know some stuff about. That I don't believe should show up in regulation. And I can provide some pretty sound reasoning why.
It's better to leave it in guidance, like in Reg Guide 1.174. So I think 1.174 was pretty comprehensive. And I don't think the staff really needs much more than that.
In terms of the -- finally, a comment on beyond design basis. So there's nothing beyond design basis if you designed it and the basis for the design has been provided.
So where this arises I think is in emergent events. So where the hazard intensity comes up, let's say Fukushima, TMI, whatever, then you wind NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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102 up doing a backfit. And I think that whole backfit process is well defined already in regulation.
So I don't know that you have to put more restraints, more restrictions on top of what's already there for backfitting. That's all my comments.
MR. RECKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
OPERATOR: No, there are no additional questions or comments in queue at this time.
MR. RECKLEY: Yeah, going to the comment about staffing, you know, one of the reasons to bring forth Subpart B today and staffing you can argue would just be, we're doing all of the subparts as Nan had shown in the slide and coming back to what is the role of that element, be it design, that would be in Subpart C, staffing, that would be under operations, and Subpart F as we're currently thinking about it.
What is the role of that in supporting making sure you meet the safety criteria in Subpart B that we've talking about today?
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103 say, when we're dealing with design section, we'll be talking about what is the role of the design. When we're talking about operator staffing under operations, it will be what is the role of the operators in meeting the safety criteria, likewise presiding. So that's the reason we wanted to bring forth the criteria today.
So, no one -- 130 people on the phone, and no one has a comment or question.
MR. BEALL: Okay. And, Liz, can we go to the next slide, please, slide 55?
So this is also if there are any other final discussions or questions that the attendees may have on the, what Nan's presentation was earlier today, on the rulemaking schedule and strategy, or any final comments on Subpart B that Bill went over.
So we'd like to hear if anything, if anybody had any further comments on these two topics for the day. Operator, do we have anybody queueing up?
OPERATOR: Not at this time. There are no questions in queue. Just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1. Thank you.
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104 Speakers, one moment, please. All right.
Speakers, we do have a question. I believe he said his name was Hudson. Your line is now open.
MR. VESAI: Hi, my name is Samson Vesai.
Apologies if I missed it earlier. I just wanted to ask, if we wanted to suggest topics for additional meetings before the six week meetings kick off, what is the best way to do that? Is it by like responding in the Federal Register or some other mechanism?
MR. BEALL: No, hi, this is Bob (telephonic interference) Bill an email (telephonic interference) coming up in a couple slides. And (telephonic interference) hear about any additional comments or topics you would like to have.
If you have comments on any of the proposed rule language, if you have any other topics about the proposed rule language as we release them, you can please submit those through regulations.gov.
MR. VESAI: All right. Thanks.
OPERATOR: All right. Thank you. And then we do have another question coming up. It is from Ernie. Ernie, your line is open.
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105 with staffing.
We typically think about things one unit at a time. And I think for us, for the industry to be viable going forward will be for us SMRs and so forth, we're going to -- I know that everybody is already thinking about multiple units.
And so that's the bit that I think needs to be carefully thought out as to how services would be shared, say all flight services and so on and so forth.
And I don't know if that belongs in regulation. But regulation should certainly be able to accommodate it. That was my point. Thank you.
MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you.
OPERATOR: All right. Our next question comes from Marty. Marty, your line is open.
MR. O'NEILL: Yeah, hi. This is Marty O'Neill, NEI legal. And thanks, Bill, for providing the overview of Subpart B and thanks to Marc Nichol, too. I thought he did a great job at conveying NEI's comments. Just wanted to kind of add a couple things, and I think it echoes what Cyril had said, too.
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106 think, you know, we would want to see some more explanation of kind of the nexus, you know, between what the staff receives, and this is the nexus between 182 of the Act in, you know, tier 1 and 161 in tier 2, because, you know, he did notice in the discussion table that the staff provided -- you know, there was a reference to a 1987 D.C. Circuit decision, the UCS decision.
And while we certainly agree that, you know, there is this language about minimizing danger, the life and property in 161, and it's also in 103.
You know, it's typically even discussed kind of in the backfit context.
And that's what that particular decision really addressed, basically held that in establishing adequate protection, which is really, really should be the focus of the regulations or the baseline, that the staff can't consider cost.
But to the extent it wants to impose kind of extra adequate or beyond adequate protection, you know, it may consider cost. And through the backfit rule, that is what the staff does.
So, you know, when the NRC goes beyond adequate protection, you know, it typically has to be, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 there has to be a substantial safety benefit that's also cost justified. So just kind of wanted to convey that point from a legal perspective.
The other thing, Bill, too I really appreciate the clarification on the use of the term high confidence. I now understand where that came from. That had given us some initial pause because it really was not defined.
And, again, we think the operative term or standard is reasonable assurance. And the Commission has been very clear, at least in adjudicatory space, that reasonable assurance doesn't mean, you know, a 95th percent, you know, upper confidence limit.
In the adjudicatory space, it's really by a preponderance of the evidence. You know, it's not absolute assurance or assurance beyond a reasonable doubt. So just wanted to echo those points.
And then I think Marc also touched on ALARA and that concept. And I thought he conveyed that very clearly, that it's something that's always, to our knowledge, been really regarded as kind of an operating principle or philosophy, not really a design specific consideration per se, you know, and that it is something that's addressed in Part 20.
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108 And there's some interesting insights in the SOC for Part 20. So I'm going to refer you to them as well.
So thanks. And that's just all I wanted to add at this point.
MR. RECKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Frank. Frank, your line is open.
MR. AKSTULEWICZ: Hi. This is Frank Akstulewicz with Terrestrial Energy. I really appreciate the topic conversation today.
I think one of the points that people could see is, confusion might be the better word in terms of how other parts of the regulations are going to get captured into the larger Part 53 and the structure for how that's going to present itself.
My only comment today is in the next go-around with this you have all the different subparts that you have broken out. It would be helpful to put the topic areas under each of those subparts so that both folks can have a better idea of where certain things might actually appear.
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109 the whole section about license conditions in 50.54 and how you would capture those, because that draws in security and emergency preparedness and all those other things, so, and also operator staffing.
So I think it would help if people could see the larger picture, not necessarily the language, but how you intend to move those topics around in the new framework. So that's all I have.
MR. RECKLEY: Thanks, Frank. What we can do is -- I mean, we're developing this as we go. But we do have some thoughts.
So those little text box areas where we talked about the various subparts, we can put a little more information in those text boxes about what might be there, for example, operator staffing, as you mentioned, and maybe it's not highlighted that that would be under Subpart F, operations.
So we can certainly -- you'll have some time between now and the next meeting. We can flesh that out a little bit more. Thank you.
MR. AKSTULEWICZ: Okay. That would be great. Another topic would be like where do you see the principle design criteria showing up, or if there are going to be requirements for PDC, something like NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 that, which would probably be in the Subpart C discussion. But, again, stuff like that, just helping people understand the topic areas for the big rule, that's all.
MR. RECKLEY: Okay.
OPERATOR: All right. Our next question comes from Mike. Mike, your line is open.
MR. KELLER: Yeah, this is Mike Keller with Hybrid Power Technologies. Just kind of an observation, I was under the impression that the point of the exercise was to simplify the regulations.
To me that would, you would expect that you would significantly lower the frequencies and offsite radiation levels to justify the simplification. Maybe I'm missing something.
MR. RECKLEY: Right now, and we kind of touched on this earlier, the thought is that it would be up to a designer if they wanted to introduce more restrictive criteria in order to buy flexibility in other areas like emergency planning, staffing, and siting.
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111 acknowledging a space where it can address a range of designs and designer choices up to and including if a designer wanted to of maintaining current emergency planning requirements.
MR. KELLER: Well, isn't there a danger that you're setting up for an end run around the existing regulations if you don't lower the criteria?
You know, basically it seems to me that the regulation really ought to be aimed at passively failsafe designs. And if it's not, well, then it just reverts to the existing Code of Federal Regulations.
You know, otherwise I just have trouble seeing the justification for simplifying the process.
MR. RECKLEY: No, I understand. And it is a complication. But what we think we've been directed to do is make it technology inclusive, which gives a lot of flexibility to the designer as to how they want to approach this and to the degree they are introducing safety modules, which is the expectation, where they would apply them, what operational flexibilities they might want to propose.
MR. KELLER: Well, if your criteria really, let's say frequencies and offsite doses, it really doesn't matter what the technology is.
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112 MR. RECKLEY: True.
MR. KELLER: So, in that regard, I think there's an opportunity to -- you know, if you follow that route of simplification based on lower offsite doses and frequencies, then it would be pretty easy to move in that direction and actually simplify things without getting wrapped around in the weeds. It's just an observation.
MR. RECKLEY: Okay. And hopefully as we provide the other subparts, it will get a little more clear how this could work, the actual limitation of rolling this out in pieces. Thank you.
OPERATOR: All right. Speakers, at this time, we do not have any additional questions in queue.
MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you very much.
Let's go to slide 56 then, please.
So, as I mentioned earlier, the staff is planning to host several meetings every four to six weeks. These public meetings will cover additional topics that will include the release of additional Part 53 preliminary proposed rule language. The staff will post all preliminary proposed rule language on regulations.gov under docket ID NRC-2019-0062 prior to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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113 the public meeting. The next Part 53 public meeting is tentatively scheduled for early January 2021.
In addition, the NRC staff will be meeting with the ACRS Future Plants Subcommittee to receive feedback on the Part 53 rulemaking. The first meeting will be held in mid-January 2021 with additional meetings (telephonic interference). Slide 57, please.
If you have any additional input or suggestions for future topics related to the Part 53 rulemaking, please send an email to Bill and me at the addresses on this slide. Your interest and comments will improve our rulemaking efforts.
I also encourage you to monitor the Part 53 rulemaking docket ID NRC-2019-0062 on regulations.gov website for updates and important documents related to this rulemaking.
You can also submit comments on the preliminary rule language using regulations.gov prior to the public meetings.
Finally, we're looking for ways to improve our public meetings. And your feedback is important to us. At the end of the meeting, please go to the NRC public meeting website and click on recently held meetings button and look for this meeting. A meeting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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114 feedback form will be at the bottom of the meeting announcements.
I'd like to thank everyone for participating in today's meeting. And I hope everyone has a good evening. Thank you very much for attending this meeting on Part 53.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 3:04 p.m.)
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