ML21140A390
| ML21140A390 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/06/2021 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Beall R | |
| References | |
| NRC-1487, NRC-2019-0062, RIN 3150-AK31 | |
| Download: ML21140A390 (189) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Part 53 Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors Rulemaking B Subparts A and F Rule Docket Number: N/A Location: Video Teleconference Date: May 6, 2021 Work Order No.: NRC-1487 Pages 1-188 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PART 53 RISK-INFORMED, TECHNOLOGY-INCLUSIVE 5 REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR ADVANCED REACTORS 6 RULEMAKING - SUBPARTS A AND F RULE 7 LANGUAGE 8 + + + + +
9 THURSDAY, 10 MAY 6, 2021 11 + + + + +
12 VIDEO TELECONFERENCE 13 + + + + +
14 The meeting was convened via Video 15 Teleconference, at 10:00 a.m. EDT, Bob Beall, 16 Facilitator, presiding.
17 18 NRC STAFF PRESENT:
19 BOB BEALL, Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and 20 Safeguards - Rulemaking Senior Project Manager 21 & Meeting Facilitator 22 JOHN SEGALA, Chief, Advanced Reactor Policy 23 Branch, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 24 (NRR) 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 JORDAN HOELLMAN, Project Manager, Part 53 2 Working Group Member, NRR 3 BILL RECKLEY, Senior Project Manager, Technical 4 Lead, NRR 5 NANETTE VALLIERE, Senior Project Manager, 6 Technical Lead, NRR 7 MOHAMMED SHAMS, Director, Division of Advanced 8 Reactors and Non-Power Production and 9 Utilization Facilities (DANU), NRR 10 AMY CUBBAGE, Senior Project Manager, NRR 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 CONTENTS 2 Welcome/Introductions/Logistics/Goals..............4 3 Subpart A - General Provisions....................14 4 Subpart F - Section 53.700, Operational Objectives and 5 Controls on Equipment.............................73 6 Subpart F - Section 53.800, Programs.............108 7 Discussion on Previously Released Subparts and 8 Integration of Subparts..........................165 9 Additional public comments, questions............185 10 Closing remarks..................................185 11 Adjourn..........................................188 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (10:01 a.m.)
3 MR. BEALL: Good morning. I want to 4 welcome everyone, and thank you for participating in 5 today's public meeting to discuss the risk informed 6 technology inclusive regulatory framework for advanced 7 reactors, or the Part 53 rulemaking.
8 My name is Bob Beall, and I'm from the 9 NRC's Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and 10 Safeguards. I'm the project manager for the Part 53 11 rulemaking and will be serving as the facilitator for 12 today's meeting.
13 My role is to help ensure today's meeting 14 is informative and productive. This is a comment-15 gathering public meeting to encourage active 16 participation and information exchange with the public 17 to help facilitate the development of the Part 53 18 rulemaking.
19 The feedback that the NRC receives today 20 is not considered a formal public comment, so there 21 will be no formal response to any of today's 22 discussions.
23 Once again, we are using Microsoft Teams 24 to support this public meeting on the Part 53 25 rulemaking. We hope the use of Microsoft Teams will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 allow stakeholders to participate more freely during 2 this meeting. Slide 2, please.
3 The agenda for today includes NRC staff 4 discussions on four topics related to Part 53 5 rulemaking. Topic 1 will be the discussion of the 6 preliminary proposed rule language for Subpart A, 7 General Provisions.
8 Topic 2 and 3 will be the discussion of 9 preliminary proposed rule language for Subpart F, 10 Requirements for Operations.
11 One part of Subpart F will be Section 12 53.700, Operational Objectives and Controls on 13 Equipment. And the other part will be Section 53.800, 14 Programs.
15 The last topic will be an open discussion 16 about the previously released Part 53 subparts. We 17 will also have a 45-minute lunch break around 12:30 18 p.m. today and have at least one 15-minute break this 19 afternoon.
20 Please note that, due to the number of 21 topics and the expected discussion of each topic, the 22 start time for Topics 2, 3 and 4 may need to be 23 adjusted during the meeting. Slide 3, please.
24 I now would like to introduce John Segala.
25 John is the branch chief of the Advanced Reactor NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 Policy Branch of the Office of Nuclear Reactor 2 Regulation.
3 John will give the opening remarks for 4 today's meeting. John?
5 MR. SEGALA: Thank you, Bob. Good 6 afternoon. Consistent with Nuclear Energy Innovation 7 and Modernization Act, we're committed to developing a 8 technology-inclusive, risk-informed and performance-9 based regulatory framework for a wide range of 10 advanced reactor designs and publish the final Part 53 11 Rule by October of 2024 in accordance with the 12 Commission's directive schedule.
13 We are committed to a regulatory framework 14 for advanced reactors that achieves the goals of the 15 Commission's advanced reactor policy statement and 16 NRC's principles of good regulation.
17 We are having extensive stakeholder 18 engagement where we release preliminary rule language 19 to solicit feedback to better inform the staff's 20 proposals and to ensure a shared understanding of what 21 will be included in the final rule.
22 As we are considering changes to the 23 previously released preliminary rule language, we want 24 to ensure that we are considering the feedback we have 25 received from all stakeholders including the public, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 industry, standard development organizations, trade 2 groups, non-governmental organization and the ACRS.
3 Since we are at the early stages of the 4 rulemaking process, the draft preliminary rule 5 language will remain open for discussions as the staff 6 works towards providing the Commission a proposed 7 rule.
8 Today's meeting is the fifth of many 9 webinars the NRC will be having to provide an 10 opportunity for external stakeholders to provide 11 feedback on NRC's development of the Part 53 12 preliminary proposed rule language for advanced 13 reactors.
14 As Bob Beall mentioned, we will be 15 discussing and seeking input on the Part 53 16 preliminary proposed rule language for the newly 17 released Subpart A, General Provisions, which included 18 definitions, and Subpart F, Requirements for 19 Operations.
20 There will also be an opportunity to 21 discuss previously released subparts. We are looking 22 forward to having discussions today and hearing 23 feedback with you. Thank you.
24 Bob, I'll turn it back over to you.
25 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you, John. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 would now like to introduce the NRC staff who will be 2 leading the discussions of today's topics: myself, as 3 the rulemaking project manager and the meeting 4 facilitator and Jordan Hoellman, Bill Reckley and Nan 5 Valliere from NRR.
6 If you are not using Microsoft Teams to 7 attend the meeting and you would like to view the 8 presentation slides, they are located in the ADAMS --
9 excuse me, NRC ADAMS document database, also on 10 regulations.gov.
11 And I have placed a link to the slides in 12 the Teams chat window for today's meeting. The ADAMS 13 accession number for today's presentation is 14 ML21125A161. Next slide, please.
15 The purpose of today's meeting is to 16 exchange information, answer questions and discuss the 17 Part 53 rulemaking. This is the fifth of a series of 18 public meetings with the NRC staff to discuss various 19 topics related to the Part 53 rulemaking.
20 Today's meeting will focus on the 21 preliminary proposed rule language for Subpart A, 22 General Provisions and two sections of Subpart F, 23 Operational Objectives and Programs.
24 In addition, we'll be discussing the 25 previously released Part 53 preliminary proposed rule NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 language. I've also placed a link in the Teams chat 2 window for this meeting to these subparts.
3 This is a comment-gathering public 4 meeting, which means that the public participation is 5 actively sought as we discuss the regulatory issues.
6 Because of the number of attendees, we may 7 need to limit the time for an individual question or 8 discussion on a topic to make sure everyone has a 9 chance to participate. After everyone has a chance to 10 ask questions, we will circle back and allow people to 11 ask additional questions, if we have time.
12 As I mentioned before, we're using 13 Microsoft Teams for this public meeting. Today's 14 meeting is using a workshop format, so the number of 15 formal presentations and the corresponding number of 16 slides have been reduced to allot more time for open 17 discussion on the various topics.
18 We will also require -- this will also 19 require all of us to continuously ensure that we have 20 our phones on mute and were are not speaking over each 21 other.
22 To help facilitate the discussion during 23 the meeting, we request that you utilize the raised 24 hand feature in Teams so we can identify who would 25 like to speak next.
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10 1 The staff will then call on the individual 2 to ask the question. The Raised Hand button, which is 3 shaped like a small hand, is along the top row of the 4 Teams display area.
5 You can also use the chat window to alert 6 us that you have a question. Please do not use the 7 chat window to ask or address any technical issues 8 about the Part 53 Rule.
9 The chat window is not part of the 10 official meeting record and it is reserved to identify 11 when someone has a question or for handling any 12 meeting logistical issues.
13 To minimize the interruptions, the staff 14 will call on participants who have used the raised 15 hand feature or chat window to identify when they have 16 a question or comment.
17 If you joined the meeting using the 18 Microsoft Teams bridge line, you may not have access 19 to all these features. If you would like to ask a 20 question or provide a comment, you would need to press 21 the Star 6 to unmute your phone.
22 The staff will pause at the end of each 23 topic to ensure all participants have an opportunity 24 to ask a question before moving on to the next topic.
25 After your comment has been discussed, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 your phone line will be muted again. If you would 2 like to ask additional questions on a future topic, 3 you have to press Star 6 to unmute your phone.
4 If there is a particular topic you would 5 like to discuss, please send me an email after the 6 meeting and we'll try to include it in a future public 7 meeting.
8 This meeting is being transcribed so in 9 order to get a clean transcription and to minimize 10 distractions during the meeting, we ask everyone to 11 please mute their phones when they're not speaking and 12 to identify themselves and the company or group you 13 may be affiliated with.
14 A summary and the transcript of today's 15 meeting will be publicly available on or before June 16 5th, 2021.
17 Finally, this meeting is not designed nor 18 intended to solicit or receive comments on topics 19 other than this rulemaking activity. Also, no 20 regulatory decisions will be made at today's meeting.
21 Please note that towards the end of the 22 presentation there are two slides containing acronyms 23 and abbreviations that may be used during this meeting 24 and a set of backup slides that contain additional 25 information about the Part 53 rulemaking.
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12 1 With that, I'll turn the meeting over to 2 Nan Valliere who will start the discussion of the Part 3 53 rulemaking today. Nan?
4 MS. VALLIERE: Thank you, Bob. Can we 5 move to Slide 5, please?
6 Good morning, everyone. On Slide 5, we 7 have a slide that we've used in most of our past 8 public meetings on Part 53 and will continue to use in 9 the future.
10 This slide lays out the plan to build an 11 entire regulatory framework in Part 53 from design to 12 construction and operation and eventually to 13 decommissioning.
14 And as both Bob and John have noted today, 15 we will be discussing at this meeting the preliminary 16 rule text for Subpart A on general provisions, 17 focusing on the definitions section.
18 And we will also continue our discussions 19 on Subpart F on operations, focusing today on sections 20 related to controls on equipment and operational 21 programs. Next slide, please.
22 Slide 6 is another of our common slides 23 which is a graphical representation of the NRC staff's 24 plans to work through stakeholder interaction on the 25 subparts of Part 53 to support submittal of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 proposed rule package on the milestone schedule that 2 the staff has provided to the Commission.
3 As the note on this slide indicates, this 4 is a living picture of where we are today. And we 5 will continue to make adjustments as the development 6 of Part 53 progresses.
7 The note also highlights the fact that the 8 continuing introductions of concepts and discussions 9 of preliminary rule language will include a variety of 10 topics that have historically involved specific 11 technical and programmatic specialties.
12 One example of this was the discussion we 13 had last month on the staff's white paper on risk-14 informed and performance-based human system operation 15 considerations for advanced reactors which will inform 16 our future discussions on staffing levels and operator 17 licensing in Subpart F.
18 We encourage stakeholders to ensure that 19 appropriate subject matter experts are involved in 20 future discussions of rule language for these 21 technical areas to improve our chances of having 22 efficient and effective meetings.
23 And to that end, it is worth noting that 24 we are currently planning to focus the June public 25 meeting on security-related topics.
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14 1 Now such topics may include physical 2 security, cyber-security, access authorization, and 3 fitness for duty. So you may want to consider who 4 else, amongst your colleagues, should attend that 5 specific meeting.
6 And with that, I'd like to pause here to 7 see if there are any early comments or questions 8 before we move on to the discussion of Subpart A and 9 some of the key definitions we are considering for 10 inclusion in Part 53.
11 Okay, seeing no hands raised or other 12 comments, I will turn the meeting over to Jordan, 13 Jordan Hoellman, who will lead our discussion of 14 Subpart A. Jordan?
15 MR. HOELLMAN: Okay, thanks, Nan. Thanks, 16 Bob. Good morning. My name is Jordan Hoellman. I'm 17 a project manager in the Advanced Reactor Policy 18 branch in NRR.
19 I'm pleased to be here today to discuss 20 our first iteration of the preliminary proposed rule 21 language for Subpart A, General Provisions. You can 22 move on to the next slide, please and to the next one, 23 if that's okay.
24 So Subpart A included the scope, 25 definitions, written communications, employee NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 protections, completeness and accuracy of information, 2 exemptions, combining licenses, jurisdictional limits, 3 attacks and destructive acts, and information 4 collection requirements.
5 We are intending to develop Part 53 with 6 largely no cross-references to Part 50 or 52. In some 7 cases, this will require copying and pasting the Part 8 50 or 52 language, where appropriate, into Part 53 9 instead of using cross-references.
10 And then this approach will apply 11 throughout Part 53. So in developing Subpart A, we've 12 understood that there are pros and cons to this 13 approach. And, but our current thinking is that if 14 Part 53 is self-contained, there would be less 15 confusion about the applicability of requirements in 16 Parts 50 or 52.
17 And from a usability standpoint, our 18 approach would mean Part 53 applicants and licensees 19 would not need to flip between the different parts to 20 see the applicable requirements. And this would mean 21 that Part 53 would be a one-stop shop, the optional 22 licensing framework for advanced reactors.
23 So we are interested in our stakeholders' 24 feedback on this approach, but I please ask, as I go 25 through the presentation, you can please note your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 questions or concerns but we'll wait until we get to 2 the discussion portion of the meeting to open it up.
3 So as you may have noted, from looking at 4 Subpart A, this iteration reproduces Part 50 in a lot 5 of places and currently includes bracketed reference 6 to existing requirements in either Part 50 or 52.
7 These brackets will be replaced with the 8 applicable Part 53 requirements once those portions of 9 Part 53 are developed.
10 And for future iterations of Subpart A, we 11 will likely develop a discussion table and move some 12 of the bracketed references to that side of the table 13 as we've done for other subparts we've released.
14 In some places, rather than indicate 15 references, the brackets are intended to capture 16 things that would have been included in a discussion 17 table like you've likely seen in the other subparts.
18 And that's intended -- those brackets that 19 you see are intended to provide an explanation or 20 indicate concepts that are still under development and 21 may be further revised or removed in future iterations 22 as we work towards providing the proposed rule to the 23 Commission.
24 Subpart A was compared to the rule 25 language proposed by NEI in its February comment NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 letter and addresses largely the same requirements in 2 NEI's proposal which, as I previously mentioned, is 3 largely based on Part 50 requirements.
4 Subpart A will include many pointers to 5 other sections of Part 53. And I've already mentioned 6 this, but some specific examples include the emergency 7 plan and related submissions and the security plan and 8 related submission's requirements.
9 Today, we will focus on the definitions 10 portion of Subpart A, specifically focusing on terms 11 that have been discussed in previous meetings related 12 to event categories and structure systems and 13 component classifications.
14 Some of the definitions will need to be 15 updated as key terms needing defined are identified or 16 revised as the staff works to produce the preliminary 17 proposed rule language and subsequent iterations.
18 You may have noticed that the terms 19 related to fusion are in gray. As you may know, and 20 as discussed in the staff's response to the SRM on the 21 rulemaking plan for Part 53, the staff is working to 22 develop options for the regulation of fusion energy 23 systems.
24 The staff assessments of the potential 25 risks posed by various fusion technologies and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 possible regulatory approaches for fusion facilities 2 is being done in parallel with developing the draft 3 proposed rulemaking package for Part 53.
4 And this work is supporting an options 5 paper that will be provided to the Commission. The 6 draft proposed Part 53 Rule will be developed with the 7 aim of accommodating fusion technologies as much as 8 possible to maintain the flexibility for future 9 Commission direction on the appropriate approach for 10 licensing and regulating fusion energy systems.
11 So I just wanted to make that clear before 12 we move into the specific definitions. So we can move 13 on to Slide 10, please.
14 So on this slide, there's two things I 15 specifically wanted to note. The first is that an 16 advanced nuclear plant or facility, as defined here on 17 the slide, includes one or more reactors and the 18 collection of sites, buildings, radionuclide sources 19 and structure systems and components for which a 20 license is being sought.
21 And the second is that we are currently 22 using the NEIMA legislation definition of advanced 23 nuclear reactor. Other subparts of the rule are being 24 written to refer to the plant and not the reactor.
25 The NEIMA definition does exclude future NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 large light water reactors so long as they have 2 significant improvements compared to reactors under 3 construction when NEIMA was enacted, which was January 4 14th of 2019.
5 The significant improvements specifically 6 mentioned in NEIMA include additional inherent safety 7 features, significantly lower levels of cost of 8 electricity, lower waste yields, greater fuel 9 utilization, enhanced reliability, increased 10 proliferation resistance, increased thermal efficiency 11 or the ability to integrate into electric and non-12 electric applications.
13 We, as the staff, are considering how to 14 deal with this part of the NEIMA definition to provide 15 the appropriate specificity needed for the rule, this 16 is an area where we are interested in stakeholder 17 feedback, specifically the definition of advanced 18 nuclear plant.
19 And we're interested in hearing 20 stakeholders' views on the thoughts of the inclusion 21 of large light water reactors in the NEIMA definition 22 and the scope of Part 53.
23 So I know we've heard some comments from 24 stakeholders in the past that the rule should be 25 technology-inclusive and broad enough to capture any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 sort of future plant.
2 And we've also heard comments that Part 53 3 Rule should be for passively fail safe designs. So 4 those two views are a little conflicting to some 5 extent. And so, like I mentioned, this is an area 6 where we're still considering how to handle as we move 7 forward with the Part 53 rulemaking.
8 So we can move on to Slide 11, please.
9 Okay, so Slide 11, this is our current definition of 10 consensus code and standards. It was adapted from 11 ASME and consistent with the National Technology and 12 Advancement Act and is intended to provide 13 flexibility.
14 The generally accepted modifier used in 15 the rule language is intended to be captured by this 16 definition. The rule language encourages the use of 17 consensus codes and standards as required by the 18 National Technology and Advancement Act.
19 And so we recognize that there's a variety 20 of technologies and designs as well as stated desire 21 of some stakeholders to adopt standards outside the 22 typical standards development organization.
23 And so we've talked about this in the past 24 and this includes the international standards 25 organizations and ISO standards and such. So the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 intent of this definition is to provide that 2 flexibility.
3 And so the staff is actively reviewing 4 some advanced reactor codes and standards for 5 endorsement. These are intended to be endorsed with 6 any conditions or clarifications in regulatory guides.
7 And this endorsement via the regulatory 8 guide approach is the plan to be continued for future 9 guidance supporting Part 53.
10 And just some examples include ASME 11 Section 3, Division 5 for high-temperature reactor 12 materials; ASME Section 11, Division 2 for the 13 reliability and integrity management programs, and the 14 ASME ANS probabilistic risk assessment standard for 15 advanced non-light water reactors.
16 So we think capture of the acceptable 17 standards and guidance provides the flexibility and 18 increases efficiency by avoiding routine rulemakings 19 related to adopting the revisions of incorporated 20 standards in the regulations.
21 But endorsement of standards in guidance 22 does not provide the same degree of regulatory 23 stability as provided by rulemaking. So we can move 24 on to Slide 12, please.
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22 1 sequence on this slide since these terms are related 2 and reference each other in the definitions. I should 3 note that these definitions are generally adapted from 4 NEI 18-04 or the licensing modernization project.
5 End state is the set of conditions at the 6 end of an event sequence. This definition is intended 7 to include the safe stable language to make it clear 8 that there would be no further event progression 9 beyond the identified end state.
10 And sort of a question or feedback we are 11 interested in hearing is would adding that language, 12 that safe stable language, to that, to the definition 13 of end state be helpful here.
14 Even sequence mirrors the definition in 15 the non-light water reactor probabilistic risk 16 assessment standard. This definition is intended to 17 capture a typical PRA even sequence and provides a 18 lead-in to the next slides that cover the various 19 event sequences defined. So we can move on to Slide 20 13.
21 And so Slide 13 and 14 cover the event 22 sequences that we've defined for Part 53. Normal 23 plant operation covers events that are expected to 24 occur during planned operation or shutdown.
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23 1 of event sequences considered in the design and 2 licensing of a plant. Licensing basis events are 3 unplanned events and include anticipated operational 4 occurrences, design basis accidents, unlikely event 5 sequences and very unlikely event sequences.
6 Design basis accidents are used to set the 7 functional design criteria and performance objectives 8 for the design of safety-related structure systems and 9 components.
10 Design basis accidents are based on the 11 capabilities and reliability of safety-related 12 structure systems and components needed to mitigate 13 and prevent event sequences.
14 Within the licensing modernization 15 project, design basis accidents are derived from 16 design basis events but assume only safety-related 17 SSCs are available to respond to an event.
18 So in Part 53, the equivalent concept 19 would mean that design basis accidents are derived 20 from unlikely event sequences but assume only the 21 safety-related SSCs are functioning.
22 The anticipated operational occurrences, 23 or AOOs, are expected to occur one or more times 24 during the life of a nuclear power plant. An AOO is 25 defined as event sequences which are unplanned with a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 mean frequency of 1 times 10 to the minus 2nd per 2 plant year and greater.
3 AOOs take into account the expected 4 responses of all SSCs within the plant regardless of 5 safety classification. So we can move on to Slide 14, 6 which is for the discussion of unlikely event 7 sequences and very unlikely event sequences.
8 So unlikely event sequences have 9 frequencies below the frequency of an anticipated 10 operational occurrence. Like an AOO, the unlikely and 11 very unlikely event sequences take into account the 12 expected responses of all SSCs within the plant 13 regardless of safety classification.
14 Within the licensing modernization 15 project, unlikely event sequences would equate to 16 design basis events. Both the design basis events and 17 the licensing modernization project and unlikely event 18 sequences in Part 53 have a frequency range between 1 19 times 10 to the minus 2nd and 5 times 10 to the minus 20 4th per plant year with an accounting for 21 uncertainties.
22 Very unlikely event sequences have 23 estimated frequencies well below the frequency of 24 events expected to occur in the life of an advanced 25 nuclear plant. Within the LMP, this would equate to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 beyond design basis events.
2 Both the beyond design basis events in the 3 LMP and very unlikely event sequences in Part 53 have 4 a frequency range between 1 times 10 to the minus 4th 5 and 5 times 10 to the minus 7 per plant year, 6 accounting for uncertainties.
7 So we can move on to Slide 15, please, 8 where we are discussing the SSC classifications.
9 So, we should note that these terms are under 10 development and may be revised in future preliminary 11 proposed rule iterations.
12 But, we wanted to provide an initial 13 definition, which will hopefully help clarify the way 14 these terms have been discussed throughout the 15 discussions on Subparts B and C.
16 So safety related are SSCs and human 17 actions that warrant special treatment and are relied 18 upon to demonstrate compliance with the safety 19 criteria in 53.210(b), is the first tier of safety 20 criteria for unplanned events. And so, the safety-21 related SSCs are needed to mitigate and prevent design 22 basis accidents.
23 Non-safety related, but safety significant 24 are those SSCs and human actions that are not safety 25 related, but warrant special treatment and are relied NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 on to achieve defense in depth or perform risk 2 significant functions.
3 So non-safety related but safety 4 significant SSCs contribute to mitigation and 5 prevention of anticipated operational occurrences, 6 unlikely event sequences, and very unlikely event 7 sequences.
8 Non-safety related, non-safety significant 9 are those SSCs which are not safety related, do not 10 warrant special treatment, and are not relied on to 11 achieve adequate defense in depth or to perform risk 12 significant functions. So, these functions, these 13 SSCs performed functions during normal operations.
14 So, we move on to Slide 16. And so, we 15 just talked, we just used the term special treatment.
16 So the idea and the order of these slides was sort of 17 to group things together as we go through them because 18 the terms are related.
19 So, special treatment are those 20 requirements such as measures taken to satisfy 21 functional design criteria, quality assurance and pro-22 programmatic controls that provide assurance that 23 certain SSCs will provide defense in depth or perform 24 risk significant functions.
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27 1 are, these would be things like your technical 2 specifications, or Appendix B, R50 QA requirements, 3 those types of things for non-safety related, but 4 safety significant equipment.
5 These are things like appropriate 6 surveillances and reliability assurance programs that 7 would have more flexibility and have a more of a 8 licensee control.
9 For defense in depth, this is the 10 inclusion of multiple independent and redundant layers 11 of defense in the design of a facility and its 12 operating procedures to compensate for potential human 13 and mechanical failures, so that, no single layer of 14 defense no matter how robust is exclusively relied 15 upon.
16 So we know that the defense in depth 17 section of Part 53, that's Section 53.250, provides a 18 detailed description of defense in depth. So 19 something we're interested in stakeholder feedback on 20 is if this definition is needed in subpart A and the 21 definitions, or if it's helpful, or needed and what 22 sort of, what, you know, that sort of flavor there.
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28 1 are provided to fulfill the safety functions.
2 So the active and passive SSCs and 3 inherent characteristics of those SSCs that contribute 4 to eliminating the total effective dose equivalent, to 5 individual members of the public during normal 6 operations and prevent or mitigate the consequences of 7 unplanned events.
8 So we chose to define inherent 9 characteristic as an attribute of a design feature 10 that has such a high degree of certainty in its 11 performance that uncertainties need not be quantified.
12 The reason we wanted to define inherent 13 characteristic in the first iteration of the 14 definitions is because in the second iteration of 15 subpart B we revised the language in the Defense In-16 Depth Section, that's 53.250.
17 To say no single engineer design feature, 18 human action, or programmatic control no matter how 19 robust should be exclusively relied upon to meet the 20 first tier criteria for unplanned events or the safety 21 functions.
22 The addition of the phrase engineer design 23 feature in the description of these terms for which 24 defense in depth is required reflects the possible 25 crediting of inherent characteristics within the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 design and analysis for advanced reactors and the 2 reduced uncertainties associated with such 3 characteristics.
4 So this is another place where we're 5 interested in hearing stakeholders' thoughts on.
6 Specifically, do you think that an inherent 7 characteristic has to be associated with a structure 8 system or component? The current definition 9 identifies that it does, but we'd like to hear your 10 thoughts as we work towards future iterations of the 11 language.
12 And then, another question where we're 13 sort of, since we've used the words no single 14 engineered design feature in 53.250, should we also be 15 defining what an engineer design features is in 16 subpart A?
17 So we can move on to -- oh, wait no, not 18 moving on yet. Go back. Functional design criteria 19 is that the bottom of this slide. These are the 20 requirements for the performance of SSCs. So what 21 design criteria a leak rate, a cooling capacity, are 22 needed for each design feature?
23 For safety related SSCs, these criteria 24 define requirements necessary to demonstrate 25 compliance with first tier safety criteria in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 53.210(b). That's the first tier safety criteria for 2 unplanned events.
3 And here we're talking about an immediate 4 threat to public health and safety, such as the two 5 hour5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br /> dose below 25 grams at the exclusionary boundary 6 or the duration dose below 25 REM at the low 7 population zone boundary.
8 For non-safety related, but safety 9 significant SSCs, these criteria define requirements 10 necessary to meet the second tier safety criteria in 11 53.20(b). That's the second tier safety criteria for 12 unplanned events.
13 And so, this would be appropriate to 14 address potential risks to public health and safety.
15 This is where we bring in the metric of the QHOs 16 supported by systematic analyses, which enables the 17 risk management approach to operations.
18 So we can move on to Slide 18. So, this, 19 so I'll just briefly touch on the other portions of 20 subpart A, just sort of summarize what I discussed at 21 the beginning of the presentation.
22 So this iteration, like I mentioned, 23 reproduces Part 50 in a lot of places and currently 24 includes bracketed references. Those brackets will be 25 replaced with the applicable Part 53 requirements once NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 developed.
2 We're intending to develop Part 53 with 3 largely no cross references to Parts 50 and 52, which 4 will require copying and pasting. And this approach 5 applies throughout Part 53 so that Part 53 is self-6 contained to limit any confusion about the 7 applicability requirements in Parts 50 or 52.
8 And that subpart A will include many 9 pointers to other sections of Part 53 that will be 10 updating in future iterations. Including, definitions 11 as they're identified, and the other subparts are 12 developed.
13 And future iterations of the rule text may 14 change the terms we use for some things and may 15 require redefining stuff. But there's, so there's 16 been a lot of discussion, I think, throughout our 17 meetings on subparts, B, and C.
18 I think we've heard the stakeholder 19 feedback that it's important to get the definitions 20 developed. So this is our first iteration. As we've 21 been mentioning throughout our public meetings this is 22 an iterative process.
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32 1 and continue to consider it as we move forward in 2 developing the remaining subparts for Part 53.
3 So with that, I think that's the end of 4 the presentation here. I think we can open it up to 5 any discussions. If you need me to go back through 6 and sort of pull out the specific questions I asked 7 during the presentation, I'm happy to do that. But I 8 know, I see some hands up. So let's, let's turn it 9 over to Bob and see who's asking questions.
10 MR BEALL: Okay. Thank you, Jordan. I 11 think, Cyril from USNIC, you wanted to make some 12 comments?
13 MR. DRAFFIN. Okay, sure. Can you hear 14 me?
15 MR. BEALL: Yes, we can Cyril. Go ahead.
16 MR. DRAFFIN: Okay. A number of comments.
17 And what I'll do is I'll make a few. And then, let 18 some of the other people who have raised their hands 19 comment. And then, we might iterate.
20 I'll start with codes and standards. We 21 do support the use of consensus codes and standards, 22 and including in the guidance you've described. Some 23 of the standards are explicitly for nuclear power 24 plants.
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33 1 they must be for nuclear power plants, does this 2 include, in the consensus standards, will you include 3 standards which are not explicitly done from nuclear 4 but are, you know, IEEE standards or ISO standards 5 that could be used for other components?
6 So I just question the use of, under 7 Section 3 on consensus code, whether it has to be 8 explicitly referencing nuclear power plants, or, or 9 not? So that would be a question for you. The --
10 On construction, on what you're going to 11 make a distinction, this is not something you made in 12 the presentation, but some facilities will have 13 separate steam generation facilities that will not be 14 part of the nuclear system.
15 And so a definition of how you're going to 16 define construction of those nuclear and non-nuclear 17 facilities may need more attention than you have in 18 your current language. And so, why don't I stopped 19 there and let something other people make comments and 20 I'll have some more comments afterwards.
21 MR. BEALL: Okay, thanks, Cyril. Jeff 22 Merrifield?
23 MR. MERRIFIELD: Yes, Jeff Merrifield, 24 here. I want to go back to the comments that were 25 made on Slide 10. You were talking about trying to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 come up with a definition of an advanced reactor, 2 advanced nuclear reactor.
3 And you quoted the language in there, in 4 the highlighted paragraph about some of the attributes 5 that might be included in the definition. I would 6 note, from a statutory construction standpoint, it's 7 quite important that the use of the word "or" was 8 included in that variety of characteristics.
9 That is intentional decision in statutory 10 construction to mean it could be any of the elements.
11 It does not require all of the elements to be 12 included. If that were the case, they would have used 13 the word "and".
14 What that leads one to believe, is the 15 intention, and I think this is consistent with the 16 legislative history on this. The Congress intended it 17 to be an expansive definition and to be forward 18 reaching and wide-ranging.
19 So as the staff is evaluating how we'll 20 implement this, I think it needs to keep that concept 21 in mind and not be too limiting on the ability of 22 different technologies to be characterized in those 23 advanced reactor technologies, if they meet one of one 24 or more of the criteria that are included in the 25 definition.
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35 1 So I just, you know, I know you all are, 2 it sounds like you're struggling with this a little 3 bit. I don't think you need to as much. Congress 4 clearly, through passing the amendment was intending 5 to be promotional of advanced reactor technologies.
6 And I think the Agency needs to be mindful of that in 7 enabling these technologies to move forward. Thank 8 you.
9 MR. BEALL: All right, thanks, Jeff.
10 MS. VALLIERE: Bob, if I could just 11 respond. Yes, Jeff, thank you. I would say that, 12 yes, we are. You know, we have paid very close 13 attention to the words in the NEIMA definition.
14 And are really trying to determine, now, 15 what's the best way to take that definition and form 16 some implementable regulatory language that will be 17 cleared to all the parties involved. So I think that, 18 you know, we are having those discussions, right now, 19 directly along the lines you just laid out.
20 And, you know, one of the reasons why we 21 wanted to make sure we presented this definition 22 today, to specifically, you know, solicit stakeholder 23 feedback on how others might think we could define a 24 regulatory definition that would fit along the lines 25 of the NEIMA language.
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36 1 MR. BEALL: Okay, thanks, Nan. Steve 2 Kraft? You had your hand up.
3 MR. KRAFT: I did, Bob, thanks. Can you 4 hear me?
5 MR. BEALL: Yes, sir.
6 MR. KRAFT: Thank you. Sorry everyone 7 keeps doing that cell phone commercial.
8 (Laughter.)
9 MR. KRAFT: So the draft has the 10 definition of end state, which is fine. But doesn't 11 the draft rule language include the link phrase, safe, 12 stable end state?
13 MS. VALLIERE: It does.
14 MR. KRAFT: Thank you, Nan. So what is 15 the -- I think this got asked in the last public 16 meeting by Marc, what is the definition? But before 17 I, you know, my view -- but ACRS Subcommittee asked 18 that question.
19 And the question they asked -- well, I 20 think it was Joy Rempe, said, asked, doesn't mean shut 21 down in the traditional way we understand shut down in 22 large LWRs. So I'm just curious as to whether you're 23 thinking about how to further define that or whether -
24 -
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37 1 opinion, is you could look at reactor systems of any 2 type and show an analysis that says this is a safe, 3 stable, end state. Now, it could be argued it's a 4 meta state, but I just raise the point.
5 That I'm curious to know what you're 6 actually meaning and whether you will add the phrase 7 safe, stable in your definitions. Thank you.
8 MR. HOELLMAN: Yes, thanks, Steve. This 9 is Jordan Hoellman, again. That was one of the 10 questions I tried to ask during the presentation. I 11 think the definition was intended to include that safe 12 stable language.
13 To make it clear that it would, that there 14 would be no further event progression beyond the 15 identified end state. And so, I think your question 16 and comment there sort of provides some of the 17 feedback we were looking for on, on if that language 18 should be included, specifically in the definition.
19 So thank you, again.
20 MR. KRAFT: So just to follow up on that, 21 Jordan. Does have to mean shut down in the 22 traditional sense? It could just be, here's a stable 23 end state and we can show at the end of the sequence 24 out of the -- someone has their phone.
25 Out of the PRA it gets to a spot where, in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 1 this particular sequence, there are no further offsite 2 releases, consequences, whatever. But the facility 3 can still be in operation. Is that a correct 4 interpretation?
5 MR. HOELLMAN: I don't know if I -- Nan, 6 do you know?
7 MS. VALLIERE: So I guess I would say that 8 one of the reasons for highlighting this issue, this 9 definition today is specifically to get feedback on 10 this issue. And Steve, as you noted, it has been 11 raised at ACRS.
12 And as you noted, we have added the safe 13 stable words to the rule text. So we are really 14 looking for input on how stakeholders believe, you 15 know, these terms should be, fields should be defined.
16 MR. KRAFT: Okay, thanks, Nan, for that 17 clarification. If I can hold the floor for just a 18 minute, going back to what Jeff Merrifield just said, 19 definition of advanced reactor. Not questioning 20 Jeff's ability to interpret statutory language. I'm 21 certainly not a lawyer.
22 But again, back to the ACRS, and again, 23 Joy Rempe, she asked Bill Reckley during the meetings 24 about the gatekeeper. What, what's the gatekeeper on 25 an applicant saying we fall under this definition?
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39 1 And of course, Jordan, you raised that 2 wanting feedback as to whether LWRs meet that. But 3 then she linked that with a point that to her, and I'm 4 quoting her, I'm not saying it's my opinion.
5 To her, the rule seems to presuppose that 6 reactors falling under this definition are safer than 7 previous designs. And she said, well, who knows? We 8 don't know. Maybe, maybe not, it hasn't been proven.
9 I mean, there's all kinds of sub-text to 10 that question. So I'm just curious as to, since it 11 links so closely to the definition, what the, if you 12 have any thoughts? I grant you, the ACRS meeting 13 right now is talking about the letter.
14 So I don't know what they came out. I'm 15 just curious to know, what your thoughts are next. I 16 think it'll help applicants understand what they have 17 to say, in your application.
18 MS. VALLIERE: That's, it was an 19 interesting conversation and continues to be. I 20 think, you know, that there are sort of dual issues in 21 this question. One is, the one issue is the basic 22 issue of, you know, who can apply under Part 53 for a 23 license?
24 But, but the real question is, once you 25 apply, you know, a simple application doesn't mean NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 your design is accepted. Once you apply, you have to 2 present your safety case, in a convincing manner that 3 you meet the safety criteria.
4 And that, you know, you have provided the 5 defense in depth required by the rule, that you have 6 identified the safety functions. And what your safety 7 case presents will determine, you know, whether you 8 get some of the operational flexibilities that might 9 be offered in the operation subpart, for example.
10 MR. KRAFT: And --
11 (Simultaneous speaking.)
12 MS. VALLIERE: So --
13 MR. KRAFT: Sorry, go ahead, or sorry.
14 MS. VALLIERE: Yes. So I'm not really 15 sure. I guess, I'm not sure I saw the full value of 16 the gatekeeper question. With the understanding that, 17 you know, anyone that brings forth an application is 18 going to have to present their safety case.
19 And if they want to use some of the 20 operational flexibilities that will be offered, they 21 have to, you know, make that case --
22 MR. KRAFT: Yes. I was --
23 (Simultaneous speaking.)
24 MS. VALLIERE: -- in a specific manner.
25 MR. KRAFT: Nan, I think your question, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 your answer was excellent, what you just answered to 2 me just now. I would simply suggest that you make it 3 to use Joy's term backwards. Make it as non-fuzzy as 4 possible so there's no question as to what you're 5 getting at, what's showing.
6 And maybe that's in the Statement of 7 Considerations. I really don't know. But clearly 8 traditional process, you go through your docketing 9 analysis. That you could say, hey, you're just out of 10 bounds, we're not even going to look at this one for 11 the following reasons.
12 And then, go on from there. I mean, 13 that's perfectly acceptable. Hey, thank you. I 14 appreciate everyone indulging me on my time. Thanks 15 very much.
16 MR. BEALL: Thank you, Steve. Jeff 17 Merrifield, you have your hand up?
18 MR. MERRIFIELD: Yes. I don't mean to 19 keep revisiting this issue, but I just want to, I just 20 want to go back to this. Congress had the expectation 21 that a variety of attributes would allow these 22 reactors to qualify for being called advanced reactors 23 and thus be able to, thus be in a position to use the 24 rule.
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42 1 back and forth on what should those safety standards 2 be. And those are as of yet unsettled. But there's 3 nothing in NEIMA that requires a higher safety 4 standard for advanced reactors.
5 Congress had an expectation that that may, 6 that may be the case, and they did include those as 7 one of the factors. But there's no requirement in 8 NEIMA that they be safer. And I just want to make that 9 clear.
10 I think there's been a lot of clarity. I 11 think, you know, obviously, those of us in the 12 advanced nuclear reactor community believe that they 13 are safer.
14 And there are attributes that the 15 individual applicants will use to state that case.
16 But nothing in NEIMA requires that. And I think that, 17 I think there's some confusion on that, perhaps even 18 with ACRS.
19 MS. VALLIERE: Yes. That's a good point.
20 But, and I'll go further to say is, not only does 21 NEIMA say that, but the Commission has told the staff 22 and stated in a number of places that their 23 expectation is that advanced reactors will be at least 24 as safe as existing reactors.
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43 1 should be allowed to provide operational flexibilities 2 for those advanced reactors. So that is what the 3 staff is using as its guidepost in developing Part 53.
4 MR. BEALL: Okay, thank you, Nan. Mark 5 Nichols from NEI, I thought I saw your hand up. Would 6 you like to say something?
7 MR. NICHOLS: Yes. It is, it is up. Yes, 8 thank you, appreciate that. First, appreciate the 9 staff's presentation, very, very, very helpful. I 10 want to start, I want to preface my comments by giving 11 you an understanding into the thought process of NEI, 12 and our members, the industry.
13 So as we're looking at it Part 53, we're 14 recognizing Part 50, 52 achieved safety, it's usable, 15 it can be used for advanced reactors. Then Part 53, 16 what do we need to achieve with it?
17 Well, we need to achieve the same level of 18 safety or better. That, that would be okay. But we, 19 in order for it to be useful or desired to use, it 20 actually has to be an improvement in efficiency.
21 So it needs to either increase 22 flexibility, or it needs to decrease regulatory burden 23 in achieving that same level of safety. And so, 24 that's sort of the framework we're looking at it.
25 But we're also focused on not just the, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 1 I'll say intellectual discussion of the requirements 2 themselves, but really where the rubber meets the 3 road. What, how are they going to be implemented?
4 What's the practical application and how 5 does that translate into benefits? I wanted to get 6 that across because it's that practical application 7 that we're always focused on. How are they going to 8 be applied?
9 How are they going to be interpreted in 10 the future, both by the NRC staff and by the industry?
11 Because that's really where we're going to realize 12 any of those potential benefits. So sorry for that 13 long winded introduction.
14 I want to go to slide, or first say, you 15 asked a question, this one step 53 not referencing 16 Part 50, 52. You asked a question about that. We 17 agree with that approach. We support you in that 18 endeavor and like what you're doing there.
19 I'm going to go through a series of slides 20 and some specific comments. I'll start with Page 10, 21 Slide 10 on the definition of advanced plant. And I'm 22 not going to repeat what Jeff and Steve have said. I 23 agree with them. But I will, maybe, touch on them to 24 put together the full picture.
25 I really think there's three points that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 need to be looked at here. First is what is the 2 intention of Congress and you also mentioned the 3 Commission.
4 And within that, we really need to know, 5 did Congress intend the definition in NEIMA to be the 6 most restrictive envelope? And so, you have to 7 clearly meet those requirements in order to be able to 8 qualify.
9 I tend to think that's not what they 10 intended. If we don't know, we should ask them. We 11 should get their clarity. Because I believe what they 12 intended is what Jeff said is, well, these are some 13 examples.
14 But in a technology inclusive rule, which 15 is what they specified, specifying these entry 16 requirements to get into the rule is, by its nature, 17 exclusive. And I don't think that's what they meant.
18 Nan, I think you put it very well. Is 19 that, the bar to meet are the requirements themselves, 20 the performance, safety performance requirements.
21 That's what you have to meet. Whether you have an 22 additional inherent safety feature or not, shouldn't 23 be of consideration. Whether you meet any of those, 24 those definitions there.
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46 1 in the ACRS meeting is AP 1000. They don't qualify 2 because they're under construction. Well, what does 3 it take for them to qualify?
4 Do they just have to add one more inherent 5 safety feature and then they could license under this?
6 I mean, does -- you know, it then gets to a question, 7 the second point, which is what does the NRC itself 8 thinks is appropriate for a requirement in being in 9 here.
10 And being in here. Do you think that you 11 need to have some definitions to restrict or be 12 exclusive of what new plants should be able to get in?
13 How does that actually fit within the 14 philosophy of Part 53 that you're trying to put 15 together? I tend to think that we don't need to be 16 exclusive in a definition of advanced nuclear plant.
17 And then, the third point is how is it 18 going to be used, implemented, and practiced and that 19 gets to the gatekeeper question.
20 So, as NRC is looking at this application 21 and says well, yes, you have one additional inherent 22 safety feature that the AP1000 didn't have.
23 But we were looking for ten or six or five 24 or, it's pretty subjective because it's not written 25 down. So, that's where you get into, you know, how is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 it going to be implemented and gets into a lot of 2 confusion.
3 My recommendation, just get rid of the 4 requirements of, you know, those, the A through G and 5 just say, any new plant could be licensed under Part 6 53 provided you meet the requirements that are in 7 here.
8 And that the requirements themselves, 9 those safety performance requirements, should be the 10 gatekeepers themselves. I think we'd be much better 11 off that way.
12 I also wanted to point out something on 13 this slide that nobody has yet and you defined it only 14 as a utilization facility and do not include a 15 production facility.
16 I'm wondering if you did that 17 intentionally, there may be advanced reactors that 18 meet the production facility definition and would like 19 to use Part 50.
20 Is there, let me ask a specific question, 21 I have more if you want to move on, that's fine but 22 was that a conscious decision or just unintentional?
23 MR. HOELLMAN: Mark, I think it was 24 because NEIMA requires us to create a rule for 25 commercial advanced nuclear reactors but I think we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 1 can take your comment back and think about a little 2 more.
3 I'm not sure that we have to be that 4 restrictive but, Nan, if you want to chime in, you 5 can.
6 MS. VALLIERE: Yes, I was going to say 7 something similar to what you said, Jordan, that I 8 believe we thought we were staying consistent with 9 NEIMA.
10 MR. NICHOLS: Okay. I guess I'd point 11 out, Jordan and Nan, thank you. Jordan, I'd be 12 encouraged if you did take that back and think about 13 it.
14 In terms of my first three points on even 15 needing those NEIMA requirements to exclude certain 16 designs from Part 53, supposedly technology inclusive 17 rule.
18 And the reason is, production facility may 19 actually be used so, I, you know, what about a molten 20 salt facility that might do inline separation of the 21 fuel?
22 What about a fast reactor that might have 23 a recycling system at that facility to be able to 24 produce their own fuel and that those processes might 25 cause them to meet a production facility and exclude NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 them from Part 50?
2 So, so I would. I just tend to think 3 philosophically here, the less we try to be exclusive 4 and restrictive the easier this rule is going to be.
5 So, sorry I'll get off my soapbox on that. We can 6 move on to Slide 14.
7 MS. VALLIERE: Hey, Mark, maybe just one -
8 MR. NICHOLS: Yes?
9 MS. VALLIERE: -- one thought before we 10 move on. So, I'll just ask that as you go forward 11 and, everyone, as you go forward and continue to think 12 about this particular definition and term, you know, 13 one of the questions we had was, in addition to 14 advanced nuclear plant should we include a definition 15 of advanced nuclear reactor.
16 And if so, how, again, how does that 17 relate to the NEIMA definition and trying to put that 18 into regulatory language. So, if you have specific, 19 you know, proposals, we'd be interested to hear them.
20 MR. NICHOLS: Okay, thank you. I thank 21 you for pointing that out. I think in our discussion 22 draft from February, we focused on advanced nuclear 23 facility. I see you have it there, plant facility.
24 They essentially mean the same thing.
25 Rather than focus on the reactor. Recognizing the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1 reactor tends to mean the core and the vessel and 2 there are things outside the core and the vessel that 3 are important to the safety and function of that 4 reactor.
5 So, we thought well, just include facility 6 and then as you go through the definitions of what 7 types of SSCs are part of that facility that's 8 regulated by the NRC.
9 There may be SSCs that do not need to be 10 regulated by the NRC. That those would be defined.
11 But we'll continue to think about it.
12 MS. VALLIERE: Thank you.
13 MR. NICHOLS: Yes. Slide 14, please. So, 14 this one and I'm going to go back to the slide, so 15 this was about the, yes, and the one before it, so 16 Slide 13 and 14 together.
17 So, first I want to say as we get into the 18 definitions, we didn't find anything within the 19 definitions themselves that either increased or 20 decreased burden or flexibility.
21 What we note that it's the application of 22 those definitions where it really matters. So one, 23 recognizing there are a lot of new definitions, some 24 changed definitions.
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51 1 they're utilized in the requirement. Because that's 2 really where they become meaningful.
3 So with this one, and I don't have any 4 specific disagreement with the definitions but I think 5 as I look through, well how are they applied and how 6 are they used in the rest of the rule.
7 They get to be a little bit confusing so, 8 we've got Licensing Basis Events, which include very 9 unlikely, unlikely, and DBAs and then AOOs.
10 But really focusing on Design Basis 11 Accidents unlikely and very unlikely and how are they 12 actually applied. If you go back and look through the 13 rest of the requirements, they're mentioned in a few 14 places.
15 But specifically where I think it's most 16 important is in 53.210 and 220, I believe, the safety 17 criteria. And they're not actually used.
18 So, it's not very clear well, to meet the 19 25 REM, is that an unlikely event sequence, is that a 20 very unlikely event sequence, is that a DBA? It's 21 just not -- and then similarly for the others.
22 So, to be able to link these back 23 specifically to where they need to be applied is going 24 to be very, very important.
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52 1 DBA. Is a DBA both unlikely and very unlikely event 2 sequences? Is it only unlikely event sequences?
3 That really matters because that really 4 plays into the scope of SSCs and how they're treated 5 under the requirements. I'll pause there just in case 6 you might have information that could clarify those 7 questions.
8 MS. VALLIERE: Well, I guess, so I'm going 9 to answer your question with a question just to make 10 sure I understand one of your points.
11 So, I think the first point you made was 12 that the safety criteria themselves don't use the LB 13 terminology.
14 MR. NICHOLS: Correct.
15 MS. VALLIERE: So, you're looking for that 16 link but I believe when you get into Subpart C that 17 talks about the design and analysis, they do point 18 back to the safety criteria. So, what you're looking 19 for is the, sort of the pointer in the other 20 direction?
21 MR. NICHOLS: That's correct. Yes.
22 MS. VALLIERE: Okay, got it.
23 MR. NICHOLS: Yes, maybe it's more just 24 consistency throughout in terminology. And it could 25 have been an oversight. I mean, those things happen NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 at early stages in rule language so, you know, I'm not 2 trying to criticize that.
3 MS. VALLIERE: Yes, understand. And I'll 4 just maybe say something at the very high level with 5 regard to the rest of the categories. So, the 6 categories are largely consistent with how they are 7 described in the licensing modernization project where 8 DBAs are derived from the set of DBs and then, you 9 know, only safety related equipment is credited in 10 those DBAs.
11 MR. NICHOLS: I suppose -- sorry to 12 interrupt. I suppose what could happen or what could 13 help is if you somehow link the terms very unlikely 14 and unlikely back to the DBEs, so --
15 MS. VALLIERE: Yes, I apologize and you 16 caught me there slipping back into LMP terminology.
17 So, unlikely events are in LMP terminology, is the 18 design basis.
19 MR. NICHOLS: Mm-hmm, right.
20 MS. VALLIERE: And very unlikely is beyond 21 design basis event. So, I see what you're saying. So 22 that the unlikely event sequence is --
23 MR. SEGALA: Yes, I think that's a good 24 comment, Mark, this is John Segala. And, you know, I 25 think when you look at it you take the unlikely NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 events, which credit both safety and non-safety 2 related SSCs and then you only credit safety related 3 SSCs, that become the DBAs.
4 But when you actually look at that, those 5 event sequences, when you fail the non-safety systems, 6 there's a reliability associated with them and so, 7 when you fail them you're actually, the DBAs are 8 actually a much lower frequency than what would fall 9 into the unlikely event sequence category.
10 So, it gets kind of confusing, you know, I 11 think tying these, tying them back to, you know, a DBA 12 and somehow tying it to unlikely and very unlikely but 13 we can take a look at that.
14 I see where you're coming from in terms of 15 the different definitions and it not being necessarily 16 clear on how they all line up.
17 MR. NICHOLS: Yes. Yes and I try to --
18 thank you, I appreciate the understanding of my 19 comment. I try to think of them visually, you know, 20 if there's a hierarchy, how are they hierarchically 21 fitting in?
22 Or if there's, you know, Venn diagram, how 23 are they overlapping and distinct and different? So, 24 my only point is, from the definitions in the current 25 language it's not clear how they all fit together.
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55 1 So, that's the only point is to help work 2 on that. We can move on to Slide 15 and I apologize, 3 I'm taking up a lot of time but I figured I'll just 4 get through all my comments and then you can move on 5 to other people.
6 So, these definitions are super important 7 and, you know, we can discuss whether you should have 8 restrictive categorization or not but let's just work 9 with the definitions we have here.
10 There is in my mind anyway, some 11 confusion, specifically between safety related and 12 non-safety related but safety significant.
13 Because as you read the two definitions 14 they both are SSCs human actions, they both need 15 special treatment.
16 The difference is one is meeting 53.210(b) 17 and I believe the other is, well, this says defense in 18 depth or performed risk significant function so, I'm 19 guessing that is 53.220(b).
20 But it really gets into, well special 21 treatment and as I looked through the rest of the 22 regulations and how these two categories are treated 23 and the special treatment along those.
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56 1 related and the requirements that are applied to non-2 safety related but safety significant.
3 So, one question is, you know, what is the 4 actual difference in what a licensee is going to have 5 to do with safety related versus non-safety related 6 but safety significant?
7 The regulations themselves at least, make 8 it appear that a licensee has to treat them very 9 differently, they just are in two different categories 10 with two different names. I don't believe that's the 11 intent but that is how the regulations appear to treat 12 them.
13 MS. VALLIERE: Yes. So, Mark, I think 14 you're getting directly into the discussions we'll be 15 having on Subpart F.
16 So, you know, rather than go through that 17 presentation now I wonder if you'd be willing to wait 18 until we --
19 MR. NICHOLS: Absolutely.
20 MS. VALLIERE: -- talk about Subpart F.
21 MR. NICHOLS: Absolutely. Yes, if you 22 could just keep that in the back of your mind. If you 23 could explain it as you go through the rest, you know, 24 and just point out specifically how those two are 25 treated differently.
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57 1 The other confusion I have is between that 2 non-safety related but safety significant and non-3 safety significant in terms of, again, how the 4 regulations include them into the rule.
5 Or include them in what the licensee has 6 to put into their application and provide to the NRC I 7 should say. Level of detail.
8 So, when I look at the non-safety related 9 but safety significant definition, to me, if I just 10 try to equate my understanding of Part 50.
11 It brings in risk significant things and 12 then it also brings in some stuff that might have been 13 important to safety, this non-safety related stuff 14 that might impact the ability of a safety related 15 component to perform its function. That sort of 16 thing.
17 And so, it sort of catches all that and 18 then, if that's true then the non-safety significant 19 really is this stuff that, in my mind, I wonder why 20 the NRC even needs to review it.
21 If I look at some designs that advanced 22 reactors that are being developed. They're trying to 23 develop a balance of plant system that has no 24 possibility of having any impact on safety related or 25 non-safety related but safety significant components.
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58 1 So that they can completely exclude their 2 balance of plant from the application to the NRC.
3 That's sort of the stuff I see falling into non-safety 4 significant.
5 And so, by defining it this way and the 6 way the requirements are crafted in terms of what 7 needs to be done and provided to the NRC, it seems 8 that Part 53 is bringing in a lot of scope and level 9 of detail of the design description into the 10 application that Part 50 and 52 might not require.
11 And so, I don't know if I'm 12 misunderstanding it or if there's something else to 13 non-safety significant or the distinction between that 14 and Part 50. But that's sort of, you know, one of the 15 confusions that I have.
16 MR. SEGALA: Yes, thanks. This is John 17 Segala again, thanks for that comment. You know, I 18 think, as you've been asking, kind of the application 19 and the implementation is kind of where the rubber 20 meets the road.
21 And I think this is an area that we're 22 trying to address as we work with industry on the 23 TICAP and ARCAP project. The idea TICAP and ARCAP is 24 that you would have more information in the 25 application on the safety related SSCs.
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59 1 And then you would have, you know, maybe a 2 little bit less information on the non-safety with, 3 that are safety significant or ones with special 4 treatment.
5 And then much less information than what's 6 needed, you know, what would be needed in the 7 application for truly SSCs that are non-safety 8 significant.
9 So, I think as, you know, we'll look at 10 your comment, you know, I think it's a good comment.
11 But I think also this is something that as we look at 12 TICAP and ARCAP that should be becoming more evident 13 as we work through that project.
14 MR. NICHOLS: Okay, thank you. I 15 appreciate that. Yes, and I recognize that some of my 16 points can't be answered in the call but, you know, 17 just being able for you all to understand them and 18 take them back would be helpful.
19 And as you look at that last specific 20 comment, maybe pay special attention to how it would 21 be applied in 53.410 and 420.
22 Because what those require, the functional 23 design criteria would be required, not just of safety 24 related, you know, the first two categories there, 25 which absolutely are necessary.
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60 1 But it would be required for non-safety 2 significant, which if I look at Part 50 and 52, that 3 type of information is not required for non-safety 4 significant.
5 So, just the nature of how the definitions 6 are applied and flowed through the requirements may 7 require information in Part 53 that's not required in 8 50 and 52.
9 And so, what you're doing with ARCAP may 10 be undermined by requirements that don't allow that 11 flexibility that you're building. So, I'd just point 12 those out specifically.
13 And the cause may actually just be because 14 normal operations and ALARA are in Tier 1 and Tier 2 15 and just don't belong there. That might be part of it 16 but, you know. But moving on --
17 MR. SEGALA: This is John, I just wanted 18 to add, you know, when you go back to Part 50 one 19 thing that we didn't carry forward into Part 53 is the 20 whole concept of important to safety and what does 21 that mean and how that evolved over the years.
22 So, I think it does get a little bit 23 confusing trying to compare this, you know, across 24 Part 50 to Part 53. But I think I understand what 25 your comment is, I'm just adding that as additional NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 information.
2 MS. CUBBAGE: I'd like to also interject, 3 this is Amy Cubbage, that under Part 52, I'll just say 4 explicitly, the requirements are that the full scope 5 design needs to be described in the application.
6 Including non-safety systems. So, just 7 wanted to correct that we're not imposing additional 8 requirements here.
9 You know, Part 52, for example, in 52.47 10 in contents of applications, does say that systems are 11 discussed in so far as they are pertinent.
12 So, you know, there could be an argument 13 that certain things wouldn't need to be described if 14 they could be demonstrated to not be pertinent to the 15 safety of the design.
16 And that's where, you know, in the 17 guidance space, we're looking at how much description 18 is needed for non-safety systems.
19 MR. NICHOLS: Yes, and that's why I said 20 look back at 53.410 and 20, 420. Because it's 21 prescribing that the functional design criteria or in 22 Part 50 terms would be the performance requirements, 23 are included.
24 Now 50 and 52, I agree. They would 25 require that the non-safety significant systems be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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62 1 included and described but it doesn't specify the, all 2 of the attributes of those non-safety significant SSCs 3 that need to be described.
4 So, in Part 50, 52, you might be able to 5 just list the system and that might be fine or you 6 might go into a discussion of the function of the 7 system and describe how it's not, you know, not that 8 important to the safety.
9 Well, Part 53, the 410 and 420 don't allow 10 you that flexibility. You've got to go all the way 11 down to specifying the performance requirements.
12 And so, you don't have that flexibility to 13 say this is not safety significant, it's not that 14 important. I can just list it or I can just describe 15 it at a high level. It doesn't, Part 53 wouldn't 16 allow you to do that.
17 MS. VALLIERE: Yes, Mark, I understand 18 your comment when you specifically mentioned normal 19 operations, now I understand where you're coming from.
20 So, we'll take a look at those specific 21 sections you mentioned to make sure we don't have 22 some, you know, unintended requirements. But I think 23 I understand your comment.
24 MR. NICHOLS: Okay, great. Thank you.
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63 1 16, Slide 17, again, apologize for taking a long time.
2 So, I think I wanted to focus here on 3 defense in depth. You asked whether it's needed, you 4 know, honestly, if you're going to have a requirement 5 on defense in depth, I don't think it hurts to have a 6 definition around it.
7 I would point out that the definition and 8 the requirement don't look the same and it's 9 specifically the requirement has the one sentence 10 about no single engineered feature blah, blah, blah.
11 That reads a little bit different than 12 this, this one reads more as, in terms of you need to 13 have one, more than one barrier or redundant layer and 14 that's, you know, much more understandable.
15 The way the requirement reads, it reads 16 much more like a single failure criteria and 17 requirement. And so, one, you may want to modify the 18 requirement to match better with this definition.
19 Because I think this definition is more 20 aligned with Part 50. So, that's just my comment 21 there and we can go on to 17 if you didn't have a 22 response.
23 MS. VALLIERE: No, understand. Thank you 24 for the comment, Mark.
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64 1 one. So, I was just interested in 53, you used the 2 term functional design criteria and you basically say 3 it means performance requirements.
4 And performance requirements is the term 5 used in Part 50 and 52. Is there a reason you didn't 6 use the term performance requirement in Part 53 or 7 even just modify it? Performance criteria?
8 I'm just wanting to know why you changed 9 the term. I'm not opposed to it. I'm just wondering 10 why you did it.
11 MS. VALLIERE: Yes, honestly I don't think 12 I can answer why we did not use the term you mentioned 13 and chose functional design criteria. Other than, you 14 know, it's something that we were, I would say, used 15 to using from other arenas. So, let us take your 16 comment back and discuss it.
17 MR. NICHOLS: Okay. With that, that's 18 everything I had. I apologize for taking so much 19 time.
20 MR. BEALL: Thanks, Mark. That was good 21 feedback to give us, we appreciate that. Dennis 22 Henneke, you have your hand up.
23 MR. HENNEKE: Yes, great. Dennis Henneke 24 with GE Hitachi, also on the JCNRM, which handles the 25 PRA standards that have been mentioned.
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65 1 Couple of comments on your safe and stable 2 question on Slide 12, you know, you pulled out some 3 definitions that interface with the definitions of the 4 non-light water reactor standard.
5 And just to clarify a little bit, in the 6 actual requirements of the standard and event sequence 7 definition, safe and stable is used throughout to say 8 that when a defining success states includes safe and 9 stable to prevent radioactive release.
10 That standard, safe and stable, may not 11 be, as was described earlier, that the plant operating 12 perfectly. It may be in fact that fuel damage may 13 have occurred but containment worked so that you have 14 successfully mitigated release to within the criteria 15 that you're wanting.
16 So safe and stable includes that barrier 17 in it, which of course then means that the barriers 18 are part of your consideration for safety related.
19 But the point being, you know, safe and 20 stable really needs to be a part of that. It is 21 buried in the standard in the requirements.
22 But if you're not going to pull all that 23 out then you need to tie in the success states on end 24 state into some sort of discussion on safe and stable.
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66 1 list unlikely sequences between 10-2 and 5-4.
2 Shouldn't that be 1-4?
3 MR. HOELLMAN: Yes, Dennis, I think we got 4 a typo there. We noticed that too as we were going 5 through the presentation, so thanks.
6 MR. HENNEKE: Okay.
7 MR. HOELLMAN: And I appreciate your other 8 comment on the safe and stable too. That was another 9 sort of thing we noticed as we were, you know, getting 10 close to releasing the definition and just knew we 11 needed stakeholder feedback on it. So, appreciate it.
12 MR. HENNEKE: On the range on very 13 unlikely sequences, under LMP the range for the enzyme 14 basis is, you know, 10-4 to 10-6 and considered 15 uncertainty and so then we moved that down to 5-7.
16 So, the 5-7 already accounts for 17 uncertainty in the then sequence frequency. So, I 18 would recommend either moving, changing 5-7 to 1-6 19 considering uncertainty or just say 5-7 and remove the 20 requirement to consider uncertainty.
21 If you want to be consistent with the LMP.
22 Just a comment. And then on Slide 15, I think it's 23 just a minor point here, non-safety you mentioned or 24 not relied on to achieve adequate defense in depth for 25 first safety significant.
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67 1 You mentioned achieving defense in depth 2 but you don't use the word adequate and it's either 3 relied on for defense in depth or it's relied on to 4 achieve adequate defense in depth. I think maybe make 5 a slight pre-comment definition.
6 MS. VALLIERE: And so, was that, that was 7 the non-safety related but safety significant 8 definition?
9 MR. HENNEKE: Yes. It should --
10 MS. VALLIERE: Okay.
11 MR. HENNEKE: -- achieve adequate defense 12 of depth.
13 MS. VALLIERE: Yes, I see that that's what 14 we used in the non-safety significant definition.
15 MR. HENNEKE: All right. That's all I 16 had. Thanks.
17 MR. HOELLMAN: Thanks, Dennis, appreciate 18 the feedback.
19 MR. BEALL: Yes, thank you, Dennis. Okay, 20 Kadambi, you have your hand up.
21 MR. KADAMBI: Yeah, this Prasad Kadambi.
22 I have a relatively simple question, I think. I've 23 heard the term safety case used in many different 24 ways, and I'm wondering is Part 53 going to clarify 25 what is meant by a safety case?
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68 1 MS. VALLIERE: Prasad, I probably used 2 that term offhand as a shortcut but to my knowledge we 3 do not intend to use that in Part 53. But I probably 4 used it earlier as a shorthand.
5 MR. KADAMBI: Yes, and others do also. I 6 think the implication is that when an application 7 comes forward there is going to be some kind of a 8 something that will enable a person outside to be able 9 to say, so the safety case includes x, y, z, you know.
10 I'm just wondering in your mind, Nan, 11 where would you go if you wanted to know what a safety 12 case should contain? Is it the whole application?
13 MS. VALLIERE: That's a good question.
14 Clearly from the NRC's standpoint, the application has 15 to contain enough of the safety case for the agency to 16 be able to make its findings with regard to licensing.
17 So you know, from our perspective, you know, I -- go 18 ahead, John.
19 MR. SEGALA: Nan, I'll just add that 20 that's something that we're working with industry on 21 in terms of the TICAP and ARCAP project trying to make 22 sure that the safety cases is well defined in the 23 application and that there's adequate guidance for how 24 you describe that.
25 MR. KADAMBI: Thank you. That's it.
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69 1 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you very much for 2 those comments. Is there anybody else on the bridge 3 line that would like to make a comment? You can use 4 Star 6 to unmute yourself. Okay. Ah, Cyril, you have 5 your hand up.
6 MR. DRAFFIN: Yes. I'll cover a few items 7 that weren't covered before. On defense-in-depth on 8 Slide 16 and 17, as Jordan raised the point on 9 inherent characteristics, you know, thinking that 10 through in terms of the definition between inherent 11 characteristics and defense-in-depth is something you 12 might want to clarify a little bit more based on the 13 discussions of how that in tune with ACRS yesterday.
14 I agree with the comments that Marc made 15 on requirements for a safety and non-safety related.
16 I think that's helpful clarification. On Slide 14, 17 under unlikely sequences, you found the typo there 18 between the overlap, but we did have kind of not some 19 observations that the examples and the definitions for 20 unlikely and very unlikely events add a little bit of 21 confusion of how the rules can be implemented because 22 the definitions do not provide that clarify, detail 23 needed to be applied for classifying postulated 24 ignition rating-initiated events.
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70 1 be kind of an implementation question. And then for 2 the definitions of unlikely events and very unlikely 3 event sequences, to more understand the range of 4 frequencies that constitute the design basis events 5 that was a little bit referred to earlier. But 6 clarification on those frequencies and they they're 7 there is probably important.
8 And then a couple, maybe four or five 9 other topics, we had some concern, at least some 10 people did, on the language and the application of 11 design control could be interpreted that the QA 12 requirements might extend to a full range of a 13 licensing basis events versus just the language of 14 postulated accidents.
15 And another point, 53.110 does not include 16 holders' and applicants' language used in 53.060 and 17 53.070 but provides coverage to either an applicant or 18 a licensee, and that reduces the scope from 53.010 19 from standard design approval and design 20 certifications because they are not licensees.
21 Another point, the activities under the 22 manufacturing license are used to define manufacturing 23 and then this construct the manufacturing occur under 24 a manufacturing license may be a little too limiting 25 as a general definition. And the definition of site NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 characterization seems to expand the definition of the 2 site characteristics, 52.010, and moves it into a 3 category of leakage of radionuclide materials.
4 So those are kind of specific things just 5 to consider as you do some modifications. That's it 6 for now.
7 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thanks, Cyril. Nan, 8 you have something?
9 MS. VALLIERE: I was just going to thank 10 Cyril and say that I'm happy that we have a court 11 reporter because I could not type that fast. So we do 12 have all your comments on record and appreciate that 13 feedback.
14 MR. BEALL: Yes, thanks, Nan. Okay. I 15 don't notice anymore hands up. So I'd like to thank 16 everybody for their comments and discussion on the 17 Subpart A. So with that --
18 MR. KRAFT: Bob? Bob? Bob, excuse me.
19 MR. BEALL: Oh.
20 MR. KRAFT: I had my hand up. Sorry.
21 MR. BEALL: Okay. Go ahead, Steve.
22 MR. KRAFT: Yes, sure. I'll make this 23 quick. I think something that NRC needs to think 24 about, in the definition of advanced reactor, I went 25 back and looked at the statute itself just to confirm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 that the way you repeated it if it was accurate, and 2 of course it is.
3 I just point out that going beyond what 4 Jeff said earlier, it is a very open-ended definition 5 in one respect because of the phrase, such as. And I 6 don't know how that gets interpreted legally, but it 7 seems to me -- but then again, one of the difficulties 8 is, as I'm sure Jeff will agree, is that when Congress 9 enumerates a list in a law, people tend to focus on 10 that list only even though it's meant to be not 11 exclusive, and I've seen court decisions in the areas 12 I've worked on where they've done that. But more 13 importantly is the phrase above the list, says 14 significant improvement. I am not going to step into 15 that quagmire as to what that might mean, but that's a 16 judgment, and somewhere along the line someone's going 17 to submit something and you're going to have to face 18 up to what that means. And I think that's -- I just 19 point that out.
20 I'm not going to offer a comment as to 21 what I think it might mean, but I think that's 22 something that they need to be thinking about in 23 advance because, you know, recognizing what everyone 24 has been saying is that I think people who will submit 25 under this part will want a broad interpretation, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 whether that's accurate for them or I don't know, of -
2 - I'm just saying what I just noticed reading this.
3 Thanks. It was just, it was a comment. I 4 don't think anyone needs to reply to that if they 5 don't feel they need to. Thanks.
6 MS. VALLIERE: Thank you, Steve. I think 7 you -- that just helps to articulate well why we 8 think, you know, some early discussion of these terms 9 is going to be very helpful in reaching to our 10 proposed rule for Part 53 that everybody understands.
11 Thank you.
12 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thanks, Steve. Okay.
13 Can we go to Slide 20? So we're going to start the 14 second part here. This is Topic 2 with the Subpart F, 15 and Nan Valliere is going to lead this off. So this 16 is a discussion of Subpart F, section 73.700, 17 Operational Objectives. Nan?
18 MS. VALLIERE: Thank you, Bob. Next 19 slide, please. So today we are going to continue our 20 discussion on the operational requirements in Subpart 21 F. Next slide, please. Subpart F defines the 22 requirements during the operation phase of an advanced 23 nuclear plant to ensure that the safety criteria in 24 Subpart B and other requirements such as design 25 analysis requirements in Subpart C continue to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 1 satisfied throughout the plant's lifetime.
2 Section 53.700 provides the overall 3 objectives and general organization of Subpart F, 4 which is to define requirements on plant structures, 5 systems, and components to maintain their capabilities 6 and reliabilities, plant personnel to ensure they have 7 adequate knowledge and skills to perform their 8 assigned duties to support safety functions, and plant 9 programs to ensure they support the performance of the 10 identified safety functions.
11 These requirements are needed to ensure 12 that the advanced nuclear plant is maintained and 13 operated such that the first and second tier safety 14 criteria are met. Next slide, please.
15 Section 53.710 requires preparation of a 16 transition plan from construction to operations. So, 17 the transition plan would demonstrate that SSCs are 18 appropriately constructed and capable of performing 19 their intended functions, that plant personnel 20 appropriately license and train to perform safety 21 functions, and that programs, procedures, and controls 22 are implemented to support the safety functions.
23 The discussion table notes, that was the 24 discussion table that was released along with the 25 Subpart F section, it notes that this paragraph may be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 revised once the remainder of Part 53 is complete, 2 specifically to account for ITAAC related issues that, 3 you know, we'll be looking at more closely and 4 preparing Subparts H and I.
5 And another possible discussion topic is 6 whether these requirements would be more logically 7 addressed as a startup testing program in a programs-8 related section of Subpart F, rather than address 9 separately as illustrated in our preliminary proposal 10 language in this section. Next slide, please.
11 Section 53.720 provides the requirements 12 for maintaining the capability, availability, and 13 reliability of SSCs to support meeting the first and 14 second tier safety criteria for unplanned events that 15 are described in Subpart B.
16 At a basic level, this section outlines 17 that controls for safety related SSCs are to be 18 provided by technical specifications in paragraph A, 19 and controls for non-safety related but safety 20 significant SSCs are to be addressed through special 21 treatments controlled within licensee programs and 22 procedures. Next slide, please.
23 Paragraph A of section 53.720 defines the 24 required limits to be included in technical 25 specifications to define conditions and limitations on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 SSCs to fulfill safety functions and first tier safety 2 criteria. The general content in control of technical 3 specifications under Part 53 will be similar to the 4 requirements in Part 50 and 52.
5 The requirements for technical 6 specifications include limits on the inventories of 7 radioactive materials, plant operating limits, and 8 specific requirement for each safety related structure 9 system or component including limiting conditions for 10 operation and required surveillances.
11 The proposed requirements for technical 12 specification also include sections on important 13 design attributes, administrative controls, and 14 decommissioning when applicable. I'll note that the 15 design attribute section would be similar to the 16 design features required in the current section 50.36.
17 However, a different term may be needed if design 18 features become a defined term within Part 53 to mean 19 something different than it means in Part 50.
20 This first iteration of preliminary 21 language for this section does not include the concept 22 of safety limits or associated limiting system safety 23 settings from 10 CFR 50.36. As discussed in the 24 Commission paper on the functional containment 25 concept, which was SECY-18-0096, systematic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 1 assessments and more mechanistic approaches to 2 evaluating source terms support an alternative 3 approach to establishing area-based safety limits.
4 This first iteration of preliminary 5 language for this section on technical specifications 6 also does not include the criteria for identifying 7 limiting conditions for operation or LCOs from 10 CFR 8 50.36. Instead, the staff proposes to maintain the 9 concepts from Subparts B and C to define LCOs as 10 providing limits on safety related SSCs, which are 11 those associated with protecting against an immediate 12 threat to public health and safety and the first-tier 13 safety criteria.
14 Currently, 10 CFR 50.36(c)(2)(ii) provides 15 the criteria for limiting conditions for operation and 16 includes criterion (d), which is a structure, system, 17 or component which operating experience or 18 probabilistic risk assessment has shown to be 19 significant to public health and safety.
20 In this preliminary construct for Part 53, 21 risk significant SSCs are addressed through a 22 combination of technical specifications for the safety 23 related SSCs and the introduction of paragraph B of 24 this section for non-safety related but safety 25 significant SSCs, which I'll address on the next NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 slide.
2 First, however, I'd like to comment that 3 some stake holders have expressed a desire to allow a 4 deterministic approach or approaches for performing 5 the design and analysis described in Subpart C, which 6 would necessitate a more traditional approach to tech 7 specs as well. And such approaches may be better 8 addressed within a revised Part 50. Next slide, 9 please.
10 Paragraph B of Section 53.020 -- 53. 720 11 defines the required controls to be developed and 12 implemented for non-safety related but safety 13 significant SSCs. Configuration management and other 14 special treatments provide reasonable confidence that 15 the capabilities and reliabilities of SSCs are 16 maintained consistent with the underlying risk 17 assessments.
18 These controls are needed to implement a 19 performance-based approach and to gain operational 20 flexibilities in areas such as supporting staffing and 21 programmatic topics such as emergency preparedness 22 that will be addressed in Subpart F.
23 As previously mentioned, changes would be 24 needed to address deterministic approaches with 25 different supporting analyses, safety classification NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 1 schemes, and design approaches. This consideration 2 also carries through to other configuration control 3 and program requirements that differentiate between 4 safety related and non-safety related but safety 5 significant SSCs based on risk informed performance-6 based concepts. Next slide, please.
7 So Bob, we were intended to have our lunch 8 break at this point. I also believe Mr. Reckley has 9 rejoined us. So we could take the lunch break, or if 10 -- now, or if Bill prefers to move on, we can move on.
11 MR. BEALL: Well, yes, we can take the 12 lunch break now if you want or we can go for another 13 ten minutes and finish and break at noon. Bill, if 14 you want to go for a few minutes, or you want to go 15 ahead and just break?
16 MR. RECKLEY: Given I just joined, I would 17 say why don't we just break.
18 MR. BEALL: Take a break now? Okay.
19 That's fine. So we'll take a 45-minute break and so 20 we'll reconvene again at 12:35 east coast time.
21 That'll be at 12:35 east coast time, okay? Thank you 22 all very much for your patience this morning. And now 23 we'll break for lunch.
24 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 25 off the record at 11:52 a.m. and resumed at 12:35 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 p.m.)
2 MR. BEALL: Good afternoon everyone. So 3 we will now restart our Part 53 public meeting. Bill 4 Reckley from NRR will be taking over for Nan and he'll 5 continue with our discussion of Subpart F, section 6 53.700. Bill, you can go ahead and start now.
7 MR. RECKLEY: Okay. Thanks, Bob. So just 8 a short recap since we broke kind of in the middle of 9 this series of sections. This part of Subpart F was -
10 - is intended to address the equipment, and Nan, right 11 before lunch went over 73 -- 53.720, which goes to 12 maintaining the configuration of equipment through 13 tech specs for safety related equipment and through 14 reliability assurance type programs for the non-safety 15 related by safety significant equipment.
16 And so the next section in terms of the 17 requirements to ensure that the equipment is going to 18 perform as it was assumed in the various analysis is 19 the 70 -- 53.730 that Slide 28 addressing. And that 20 goes to maintenance, repair, and inspection.
21 And this requirement is largely taken from 22 the Part 50 maintenance rule. The scope is defined as 23 being associated with safety related and safety 24 significant SSCs. So if you're familiar with the Part 25 50 maintenance rule when that was undertaken, a scope NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 1 had to be defined for that.
2 One of the advantages that we're trying to 3 maintain here in Part 53 is a consistency across the 4 board and avoiding, if possible, the need to go into 5 specific regulations and defining specific scopes for 6 those requirements.
7 And so an advantage of having a clear set 8 of equipment that is addressed within Part 53, the 9 safety related and non-safety related but safety 10 significant SSCs, is that we can be consistent in 11 terms of the program. So maintenance rule would be 12 an example of that.
13 So otherwise, it -- the requirement 14 basically says to take appropriate corrective action 15 if it's found that an SSC doesn't meet its special 16 treatment requirements or the performance goals 17 established for that, and the performance goals, for 18 example, for the non-safety related SSCs would be 19 those that tie back to the reliability and 20 availability assumptions in the PRA and what was 21 needed to meet the higher level safety criteria as 22 they're defined in Subpart B.
23 The requirement to do an assessment of the 24 maintenance program every two years and similar to the 25 maintenance rule for existing operating plants that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 require them to conduct a risk assessment associated 2 with maintenance activities as things are taken out of 3 service for preventative or corrective maintenance.
4 So that's really 53.730. Again, largely you would 5 find it very similar to the maintenance rule as it was 6 established in Part 50. So we can go on to Slide 29.
7 The next area within Subpart F is 8 associated with design control and the need to 9 maintain -- if the earlier requirements were to 10 maintain configurations in accordance with the design 11 that's established, then this one, 740, is intended to 12 address what needs to be done when a design change is 13 implemented during the operating phase. So it just 14 basically lays out the need to coordinate those design 15 changes with other programs to maintain and ensure 16 that you meet the -- continue to meet the higher level 17 safety criteria as you do those changes.
18 So again, I don' think that one has too 19 much in it. One of the things we'll assess later on 20 is when we see all of these things together is whether 21 this type of a requirement is really repetitive to the 22 overall quality assurance requirements and the other 23 interface requirements. So but in terms of the actual 24 technical requirement, I don't think it should be too 25 surprising. We'll get to the language and how best to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 address these kind of requirements as we can see the 2 consolidated package.
3 So I think with that, we can go into a 4 discussion of this first part of Subpart F that those 5 sections that are related to maintaining the hardware.
6 So Bob, sorry I missed this morning, so I don't know 7 exactly how you're doing this, but --
8 MR. BEALL: That's okay, Bill. I know you 9 were busy. Marc Nichols, do you have anything from 10 NEI?
11 MR. NICHOLS: I do, yes. Let me get the 12 camera and microphone on.
13 MR. BEALL: Okay.
14 MR. NICHOLS: Nan, Bill, thanks for 15 providing that presentation. So I think conceptually 16 there's a lot of, you know, alignment on what needs to 17 be done. What I'm going to focus on is more in how 18 the rules are written and how requirements are 19 established and how they interact with each other.
20 And given, and I'll repeat this, Bill, 21 because I don't think you heard my opening 22 introduction. We're looking at Part 53 in is it going 23 to maintain equivalent safety as Part 50? Is it going 24 to be better in terms of more efficient? Does it give 25 more flexibility, reduce burden?
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84 1 As we look at it, we're not just focused 2 on the academic discussion of the requirement itself.
3 We're looking specifically at how is it going to be 4 implemented, what are the practical implications of 5 it, and do those actually realize the benefit?
6 So with that, let me go through some of my 7 thinking on this. And I want to start with, you know, 8 and it's a general observation and I'll make a couple 9 of examples here. Where the NRC is proposing 10 requirements that are either duplicative of other 11 requirements or have a great overlap with other 12 requirements.
13 And while, okay, you're still requiring 14 the same thing from an applicant and a licensee, but 15 when you go to look at the application of multiple 16 requirements requiring the same thing or very similar 17 things, one, there's potential for confusion if 18 they're worded differently, two, there are two 19 requirements you have to meet both of them and 20 sometimes it's not clear that doing one thing meets 21 both of them so you might have a duplicate effort.
22 And then specifically for the one I'm 23 going to focus on first, it's 53.700, which is --
24 sorry, it's on Slide 22 if you want to go back to it.
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85 1 is really use this 53.700 to establish the purpose of 2 this subpart.
3 And you know, perfectly fine to use a 4 requirement to establish the purpose of the subpart, 5 I've seen it done before, but how it's written is 6 really important because here what this requirement 7 does when you look at it, it establishes very specific 8 things that have to be done by the applicant, the 9 licensee. Many of those things are repeated in other 10 requirements.
11 And the way they're phrased is there are 12 things that you, the applicant can be held accountable 13 for strict compliance to the regulations, and where 14 that becomes a concern is as applicants come into the 15 NRC and may apply and a reviewer's looking at it and 16 they say, well, I've come up with this new 17 understanding or perspective or expectation. It's not 18 written down anywhere and as they go through the 19 process of trying to ask the applicant to provide more 20 information and even to change their design, they 21 always have to say which requirement their new 22 expectation and request for design change or 23 information ties back to.
24 Well, a requirement like 53.700, and you 25 have a couple others that are written this way, you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 know, one of the ones in Subpart B and your second 2 iteration you actually fix by saying, this requirement 3 I met by meeting these other requirements. So it sort 4 of prevents that type of outcome. But this one I 5 don't think is written that way.
6 So it's very easy for the NRC to come back 7 and say, well, I want this, and the applicant says, 8 well, why should I have to do that? Well, 53.700, 9 it's this nice catchall, it requires a lot of things 10 and I can fit whatever expectation I want in there.
11 And therefore, it leads to a lot -- a lack of 12 predictability, a lot of uncertainty that we could get 13 these future gotchas and new expectations.
14 So I would just say this is more of a 15 formatting comment. It's not that I'm opposed to a 16 purpose objective, it's just that I think they should 17 be written very much as a purpose objective. So the 18 purpose of this subpart is to do blah, blah, blah, 19 these requirements fulfill this requirement, you know, 20 the objective of this subpart so that it does -- it 21 prevents that type of future uncertainty.
22 I'll pause there just to see if there's 23 response or question before I go on to my next --
24 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 25 off the record at 12:45 p.m. and resumed at 12:47 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 1 p.m.)
2 MR. RECKLEY: No, that's a good comment 3 and you're right. That's what we had intended is to 4 lay this out as a purpose.
5 MR. NICHOLS: Yes.
6 MR. RECKLEY: So we'll consider your 7 suggestion to make sure it's written that way.
8 MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Thanks. Yes. And 9 you fixed a similar one in Subpart B 53.200, when you 10 add a -- added a sentence meeting these other 11 requirements to fill this. So that's one way to do 12 it, not the only way, but certainly wanted to point 13 that out.
14 The next question -- comment is on page 23 15 in 53.710, and as we're looking at this question about 16 whether 50 -- Part 53 is going to be more efficient 17 than Part 50, 52, this is one that caught our 18 attention. There's no specific requirement, or 19 standalone requirement in Part 50 and 52 for a 20 transition program, or plan, I should say, we do find 21 it in the application content that it needs to -- the 22 transition from construction to operations needs to be 23 described.
24 The thing that this one does, because it's 25 much more specific on everything that has to be in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 1 transition plan, it is going to be an increase in 2 burden on the industry. And so I just wanted to point 3 that out that the creation of it, it's not changing 4 whether a transition plan is developed. It's not 5 changing whether that -- how the transition is going 6 to be done, is communicated to the NRC.
7 But establishing it as a standalone 8 requirement is going to increase some burden. So I 9 just wanted to make sure that the NRC was aware of 10 that.
11 We can go onto slide 26 then, and back to 12 my theme of duplication. So first one, we do 13 recognize that the risk informed approach on this 14 previous slide, the risk informed approach to tech 15 specs for safety related, is an improvement and we 16 appreciate that.
17 When we look at the control of non-safety 18 related safety significant SSC's, this is another area 19 where we need to really read through the other 20 requirements to see, is there overlap. Is there 21 duplication here, and I think this is one where there 22 is duplication. So it might be that we don't even 23 need this requirement. This 720(b) to begin with.
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89 1 related requirements. It duplicates with quality 2 assurance itself, which is design and configuration 3 control over the plant.
4 And so I really would encourage the NRC to 5 take a look at that and ask, well, could you do this 6 more efficiently. Do you need four different 7 requirements to try to achieve design and 8 configuration control, or can you just rely on QA, 9 which I think is what we can do. We can just rely on 10 QA to control the design and configuration control, 11 and not have to have many of these other requirements.
12 I'll just go back to, you know, these are 13 areas, they're actually all worded differently, maybe 14 you can explain, there may be some greater vision of 15 how they all work together, but they appear to be 16 somewhat duplicative, overlapping for sure, and 17 they're all worded differently.
18 So there is a log of confusion on, well, 19 how do I meet all of those requirements with, you 20 know, very efficiently. So let me pause there and 21 just see if you have a response on those, those 22 overlapping requirements.
23 MR. RECKLEY: Yes, only in so far as the 24 nature of laying out the organization by lifecycle 25 stages kind of naturally results in some overlap, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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90 1 where you have requirements in each lifecycle stage 2 associated with something. So I know it can come off 3 as being repetitive, and to some degree it is.
4 But we were trying to include within 5 Subpart F, which is the requirements during the 6 operating phase, what the requirements are during the 7 operating phase. So this is how you maintain those 8 reliabilities and availabilities. You establish them 9 in Subpart C, as you mentioned, you ensure they're 10 provided in Subpart E during construction, and you 11 maintain them through operations, through the 12 requirements in Subpart F.
13 So I think it's just one of those things 14 we'll continue to discuss, a natural outgrowth of 15 laying out this structure that way is that things get 16 addressed. The same things are addressed in each 17 subpart, but the intention is that they're being 18 addressed in relation to that operating phase. That 19 stage of the lifecycle.
20 So anyway, I understand what you're 21 saying, Mark. We'll continue to look at that and at 22 some point, we might have to, you know, have the 23 discussion on if there's a better way to organize 24 things when they're often -- when they're repeated.
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91 1 you for the explanation. Yes, I would encourage that 2 exercise to go through it, a comparison of the 3 options, you know, to repeat requirement, I'll just 4 call them cross-cutting requirements. Cross-cutting 5 mean they apply to different phases of the lifecycle.
6 To apply them in each phase of the 7 lifecycle in very nuanced ways that apply to that 8 phase of the lifecycle, or just put it together in one 9 place that would apply across the range of Part 53.
10 QA is one of those. In fact, I think 11 configuration control should just be left to QA. I 12 don't think we need another configuration control 13 requirement, but you know, we proposed in our February 14 version that QA just be treated in one place, and not 15 have to repeat it over and over again. So yes, would 16 encourage you to look at the pros and cons between 17 that.
18 The last comment is on operations 19 requirements related to the white paper you had put 20 out, and I know we're still reviewing that and you had 21 talked about it at a previous meeting. But it really 22 gets into things like staffing and that sort of stuff, 23 and we didn't see -- or I didn't see any requirements 24 related to that. I don't know if you were expecting 25 them to be somewhere else, what you were thinking NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 1 about that.
2 I know in the NEI version, we actually, 3 you know, and we proposed different ways, so what I'm 4 about to say isn't a suggestion you included because 5 ours was built on a different concept here. But we 6 actually had a requirement to describe the conduct of 7 operations. So that would have caught that type of 8 consideration. But I didn't see it in your version.
9 MR. RECKLEY: Yes, really, the way Subpart 10 F is -- we expect to lay it out was, and it might have 11 been too subtle in 700, it basically lays it out into 12 three segments, equipment, personnel, programs.
13 And so we drafted language for equipment 14 and programs, and we have yet to write anything on 15 personnel, thinking that with the release of the white 16 paper, we would discuss that, those sections of 17 Subpart F in a future meeting, once people had had an 18 opportunity to look at the white paper and give some 19 thought on actually addressing the issues.
20 That white paper talked about some 21 possible directions we might go, but largely was 22 written as a problem statement, and so we hadn't 23 really developed specific proposals yet, how to 24 reflect this structure, when it comes to personnel.
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93 1 intentionally left that blank, and we're going to 2 address that in a future meeting, and we'll address 3 the overall topics in that white paper, and also some 4 preliminary language that we'll develop over the next 5 month or so.
6 MR. NICHOLS: Thank you. Those were all 7 my comments. Thank you.
8 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you, Mark. Does 9 anybody else have any comments or questions about this 10 section of Subpart F?
11 MR. PAESE: Yes, this is Rick Pease from 12 Westinghouse. I had a comment/question on Slide 25.
13 MR. BEALL: Okay. Go ahead, Rick.
14 MR. PAESE: Yeah, so slide 25 talks about 15 the tech specs and some of the requirements 16 surrounding the tech specs. My question was on the 17 surveillance requirements wording in Paragraph 18 720(a)(3) where requires the use of surveillance 19 requirements.
20 And I know that there's some precedent on 21 not having any surveillance requirements for a given 22 LCO in areas like digital I&C that have built in 23 automatic test features that can take the place of 24 manual surveillance requirements.
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94 1 it seems to require surveillances. I was just curious 2 if the staff had considered the historical precedent 3 of, in some cases, an LCO may not require a 4 surveillance requirement and if that's, that's a 5 vision to be continued to be allowed here under the 6 Part 53 wording. Thank you.
7 MR. BEALL: Bill, are you on mute?
8 MR. RECKLEY: Thanks Bob. Yes, we'll look 9 at that. It was, just basically, we used what we were 10 copying this from when we went back to 50.36 as the 11 starting point. I didn't update it to reflect any of 12 the more recent changes that might have been 13 occurring.
14 And so we'll take a look at that. I'll 15 make a note and see whether we can change that 16 language, or maybe reflect -- keep the surveillance 17 requirement, but reflect that there might be ways 18 where that's done automatically, or whatever.
19 But we'll talk, maybe, to the -- if you 20 have any suggestions, please send them to us. But 21 otherwise, maybe we'll talk or look over the digital 22 I&C side to see how that might have been addressed.
23 So thank you.
24 MR. PAESE: Okay. Thank you.
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95 1 hand up.
2 MR. DRAFFIN: Yes, I do. This is Cyril 3 Draffin, U.S. Nuclear Industry Council. I agree with 4 what Mark said regarding having clarity and not 5 duplication regarding requirements that appear in 6 different parts of the Part 53, to avoid unnecessary 7 work for applicants.
8 As far as the discussion on operations and 9 people, we provided comments at the previous meeting 10 on -- and the approach had been taken, and I did note 11 that NRC had approved the, one of the things we 12 recommended, is not requiring STA's, and I think that 13 the NuScale, recently, the NRC approved the -- not 14 having STA's, so I think that's helpful, a helpful 15 step.
16 I did want to raise a much broader 17 question that Nan had brought up in Slide 25 and 26.
18 When she referenced Part 50, and the deterministic 19 approach. Is there plans, the industry has 20 recommended that, you know, Part 53 be inclusive but 21 is there also a plan for updating Part 50 to make that 22 to reflect non-large liquid reactors to allow -- to 23 deterministic approaches, so that could be an 24 alternative to Part 53.
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96 1 current thinking is on how you might update Part 50.
2 MR. RECKLEY: Yes, and what we're 3 requesting from stakeholders is a little more specific 4 observations or plans in terms of the technologies and 5 possible deterministic approaches, so that we can make 6 a decision of whether it's more practical to address 7 it within Part 53, and try to adjust our initial plans 8 for Part 53, which as we laid out in the rulemaking 9 plan and before that in SECY-19-0117, on the licensing 10 modernization, that that was really the avenue that we 11 were setting.
12 The course we were setting was to take 13 that risk informed approach and carry it through to 14 Part 53. And so some of the comments we're getting 15 about people wanting to take a more deterministic, or 16 traditional approach, the decision we're trying to 17 reach is where is the most practical way to do that.
18 If you going to follow things like assume 19 a single failure, assume safety related equipment for 20 AOO's and DBA's, and use that to establish specific 21 requirements on SSC's and assume, or apply the single 22 failure criterion as it was applied in Part 50.
23 If that is the general approach that 24 somebody wants to take, and I understand it. I'm not 25 saying there's anything wrong with it. But Part 50 is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 1 built that way. And so it may be more practical to 2 create a new alternative section in Part 50 that 3 basically would say, I'm just making this up on the 4 spot here, in lieu of 50.46, that defines a specific 5 requirement for a large break LOCA, an applicant 6 define a design basis accident using the following 7 guidance. And there's standards and a history of how 8 that might be done in a deterministic way.
9 And then everything else in Part 50 would 10 apply. You would just replace the DBA from a large 11 break loss of coolant accident to a new DBA that's 12 defined for a specific design.
13 So if that's what people want to do, we 14 want -- we would appreciate knowing that so we can 15 decide. Then as part of this rulemaking, or if it's 16 possible, or a future rulemaking, we can go into Part 17 50 and we can make those adjustments.
18 But the difficulty we're having of trying 19 to address that within Part 53 is just the examples 20 that were given here. The reason we're setting out a 21 reliability assurance program, that admittedly is 22 probably goes -- it does go beyond what was done in 23 Part 50 or 52, is because the reliability assurance 24 program maintains the validity of the licensing basis 25 events as they, as we laid them out earlier.
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98 1 And part of that is to justify not having 2 to do the single failure criterion for safety related 3 equipment used in the DBA, and AOO's. So again, what 4 we're really looking for in order to support that 5 decision is a little more input from stakeholders 6 about what approaches they want to take.
7 We've heard people say they're reluctant 8 and they want more flexibility in not using LMP, we 9 understand that. But we need to know what those 10 alternatives are so that we can write the language and 11 make decisions.
12 So that's what we mean about maybe going 13 into Part 50. It might be the easier way if people 14 are wanting to use a Part 50 type approach. The 15 traditional structure list or barrier based approach.
16 So what we're looking for from 17 stakeholders is some additional specifics on what are 18 they, what are they planning to do that they fear that 19 Part 53, as it's currently constructed, isn't 20 supporting. And then we can make a decision as to 21 whether to adjust Part 53, or to go in Part 50 and 22 make a change.
23 You're muted, Cyril.
24 MR. DRAFFIN: Thank you. Would you 25 consider both? In other words, if you think that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 1 there's some benefits for having the modifications to 2 Part 50, and other people see benefits of having all 3 together in Part 53, you try to accomplish both using 4 perhaps some of the same language, and have that as a 5 dual path that would be available to applicants.
6 MR. RECKLEY: Yes, I mean, we'll consider 7 anything. It just becomes more difficult. Like in 8 Part 53, if we have to start making decision boxes and 9 carrying it throughout the whole part of whether or 10 not you're using a single failure criterion, whether 11 or not you're analyzing beyond design basis events, it 12 becomes difficult.
13 And so it -- but that's the reason we're 14 asking for specifics in terms of what people are 15 thinking how them might approach this. If there's a 16 reference to you know, rev 1 of IAEA specific safety 17 requirements 2/1, I can go look at that and I can 18 figure out how to either apply it within Part 53, or 19 make adjustments to Part 53, or that's a case where 20 that's written a very traditional light water reactor 21 centric approach, it might be easier just to make sure 22 that that approach can be accommodated but it would be 23 accommodated within Part 50.
24 So again, as soon as people can be a 25 little more specific about what they're envisioning, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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100 1 then we can make the decisions about whether to try to 2 do it in Part 50 and Part 53, or as you suggested, 3 Part 50 and Part 53.
4 MR. DRAFFIN: Okay. So far, the US NIC's 5 theme is that 53 should be comprehensive, technology 6 inclusive, and would include both the PRA LMP type 7 approach, as well as deterministic. But we certainly 8 will, that's an ongoing dialog that we're all having, 9 so we'll be attentive to that.
10 MR. RECKLEY: Right. And I think, yes, I 11 mean, our intention is always to make it technology 12 inclusive, what we're getting down to is whether it's 13 methodology inclusive. And it can include all 14 possible methodologies.
15 And again, that's where we come down to 16 Part 50 is based on one traditional methodology, and 17 Part 53, as we originally envisioned it, was based on 18 the LMP type methodology. And both of them have their 19 strengths and their weaknesses.
20 But trying to address both of those which 21 are coming out a problem from different directions 22 within one rule, is a challenge. So --
23 MR. DRAFFIN: Okay. I have another 24 comment, but I suspect that Mark might have a comment 25 on this one. So I'll pause here and give Mark a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 1 chance, and then I'll come back.
2 MR. BEALL: Okay, Cyril. All right, Mark 3 Nichols?
4 MR. NICHOLS: Yes. Thanks. I did want to 5 weigh in on this discussion about risk informed 6 methods versus deterministic methods, and Part 53, for 7 one, and 50 and 52 is the only way for the other. And 8 should we expand this rulemaking to include a 9 rulemaking for 50 and 52.
10 So first, I want to say entertaining that 11 notion at all is ridiculous and a non-starter. I do 12 not believe it was Congress' intention to direct the 13 NRC to create a technology inclusive rule, and then 14 for the NRC to go create an exclusive rule, such that 15 they're now going to have to go back and revised Part 16 50 and 52, in order to be able to license advanced 17 reactors.
18 So I think we need to stop discussing the 19 potential for revising Part 50 and 52, which is not 20 possible on the -- to add to the current scope of the 21 Part 53 rulemaking and get it all done in time.
22 So where I think we need to be going is 23 looking at making Part 53 inclusive, and Bill, you 24 said it very well. It's inclusive from a technology 25 perspective. What we're debating is whether it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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102 1 inclusive from a methodology standpoint.
2 This gets to the next point, which is what 3 we're talking about are risk-informed opportunities, 4 or I should say alternatives, in Part 53. We're not 5 asking for any deterministic, strictly deterministic 6 methods. We're asking for alternative risk-informed 7 methods.
8 So we have LMP and TICAP, and we know that 9 those are going to work under Part 53 because Part 53 10 is being structured around them. That's great. We 11 want that. And we have, and industry is developing 12 more details on other approaches that might be used.
13 But you have two examples that you are 14 very familiar with that are risk-informed, that should 15 be allowable under Part 53, NuScale used a more 16 traditional, and Oklo used more of a master calendar.
17 Both used probabilistic risk assessments. Both 18 considered risk. And so both are risk-informed.
19 Are there degrees to which a PRA was used, 20 some more than others? Yes. Are there some people 21 that want to be able to use a non-quantitative risk 22 evaluation method? Yes. And we should discuss 23 whether those do fit or not in here.
24 Now so what we're talking about, we're 25 talking about all of these methods we want are risk-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 1 informed. So I want to make sure we're all clear and 2 agree on that.
3 The next point is that the NRC is working 4 on a graded approach to risk-informed, or a graded 5 approach to risk for Part 50, 53. You're working on a 6 paper, you've told us, we're very excited you're doing 7 that. We think that this is the right approach to go.
8 It'll answer all these questions, flush them out.
9 So I think the focus should be on that 10 effort to define this graded approach to risk. Now, 11 industry has pointed out that there are two 12 requirements the NRC still has that would be barriers 13 to a graded approach to risk-informed.
14 One is in the specific uses of PRA to 15 select LBE's, that sort of thing. And the other is 16 that the QA chose. What the NRC has told us is well, 17 those are required because if we don't have those, 18 we're not able to reduce burden in the operations 19 side. Wait until you see those requirements. We'll 20 show you the reduced burden, and we'll show you how 21 those depend on those requirements.
22 And so that's what we're waiting for. I 23 think that's the next discussion. So I won't make any 24 comments in that area. But I do think two very 25 important points. We should not be entertaining NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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104 1 having to revise Part 50 and 52 to be able to license 2 advanced reactors.
3 That is Part 53's responsibility and we 4 should not be calling these alternatives that we're 5 seeking deterministic. They are risk informed 6 alternatives that we're seeking. Thank you. And I 7 apologize for my passion.
8 MR. RECKLEY: No, thank you. We were --
9 we'll await the descriptions that you're mentioning of 10 these other approaches. So we'll wait and see. The -
11 - I do think in terms of some of the benefits, you 12 really have to go through. Some of them are subtle, 13 and you have to compare them of what you would get 14 using the risk-informed modernization project type 15 approach, versus a more traditional approach.
16 So we just went through some of the 17 configuration control things and the reduced number 18 expected to be, in terms of the safety related 19 equipment, and therefore, the reduced number of tech 20 specs.
21 But that's a subtle thing. You don't 22 necessarily see that in the requirements. You only --
23 that's an outgrowth of using the whole risk-informed 24 methodology that you're able, at the end of the day, 25 to have a reduced number of safety related equipment, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 1 and therefore, the controls.
2 So I would just caution, as you look, you 3 got to understand what you're looking for and 4 understand how the methodologies drive it, not just 5 the rule techs. Yes, there's still a requirement for 6 tech specs. So if you look at it and say you got no 7 relief, that's a premature jump.
8 You have to say what did the whole risk-9 informed methodology give me, and that, yes, I still 10 have tech specs, but there's fewer SSC's that are 11 controlled by tech specs. Therefore, I have more 12 operational flexibility because a larger fraction of 13 the plant is now being done under licensee programs 14 versus strict tech spec controls.
15 So again, I'll just ask you to look at it 16 in those contexts of if you're just looking at what 17 rules don't show up, you won't necessarily see the 18 relief. You have to carry through the whole 19 methodology and see how it would get reflected. But 20 I'll leave it there, and we can go back to additional 21 questions, or comments, or suggestions.
22 MR. BEALL: I think, Cyril, you had a, you 23 had some follow-on comments you'd like to make after 24 Mark was done?
25 MR. DRAFFIN: Yes. So I -- we concur with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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106 1 the desire and expectations that Part 53 will be 2 comprehensive for advanced reactors. And that 3 allowing these alternative approaches, which we've 4 mentioned in previous meetings, and which Mark 5 reiterated today in terms of what Oklo and NuScale, 6 and other risk-informed approaches are appropriate.
7 And locking into PRA language, and QHO 8 language, or -- may have to be changed, or should be 9 changed. There were discussions at the ACRS meeting 10 that they also support a graded approach for PRA, as 11 we do. And I think the NRC does. And that's -- that 12 could be helpful.
13 And there's also the questions that were 14 raised about QHO's and whether that was a strong of 15 case, was justified as some of the people -- staff had 16 mentioned yesterday.
17 So I do think that expanded thought on 18 PRA's, and not having that as a direct requirement may 19 be helpful, but it's -- we are still expecting the 20 Part 53 to be comprehensive, and I was asking whether, 21 in addition to that, you would consider modifying Part 22 50.
23 Might, a little, elaborate on tech specs 24 for us. You just mention that there would be less 25 equipment covered there. Can you quantify that in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 1 terms of you said that the tech specs would be similar 2 to previous parts. Do you have a sense of how long 3 they would be in terms of what the applicants require, 4 a quantitative assessment of the number of pieces of 5 equipment that would be required under tech specs, 6 under the approach that you're taking versus what's 7 been in the past?
8 It's kind of fuzzy in terms of these, the 9 relief you've referred to that keeps being, being 10 elusive. And so if the tech specs are one of the 11 aspects, could you elaborate in detail on that, and 12 what would be reduced from what the current load is?
13 MR. RECKLEY: Well, that -- it's going to 14 be design specific. I think there's plenty of history 15 if you want to look at either the tabletops that were 16 done for LMP, for example, or going back further than 17 that, if you want to look at the MHTGR submittals that 18 use similar risk-informed approaches and went through 19 the exercise, much as it is laid out here, of 20 identifying required safety functions.
21 And then smartly assessing what would be 22 the safety related function, safety related design 23 features to meet those functions. I think that 24 history exists in large part through that particular 25 history of MHTGR through NGNP, up through the tabletop NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 1 exercises for LMP.
2 But it would differ by, it would differ by 3 design. And the nice thing about it is a number of 4 different technologies went through that exercise. So 5 I'll just refer you to those references and the 6 reports on those tabletops for some of the initial 7 thinking on the number of safety related equipment.
8 And then a designer would just have to 9 look at, if you did it a different way, what would be 10 the associated number of safety related equipment, and 11 under this provision then, what would be the scope of 12 the tech specs.
13 MR. DRAFFIN: A little unclear still.
14 Okay. Thank you.
15 MR. BEALL: Okay, Steve Kraft, you have 16 your hand up. Steve? Hey, Bill, can you hear me?
17 MR. RECKLEY: I can hear you, Bob.
18 MR. BEALL: Okay. Steve's unmuted. Okay.
19 We'll wait for Steve to come on. Does anybody else 20 have any other questions or comments?
21 Okay, so we -- I guess we can come back to 22 Steve a little bit later on. So, Bill, I think we'll 23 go ahead and start on the next section of Subpart F.
24 MR. RECKLEY: Sure.
25 MR. BEALL: Which is Section 53.800, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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109 1 programs. So go ahead, Bill.
2 MR. RECKLEY: Okay. If we can go then --
3 so this is, again, we broke Subpart F into three 4 segments. Hardware, people, and programs. The next 5 series of slides and sections go to the programs part.
6 So go on to 33.
7 So the first one is, again, just an 8 overall assessment, overall requirement for each 9 licensee to do an assessment and determine what 10 programs are necessary when looking at design features 11 and human actions. What programs are needed to 12 support the safety criteria in 53.210 and 220?
13 Then going on to 34, we go into a 14 specific, start a specific list of programs. We're 15 still working with the subject matter experts within 16 the staff to kind of refine what these are. But we 17 wanted to capture what we think the programs would 18 need, which of those programs we understand well 19 enough now, that are going to be in here, and they're 20 fairly traditional.
21 I don't think there should be too much 22 surprise so a licensee under an operating license or a 23 COL, once they enter the operating phase, would be 24 expected to have a radiation protection program. That 25 is limiting the occupational exposures, in accordance NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 1 with Part 20.
2 And it's also setting up the program to 3 control and monitor effluents and that brings in what 4 has traditionally been under 50.36(a), and the 5 environmental tech specs, and we kept for now, just 6 because it's a familiar term, whether we continue to 7 use it, we can engage in these discussions. But the 8 role of the Offsite Dose Calculations Manual.
9 And this would also point back to what we 10 will later include in the reporting requirements in 11 terms of submittal of annual reports on effluent 12 releases.
13 So again, this is basically comparable to 14 existing requirements, bringing in a couple different 15 rules.
16 So with that, we can go on to 35. 35 is 17 the emergency preparedness program, emergency 18 planning. So this we understand, we didn't put much 19 text in here. There's a rulemaking in progress for 20 the emergency preparedness for small modular reactors 21 and other new technologies.
22 So the relationship of this program to 23 that rulemaking, and then it would tie into the 24 analysis section where the consequence assessments 25 from the unlikely and highly unlikely events would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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111 1 support the definition of the emergency planning zone, 2 for example.
3 Going on to 36. This is related to 4 security. So security programs would have to be 5 defined for protection of information, physical 6 security programs, cybersecurity programs, an access 7 authorization program, and material control and 8 accounting.
9 In addition, sometimes included within 10 this set, because of how our organization is set up, 11 is fitness for duty. We kind of have fitness for duty 12 under the middle segment associated with personnel, 13 but as we go forward, we're developing language for 14 these various sections now. Changes to fill out this 15 section within Part 53, and then related changes to 16 Part 73 for security, and Part 26 for fitness for 17 duty.
18 And our plans are to issue that 19 preliminary language and talk about that during the 20 next public meeting, or two, as people are able to 21 look at and digest that preliminary language.
22 So not in this version, not much text 23 there, just a placeholder, and that language will be 24 coming shortly.
25 So then moving on to Slide 37. This goes NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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112 1 somewhat to Mark's point. QA does show up in each 2 section, each subpart, because quality assurance is 3 important during all phases of operations, design, 4 construction, and operations.
5 So we can look once we see the 6 consolidated package put together whether it makes 7 sense to have it repeated, or as is being suggested, 8 maybe go to a cross-cutting format where some of this 9 would be put as an example into the -- something that 10 looks more like Appendix B, for Part 50.
11 But what we did was just look at the QA 12 program that would be supporting operations, and go 13 down through the various criterion to see which ones 14 of those apply, and included them in the list.
15 So going on to next slide. Again, Bob, 16 did you just want to continue through these and then 17 maybe take a break? And then open it up for 18 discussion?
19 MR. BEALL: Yes. Let's go ahead and 20 continue on. Okay?
21 MR. RECKLEY: Okay. So the next one, next 22 program that we put into Subpart F is something that, 23 at least for now, we named integrity assessment 24 program. And this is a program to make sure that 25 licensees during operation are looking for degradation NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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113 1 of equipment, and so a couple typical examples of that 2 are aging management.
3 The next bullet, it goes to the 4 traditional tech speck requirement to look for cyclic 5 or transient loads. Make sure you don't have fatigue 6 oriented failures.
7 And then the last bullet is to make sure 8 licensees are looking for and assessing degradation 9 related to chemical interactions, operating 10 temperatures, irradiation, or other factors. So this 11 would, for light water reactors, look somewhat like 12 the material control programs that were put in place, 13 for example, after the discovery of intergranular 14 stress corrosion cracking.
15 So basically, just a recognition that 16 programs need to be in place to look for that. That 17 might be an area that is especially important for 18 designs with less operating experience. And this 19 comes, again, down to one of these subtle areas that 20 you have to think through.
21 If we have a program in place where a 22 licensee during operation is needing to look for 23 degradation, and needing to take actions if it's 24 discovered, that may show up to you as a new 25 requirement. And it may be a new requirement.
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114 1 But what it can enable is during a 2 licensing review, to basically say we don't have 40 3 years of operating experience to tell you how 4 materials are going to degrade under these 5 environments, with these materials, with these 6 coolants, with this pipe. And that's okay because 7 53.850 will include a requirement to do inspections 8 and look for degradation, and it will be fixed if it's 9 found.
10 In the absence of this kind of program, a 11 designer might very well have to show that they've 12 done the testing, they've done the -- all of that is 13 needed to be done to predict 40 years of operation 14 under those environments. So again, I just, you 15 know, as you look at how we've tried to put this 16 together, don't look and say there's no equivalent 17 requirement in Part 50. Look and say here's a program 18 that's going to carry into operations in a performance 19 based approach.
20 And the alternative to this might be that 21 the designer or the applicant, in the very beginning, 22 needs to show that there's no degradation mechanism 23 that's going to occur over the 40 year of the plant, 24 which is a difficult task, given the operating 25 experience for some of these designs, some of these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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115 1 materials.
2 So let's go on to Slide 40. So fire 3 protection. This is an area that we just copied over 4 largely. We're currently engaged with our fire 5 protection folks to look not only at the program 6 during operations, but also the fact that in Subpart 7 C, we have some placeholders for fire protection, but 8 we didn't address fire protection probably enough in 9 Subpart C on design and analysis.
10 So when we come forth with some language 11 related to fire protection, it might affect both 12 Subparts C and F, given the input we're seeking from 13 our own experts. But for now, this looks much like 14 the requirements for fire protection programs for 15 existing plants.
16 Again, when you look at the scope, it's an 17 area where fire protection is able to take advantage 18 of the previous classifications of equipment and look, 19 and be -- we don't have to define a scope, we just are 20 going to use the safety related, and non-safety 21 related, but safety significant categories to apply to 22 the fire protection program.
23 So going on to 41. In service 24 inspections, in service testing requirements. These 25 are an area that is often taken care of through ASME NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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116 1 Section 11 type programs. But we would expect that 2 true reference to a consensus code or standard, or 3 otherwise that there's going to be programs to govern 4 in service inspection, in service testing for the 5 equipment.
6 So again, these were largely carried 7 through. We can look and see how some of these 8 programs and in particular, ISI and IST, might 9 interplay with some of the earlier parts of Subpart F 10 in terms of the need to do surveillances, and so 11 forth.
12 So there's a potential there may be some 13 overlap there. But for now, we just, we're trying to 14 have at least a placeholder here to make sure people 15 didn't forget that these type of inspections would 16 need to be done.
17 So if we go on then to 42. Criticality 18 Safety Program. This largely just points to the 19 requirements in Section 70.24, the special nuclear 20 materials regulations. We did put in the comment 21 table, or the -- that the existing requirement in 22 50.68 somewhat -- well, largely developed, for light 23 water reactors, gives some relief from 70.24, or 24 alternatives to 70.24, and was ask for people to look 25 at those two requirements.
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117 1 We currently, in this write up, just 2 reflect 70.24. It's the broader of the two. But if 3 you want us to look at 50.68, we could look to see if 4 that would be something that people wanted to -- for 5 us to incorporate. Kind of a built in acceptance of 6 an alternative for criticality safety.
7 Okay, going on to Slide 43. This is, we 8 had released the preliminary language for a facility 9 safety program back a few months ago. This is just 10 moving it into the program section. So renumbering 11 and moving it.
12 Some editorial changes to reflect some of 13 the other like numbering changes we did in Subpart B.
14 But otherwise, we didn't go very far in coming up with 15 a second iteration on the facility safety program. We 16 point out in the discussion table that some of the, 17 some of the impressions, I think, on the facility 18 safety program were based in, at least in part, on its 19 length and the level of detail we went into, and some 20 of the administrative parts of that program.
21 That's game for possibly looking at and 22 seeing if some of that administrative detail could be 23 taken out. Maybe addressed in guidance, documents, or 24 somewhere else.
25 We can continue to kind of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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118 1 philosophical discussion associated with having a 2 requirement for a facility safety program and how that 3 interfaces with other aspects of a more global 4 regulatory vision.
5 In my mind, this is one of those cases 6 where kind of philosophically, the industry's going to 7 have to kind of make some decisions on a overall 8 regulatory program that's based on compliance, where a 9 licensee says I'm safe because I comply, versus a more 10 performance based approach that includes things like 11 facility safety programs.
12 Where licensees are looking themselves and 13 deciding on whether improvements are warranted. Yes, 14 it's a new requirement. But it again, kind of goes to 15 the philosophy of if the NRC is making all the safety 16 decisions, then you have to accommodate NRC through 17 inspections and reporting requirements.
18 And everything that is needed for the NRC 19 to be the primary decision maker on what safety 20 improvements are needed. So again, kind of a 21 philosophical challenge.
22 If we go to 44. This just, yes, continues 23 the discussion on the performance criteria. This --
24 there was an attempt when we did the first iteration, 25 I think these criteria would have to be enhanced, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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119 1 look at them. They were trying to strike the balance 2 between making sure issues were assessed, and then a 3 higher threshold for when an action might actually be 4 taken.
5 So you need to have your inspection 6 threshold lower than your implementation threshold.
7 And so we were just trying to lay that out and using 8 something like five person-rem as a kind of starting 9 point, in that a problem would have to have offsite 10 consequences before any improvement measure would 11 actually be needed.
12 So if we go on then to slide 45. This is 13 just the, again, this is one of those areas where a 14 lot of administrative detail on how this was laid out.
15 That was because we basically modeled it after another 16 agency's requirements in the transportation sector.
17 But this might be an area where we can 18 take out detail from the rule, and then guidance 19 document, or even a template for a program might be 20 developed. We could talk about that in a future 21 discussion.
22 So going on to 46. This was just laid out 23 under that section that the FS -- the Facility Safety 24 Program would be part of an application, would be 25 approved by the NRC. And that's also an interesting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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120 1 area for discussion because it goes to historically, 2 most of the programs that were listed in the previous 3 slides fall into that same category, as being part of 4 applications and part of NRC approvals.
5 So that's kind of where we were starting 6 from. But it -- especially as we go forward and start 7 talking about Subpart H on the licensing, it might be 8 an area that we can elaborate on and discuss the 9 existence of the programs, and whether there might, in 10 those areas, also be maybe a performance based 11 approach where the level of review of those programs 12 at the application stage can be discussed.
13 Again, we're just starting to write 14 Subpart H, but that will be part of the discussion as 15 we go forward.
16 So then going on to slide 47, the last of 17 the programs, is procedures and guidelines and this is 18 intended to capture what's often put in the 19 administrative section of tech specs, or yes, section 20 of -- Section 5 of tech specs, Chapter 5. That there 21 needs to be a program for procedures and one of the 22 things we can discuss is the inclusion of guidelines.
23 Especially after Fukushima, it came under, 24 you know, a lot of review and discussions. For 25 example, how to do spare accident management NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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121 1 guidelines, extreme damage mitigation guidelines. And 2 so I included them in this section, that they needed 3 to exist, but we would have to work out through 4 guidance and discussions the treatment of various 5 procedures and guidelines.
6 So I really hadn't intended to change the 7 structure through this program requirement, only that 8 this was a place to capture -- one of the Fukushima 9 insights was that, you know, you should have an 10 integrated set and there should be logical connections 11 from plant operations and obviously, maintenance that 12 we already talked about.
13 But then from plant operations down to 14 emergency operating procedures, and if necessary, 15 accident management guidelines. So that was the 16 purpose of include procedures and guidance in Subpart 17 F. Again, largely this might, if you were looking for 18 the equivalent to this, they would be largely in tech 19 specs currently.
20 So with that, I think that goes through 21 that part of Subpart F, the programs part. So 48 is a 22 discussion slide. Bob, if you want to --
23 MR. BEALL: Yes, okay. So we've gone 24 through the two sections now in Subpart F. So does 25 anybody have any questions or comments about the one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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122 1 we just went over, the 53.800 programs? Hey, Mark, 2 you can go ahead.
3 MR. NICHOLS: Okay. I was actually going 4 to suggest, because Steve Kraft wanted to talk about 5 his comment on 700. Did you want to go back to him 6 before we get into 800?
7 MR. KRAFT: I assume I'm on.
8 MR. BEALL: Yes, you're on, Steve.
9 MR. KRAFT: I guess I am if you're 10 laughing, Bob. Thanks.
11 MR. NICHOLS: Hey, Mark.
12 MR. KRAFT: Hey.
13 MR. BEALL: Go ahead.
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MR. KRAFT: I'm sorry, but I had a bit of 16 a headset issue here and there are too many switches 17 you have to throw. Going back to -- sorry for the 18 prompt.
19 So one point Mark made, that I want to 20 just sort of elaborate on, a little bit of history, is 21 when you write a paragraph, I don't care if it's for a 22 regulation, or a business letter, or something else, 23 and then you want to say, well, I want to use that 24 paragraph from this other document.
25 How many times have you done that? And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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123 1 you translate it over, and you look at it and say, 2 well, not I got to modify it because the text is, the 3 context is wrong, the language is wrong, the --
4 sometimes they got to alter grammar. And that's often 5 just the artifact of the English language.
6 The problem is when you do it in a 7 regulation, where every single word, every comma, I 8 mean we've argued over punctuation in regulations and 9 guidelines. Because they had -- all these things mean 10 something. Then inevitably, there are going to be 11 changes that then serve to confuse. Even when not 12 intended to.
13 And then, of course, we've all had 14 experiences where, well, there was an order, and now 15 that order, you want to make it part of a rule, but to 16 make the order part of the rule, you got to really 17 change it and then, of course, things have moved on, 18 people think a little differently.
19 So you get concerned that, well, wait a 20 minute, which really applies. And I think Mark's got 21 it right that 53 needs to be inclusive, and if there 22 are enough applicants, Bill, that want to go back to 23 the original, you know, deterministic methodology, 24 then, well, then you're going to have to see if you 25 can't accommodate that in 53, and not attempt to just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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124 1 do something that's more confusing.
2 Okay, going to the other point, Mark 3 raised an issue about increased burden in the 4 operating requirements. And Bill's answer, and Bill, 5 I don't mean to personalize it but just referring to 6 what you said, that, well, wait, you can't make that 7 judgment now about increased burden, because you have 8 to see this other section. It was about tech specs, 9 but generally speaking.
10 Asking the industry to bet on to come 11 there's going to be something else that when added all 12 up, it's going to say, hey, it's all good. I think 13 that's really asking too much and I'll tell you why.
14 What will happen if the section Mark was questioning 15 remains exactly the way it is now.
16 And then when this next stuff comes out, 17 it's -- together it doesn't do what was expected.
18 Then what happens. Then, well, wait a minute. Why 19 did it get written, why does the second part get 20 written that way? Well, because you said what you 21 said in the first part. So then the question is, is 22 the industry going to have to then argue, hold the 23 phone, let's go back to the original part and then 24 work on rewriting that part.
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125 1 tail, and there's no maliciousness involved in any of 2 this. It's just a matter of how these processes work.
3 So I just kind of make the point that I think that, 4 you know, Bill, my experience with you has always been 5 one that you're gracious and open for comment, and 6 it's an observation that ACRS made yesterday, I'm sure 7 you heard it.
8 And I think that that's what you're trying 9 to do here. And I think that -- you'll agree, honest 10 people can agree to disagree, and I think that you 11 need to be sensitive to the fact that it's going to --
12 people are trying to, I don't want to say guess, but 13 as you know, the industry hangs on every single word 14 the NRC staff says.
15 Translates it, interprets it, they even 16 litigate it at times. And so why get into that mess 17 now. So I just, I think that Mark's got a good point.
18 So even if you came up with some draft ideas as to 19 what you're going to do, it might -- I don't know how 20 to solve the problem. Mark, I'll leave it to you to 21 try to work out with Bill how that problem gets 22 solved.
23 I've seen it, Bill, you and I go back so 24 many decades in this business. We've seen it happen 25 before and so why not plan for it now. Bob, thank NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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126 1 you, I appreciate your forbearance.
2 MR. BEALL: No problem, Steve. Thank you.
3 MR. RECKLEY: Thanks Steve. One of the, 4 just a quick reply if I can, that, you know, what 5 we're trying to do here, the novel approach, and this, 6 you know, this was reflected in SRM for this 7 rulemaking plan, and what we've been trying to do is 8 to put out the preliminary language and then work on 9 iterations.
10 And so you know, this is a novel approach 11 where you guys are seeing, you being every 12 stakeholder, ACRS and everybody, are basically seeing 13 our first drafts. Okay? And so as we're looking at 14 this as an 80/20 kind of thing, yes, we're generally 15 okay with this concept, or this concept is far enough 16 to run up the flagpole and see what the reaction is.
17 That's the mode we're in. So hopefully 18 you don't see us digging in our heels too much. We 19 are putting out by and large, first draft stuff, to 20 see what feedback we get from stakeholders and to some 21 degree, you're seeing it at the same time as some of 22 the internal stakeholders, like I mentioned, some of 23 the subject matter experts are still engaged in 24 providing us with input on some of these programs.
25 So that, you know, just leave it at that.
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127 1 So take it back, Mark.
2 MR. NICHOLS: Thank you, appreciate that, 3 Steve and Bill. I'll probably touch a little bit on 4 that in my comments. First, I just want to start with 5 some simple ones. First, 53.800 and 810, I just 6 wanted to point to those.
7 I made a previous comment about 8 duplicating requirements, the purpose requirement, 9 that sort of thing. So just wanted to make sure to 10 point out that those fall within that previous 11 comment. I don't know want to belabor it anymore, so 12 I won't go into more detail than that.
13 I wanted to touch on a question you had, 14 Bill, related to 53.880, criticality safety program.
15 And you have a reference to 70.24. So I have some 16 experience in criticality calculations and meeting 17 those requirements. My recollection of the history is 18 70.24 was prescriptive, difficult to meet, that's why 19 people started to go to -- they actually took 20 exemptions from that and did establish their own 21 performance criteria of a specific k- effective value 22 and that eventually made it into 50.68.
23 So that's experience where, yes, 70.24 24 didn't really work very well. 50.68 really was 25 performance based and worked better. Now, we may need NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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128 1 a more technology inclusive version of 50.68, but I 2 think we should start out thinking about what that is, 3 rather than asking our self, you know, trying to get 4 stuck with 70.24 and evaluating whether that's good 5 enough.
6 I think industry experience has been that 7 that requirement itself was really difficult to meet.
8 With that, now I want to go into -- this will be a 9 long, probably a longer discussion. It will probably 10 hit on what Steve, you, and Bill had talked about.
11 And I'll start first with the Facility Safety Program 12 and just actually respond to your question, Bill, or 13 your challenge.
14 And the way I think you had phrased it is 15 industry needs to decide if we want to have more 16 ownership and control, and a performance based meeting 17 of the requirements rather than a compliance mindset.
18 The answer is absolutely. We want performance base, 19 we want more control, we would like to get rid of this 20 strict compliance.
21 You know, the whole LMP and TICAP, 22 affirmative safety case, and everything we're doing 23 about the issue of applicability of non-LWR 24 requirements. We absolutely want to get to that.
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129 1 of the way to do that, we're open to entertaining it.
2 Now, we will say that, you know, we're not ready to 3 endorse it. We're not ready to reject it. We're just 4 interested in having the conversation.
5 But I think, and this starts to hit on 6 what Steve had said, is our decision on whether we 7 like this program is not based on whether we want to 8 be more performance based, and have more ownership and 9 control. It's whether the NRC would actually agree 10 and move in that direction themselves.
11 And that's where we're skeptical of 12 whether the NRC actually would do that or not. So the 13 Facility Safety Program, and the concept of, okay, we 14 have more control, the NRC has, you know, more 15 assurance in our control. There's less oversight and 16 inspection. There's less sort of in the design and 17 review.
18 It all depends on the NRC and 19 specifically, the staff that are involved in those 20 activities, relinquishing some of their control to 21 industry, and all of our history has suggested that 22 the NRC does not want to do that. In fact, they want 23 to go the other way. Whether it's in reviews, and the 24 NRC has no expectations, wants more information in the 25 application, wants to review more of the calcs than NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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130 1 they ever have.
2 You know, these recent applications are 3 the biggest applications the -- that we've ever had on 4 designs that are much simpler and safer. So the NRC's 5 tendency is to be more intrusive in industry, not less 6 intrusive, even as we're moving into greater margins 7 of safety.
8 So that's where our skepticism comes from.
9 Will the NRC ever actually implement these, and it 10 gets to, you know, you're sort of promising us this.
11 We need to see it in the requirements, that says this 12 is under the control of industry. This is where the 13 NRC's jurisdiction stops. And it needs to be there.
14 We can't, as Steve pointed out, we can't 15 just sort of take a hope and a prayer that you're 16 going to do, you're going to implement this in 17 individual reviews and oversights. We know how that 18 movie goes, and it doesn't go well for us.
19 So that's sort of the predicated -- I 20 would ask that you not try and put the decision on 21 whether this different philosophical approach is what 22 industry wants or not. I would ask that you ask 23 whether it's what the agency could move to or not. I 24 think that's really the central question to the issue.
25 I do now want to turn toward the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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131 1 conversation, and I'm just going to go back. So we're 2 looking at this rule as whether there are benefits and 3 efficiency. Is it more flexible? Does it have 4 reduced regulatory burden? So the conversations we 5 had around Subpart B and C, industry had pointed out 6 here's more burden, here's more burden, here's more 7 burden. Whether it's, you know, complicated two-tier 8 structure, which adds its own burden, whether it's 9 more prescription and detail, which adds its own 10 burden, whether it's new requirements to design 11 according to ALARA, which adds its own burden.
12 There's burden everywhere and the NRC's 13 message to us was well, wait a second, don't make 14 judgments yet. Wait to see what's to come because 15 operations is going to be less burden, and in order to 16 get that less burden, those operational requirements, 17 you need to have these more burdensome requirements in 18 Subpart B and C.
19 So we said okay, we'll wait and see. This 20 was the meeting to see if the Facility Safety Program 21 is a huge increase in burden. Now, it's a starting 22 point. We could modify it. We could get it to a 23 point to where it's a net decrease in burden, but 24 right now, it's a huge increase in burden.
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132 1 Safety Program, we had asked the NRC, presented a long 2 time ago, I forget if it was January. And we had 3 asked, well, we're not making a judgment yet. Some 4 people in the meeting did. They were outright against 5 it. We didn't make any decision on it. But we asked.
6 Could you please show us where industry's burden is 7 being reduced, because we don't see it, or we can't 8 understand where it might be?
9 And could you go through a couple of 10 examples of past issues and how they ran through the 11 Part 50 process, and how they would run through this 12 facility safety program, Part 53 process, to show how 13 this Facility Safety Program is much more efficient 14 than the way we do it under Part 50.
15 I will admit, I'm very disappointed that 16 the NRC did not present that because it's left us with 17 the only information we have, which is this is a much 18 more burdensome program.
19 You then combine it with a lot of the 20 other operational programs, and I debate whether I 21 should go through each one of these individually or 22 not. But what we're left with is Subparts B and C, 23 increase burden. Subparts F, increase burden.
24 And so from an industry perspective, we 25 have to ask ourselves, the NRC, and even in this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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133 1 meeting, has said well, don't focus on these new 2 requirements that add burden. Don't focus on all this 3 additional burden we're putting on you in Part 53, 4 look very closely because there's nuances in there 5 that's going to reduce the burden.
6 And we're looking, we're looking pretty 7 hard. And we found some reduction in burden.
8 Absolutely. Now, number one, there's a reduction in 9 burden because it's technology inclusive. You've 10 taken out all of the light water reactor specific 11 requirements. We don't have to worry about them.
12 You put in technology inclusive 13 equivalents. That's how we assure the safety. We 14 supported those. But the only difference in burden, 15 keep in mind, it's not that you're not meeting the 16 function of those requirements, we just don't have to 17 seek exemptions. So that's the burden.
18 That's much less decrease in burden than 19 actually not having to meet the requirements. So 20 there is a burden reduction, but just a little, in not 21 having to seek exemptions.
22 There is also burden reduction 23 specifically in what you propose for tech specs and 24 in-service inspections. So that's a great benefit.
25 We appreciate those. They're far outweighed by the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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134 1 increased burden that the NRC is proposing.
2 Actually, I will go back to one of those 3 and that's the Integrity Assessment Program, which is 4 new. It's essentially an agent management program 5 that Part 50 and 52 would not have from day one. They 6 would have it during license renewal.
7 I know you mentioned that, hey, it's 8 actually replacing these other things. But if you go 9 look at, I think it's 53.440, there's a requirement 10 there that, no, you actually have to design these for 11 the lifetime of the plant and the service conditions.
12 You're not actually getting rid of that.
13 We already have duplicate requirements, or 14 you know, requirements that you're referencing getting 15 rid of, in service inspection, and maintenance, and 16 all that. So we really don't see the reductions that 17 you're claiming there. I would just point that out.
18 So when I look at that, and I understand 19 when you're talking about well, the reduced burden in 20 Part 53, a lot of it is attributable to how you might 21 use the PRA. And I think most people would agree that 22 you use a PRA, you know, you don't need a PRA to be 23 safe. You can be safe without a PRA.
24 But what you can do with a PRA is you can 25 reduce the sort of burden that you have in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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135 1 demonstrating your safety case. And certainly that's 2 what LMP and TICAP can do, is you use PRA in a very, 3 very modern way. And by doing that, you can eliminate 4 a lot of burden because you're taking a lot of 5 components, SSC's out of safety related, moving them 6 into this risk category and the treatment of that is a 7 little bit less burdensome.
8 So what I would say is a lot of the burden 9 reduction that we're seeing is more attributable to 10 the methodology used, LMP versus a traditional NuScale 11 approach, or something else, which gets us to the 12 question, well, do you actually need those 13 requirements in Subpart B and C, and everywhere else 14 to be able to achieve that reduction that you're 15 getting with LMP.
16 And my assessment would be no. Most of 17 that burden reduction that comes with LMP, I can 18 achieve under 50 and 52, just as well as I can achieve 19 it under Part 53. The NRC's really not done anything 20 different in Part 53, or has not done anything in Part 21 53 that could not be done under Part 52.
22 There is the not needing to take 23 exemptions, to many requirements. That's one.
24 There's the Facility Safety Program, which as I said, 25 today is an increase in burden. Not a decrease, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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136 1 although that could change.
2 And then there are some things going on 3 with manufacturing license that's going to be 4 different. Other than that, I can do everything under 5 50 and 52, is what's being developed under Part 53, 6 and so we really need to ask ourselves the question, 7 and I'll just sort of summarize where I think we are 8 with the Part 53 proposal that the NRC has come out 9 with, is a rule that is less flexible, more 10 burdensome, and does not have any enhancements to 11 safety as compared to 50 and 52.
12 And is that really where we want to be? I 13 don't think the answer is yes. And industry has, 14 along the way, tried to tell you where we think you 15 can make improvements. We've been -- we are very 16 consistent with you at high level concepts, in terms 17 of what this rule is trying to do.
18 We have a lot of concepts at the high 19 level in common. It's where you get to the details, 20 where our vision would lead to less burden, and what 21 we're seeing from the NRC is leading to more burden.
22 And that's where the real challenge for us is coming 23 from.
24 And so you know, I really don't know what 25 the next step is from here. We've proposed in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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137 1 past modifications to Subpart B and C. I do really 2 appreciate that the NRC is looking at this graded 3 approach to risk-informed. I think that's going to be 4 very, very fruitful.
5 But a lot of our other comments were not 6 accepted, and a lot of our comments related to burden 7 that are applicable, whether you use an LMP approach, 8 or use another approach. I mean it's burden to 9 everybody.
10 And so I am still very concerned that this 11 rule is really not headed in the right direction. We 12 did wait and see, to see what you would deliver on 13 programs, to see if there was a reduction of burden.
14 And unfortunately, you didn't deliver what you've been 15 promising.
16 So anyway, I appreciate your listening to 17 our comments.
18 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thanks, Mark. Does 19 anybody else have any more comments on the -- this 20 part of Subpart F, or even the other part? Cyril, go 21 ahead please.
22 MR. DRAFFIN: Yes, this is Cyril Draffin 23 of the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council. And I'd like to 24 reiterate what was just raised by Mark. We also have 25 the same concerns over the language. We agree at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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138 1 high-level concepts. I think what the NRC has 2 presented in their slides and their discussions, and 3 what we've heard from the Commissioners is all 4 positive.
5 And there's coherence there and agreement.
6 But when it gets down to language, there's a reference 7 to seeing the first draft. Well, now it's the second 8 draft. We've seen the second draft of B and C. We've 9 seen the second draft of Facility Safety Program, and 10 there's basically no change.
11 And so we're left with the same reaction, 12 at least the developers that I've talked to, that this 13 is very disappointing. This is not transformational.
14 This is just kind of repackaging previous 15 requirements, and adding burden.
16 And so as Mark articulated in Subpart B, 17 we've seen defense of depth, we've seen ALARA, we've 18 seen two-tier, which was not supported by ACRS either, 19 added. And therefore, that's a concern.
20 Same thing with the Facility Safety 21 Program, and the Integrated Integrity Program. It's 22 just additional things to do, and there hasn't -- and 23 the question of where's the benefit and will NRC staff 24 accept that in the reviews later, is unclear.
25 And the comment that was made, look at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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139 1 tabletop, there's some improvement there, but as Mark 2 articulated that unless it's -- the regulations are 3 saying because, if you do these things, then you don't 4 have to do this. This won't be required in the 5 review, unless that's in the regulations. There's 6 really lack of clarity of what the benefits are.
7 So I think we share that from the industry 8 side as being concerned on whether this part, Part 53, 9 will actually be useful and used based on the current 10 status and the kind of accretion of requirements, and 11 not the clarity of where the advantage is going to be.
12 So I'll pause there and you know, see if 13 there's any particular reactions that the staff has.
14 MR. RECKLEY: Well, my only, I guess 15 comment to both observations is from our perspective, 16 it would be more useful for you to come back and say 17 why a requirement is not needed for safety than it is 18 to say it's less efficient or, hopefully, those would 19 come together at some point as to what is needed for 20 safety.
21 So to look at a degradation, the Integrity 22 Assessment Program, and say it's a new requirement, I 23 admit it, it's a new -- there's aspects of it that's a 24 new requirement. But why is looking for degradation 25 not needed to support safety decisions and safe NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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140 1 operation.
2 And so it's not the objective, totally, 3 but we're trying to reach this compromise. We would 4 like this to be more efficient. But in the end, it 5 also has to ensure safety throughout the whole 6 lifecycle of the facility.
7 The advanced reactor policy statement 8 foresaw that improvements in the design would support 9 operational flexibilities, and some of those we've 10 talked about in the past. Some, we'll talk about as 11 we get into staffing. I think that might be an area 12 where it shows up as well.
13 But think about what that says. That does 14 increase the burden on the design side. The thought 15 was that design improvements would support less 16 reliance on human actions. It would require less 17 activities to correct design deficiencies in the 18 operating space, and in the design space.
19 So as you're looking at it, again, I would 20 just encourage you not only to say this is a new 21 requirement, or it's the same requirement, the reason 22 there's so many same requirements is Part 50 evolved 23 over decades to address design and operational issues 24 that were needed to be addressed to ensure public 25 health and safety.
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141 1 So that's the bottom line. That's the 2 bottom line for us. So just keep that in mind as 3 you're making comments.
4 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thanks, Bill. Jeff 5 Merrifield, you have your hand up?
6 MR. MERRIFIELD: Yes. Thank you very 7 much. I don't want to plow the ground that was so 8 well plowed by Mark and Cyril, I would say a couple of 9 additional -- I'd reinforce one thing, and I'd say 10 something additionally.
11 The additional thing is I hear what you 12 said, Bill. There are -- you're philosophy isn't to 13 instill (audio interference). When it sort of raises 14 the bar on the advanced reactor developer, but the 15 benefit is going (audio interference) down the line 16 during operations.
17 The purpose, as I see at NEIMA, in a 18 Congress, and all the money that has been thrown at 19 the NRC to repair its advanced reactor applications 20 was to accelerate consistent with providing public 21 health and safety, the deployment of these advanced 22 reactor technologies.
23 Part 53, as envisioned by the staff, fails 24 to do that. As the -- the way you're going, the 25 recommendations I would certainly make to my clients, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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142 1 is let's stick with Part 50 and 52. And as a result, 2 if we keep going down this road and the way it's 3 going, this rule will not be used, nor will it be 4 useful.
5 And nor will it meet the intent of what 6 Congress, and I believe the commission bought into, in 7 trying to move this forward. So I understand the 8 philosophy behind it. But it's not going to achieve 9 the goal which would be to enable the deployment of 10 these designs, without all of those bells and whistles 11 that are currently included in Parts 50 and 52, that 12 aren't applicable to advanced reactors.
13 So you know, at this point, we may be pens 14 down, and our view may be that it's just not worth our 15 putting continued resources, as an industry, which are 16 limited, into an effort that right now, absent change, 17 is likely to fail.
18 And I say that with a heavy heart because 19 having worked at the NRC for almost nine years, and 20 knowing the people involved, I know all of you who are 21 working on this at NRC, are doing so in an earnest, 22 thoughtful, and certainly feel you're doing the right 23 thing.
24 But there is a fundamental, in my view, 25 there's a fundamental misalignment, and we are not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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143 1 going to get to an end goal, and I don't think 2 Congress is going to get its wishes fulfilled. Thank 3 you.
4 MR. BEALL: Okay, thank you, Jeff. Steve 5 Kraft, you have your hand up?
6 MR. KRAFT: I did. Thanks, Bob. I have a 7 specific question. It's about security, 53.830. The 8 discussion table describes, of course, the language is 9 a work in progress, but apparently all the language is 10 a work in progress here.
11 The explanation says, and I'm reading it, 12 the proposal for Part 53 will build on the consequence 13 based approach developed for the limited scope 14 rulemaking over, you know, security space.
15 Okay. Why did it have to build on it?
16 Isn't that rulemaking self-contained? I mean, it is 17 what it is. Why doesn't the rule just point and say, 18 over there. And if over there doesn't cover all the 19 things you have to cover, then you can write language.
20 But reading this list, MC&A, access 21 authorization, physical security, it's all covered 22 someplace else. And I think it was towards the end of 23 last year, in one of these meetings, I just asked how 24 would Part 53 cover security, and the answer was 25 holistically.
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144 1 I didn't know quite what that meant at the 2 time. And this is confusing me even more. So I'm 3 just wondering, again, taking into -- Bill, forgive me 4 for not jumping on you, I think everyone is -- you got 5 the point.
6 And the views are felt very, very 7 sincerely. But this is a specific example that I 8 think you need to rethink this, whether or not you 9 actually have to say anything, other than look over 10 there.
11 I understand your point. Jordan made a 12 point at the very top of the meeting about how where's 13 there's a Part 50 thing, rather than say, okay, we're 14 going to -- we're just going to say go over and look 15 at Part 50, but we don't want -- I got that. Because 16 Part 50 is a wholly different animal, as you 17 described.
18 But that new section of 73 is specifically 19 for these plants. So why wouldn't you just say, over 20 there? That's my point. I think you'd avoid a lot of 21 trouble. Thanks.
22 MR. RECKLEY: Yes, the only thinking is 23 that the limited scope rulemaking is exactly what the 24 title implies, limited scope.
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145 1 couple of items, like the number of armed responders, 2 whereas the thought was this was an opportunity to 3 look broader than that, and maybe clarify some of the 4 language in Part 73.
5 So again, it's kind of hard to explain.
6 It will be, hopefully, more plain when you see the 7 language that comes out in a few weeks.
8 MR. KRAFT: Well, sure but you said 9 something that made me think. That the rule, the 10 limited scope rulemaking doesn't just say you can have 11 fewer armed responders, and just that's it. It says 12 you can have fewer armed responders, because you've 13 done this other stuff in plant design.
14 So to me, the answer is that other 15 sections of 53 will have requirements for plant design 16 that go into 73, if you did those, that you can -- it 17 isn't just a give-me. It isn't just a giveaway on the 18 number of armed responders. There's reasons for it.
19 And that so -- and then but you just said 20 that would clarify. Really? I'm sorry, Bill. It 21 sounds like 53.830 will be guidance on how you meet 22 that part of 73. That doesn't -- it's going to have 23 its own guidance.
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146 1 is just, seems to me is going to lead to a heck of a 2 lot of confusions.
3 MR. RECKLEY: Go ahead, Nan.
4 MS VALLIERE: Yes, Steve, this is Nan 5 Valliere. I'm also on the working group for the 6 physical security limited scope rulemaking. So I just 7 wanted to say, you're right, it does address more than 8 just the number of armed responders, but there is a 9 limited list of the specific physical security 10 requirements that are being -- that alternatives are 11 being developed for under the limited scope rule.
12 Recall that when the commission approved 13 that rule, the staff offered the commission several 14 options. One of which was a full scope redo of 15 security for advanced reactors, and one of which was 16 the limited scope version. The commission approved 17 that the limited scope version, and there are some, 18 you know, limitations within that approval, that the 19 staff is working within in the limited scope rule.
20 So it can go, it can go further. The 21 alternatives could go further, and in Part 53, I think 22 you will see next month that the security requirements 23 that are going to be presented, build off of what's 24 being done in the limited scope rule, but provide 25 more.
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147 1 And it, in large part, requirements will 2 stay in 73, and will be pointed to, but there will be 3 some additions proposed for Part 73.
4 MR. KRAFT: Okay. Thanks, Nan.
5 MR. BEALL: Okay. Ed Lyman, you have your 6 hand up from USC -- UCS.
7 MR. LYMAN: Hello, yes. Can you hear me?
8 MR. BEALL: Yes, I can hear you, Ed. Go 9 ahead.
10 MR. LYMAN: So you know, I've been 11 listening to this dialog, you know, I think nothing 12 really surprises me anymore, but the tone of the 13 industry participants, I feel, is extremely offensive.
14 And maybe they need a reminder that they don't own the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
16 In fact, they're only one stakeholder in 17 this process. The NRC's obligation is adequate 18 protection of public health and safety. And there's 19 no obligation to reduce regulatory burden at all.
20 But in that context, and heaven knows that 21 I am often at odds with the NRC staff, I think they've 22 done an incredible job trying to negotiate this mine 23 field here, and maintain an intellectually consistent 24 process that maintains the current level of safety, 25 which is their obligation.
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148 1 And it's really disheartening to see this 2 kind of dialog going on. And frankly, I'm not sure if 3 there's any point to have these meetings anymore. I 4 don't see why these staff should not simply revert to 5 the normal process of notice and comment rulemaking, 6 develop your proposed rule, put it out for public 7 comment, go through one round, you know, industry will 8 comment, we'll comment, other stakeholders will 9 respond to those comments.
10 Finalize the draft, send it to the 11 commission. You don't need to endure this because I 12 don't think the industry is participating in good 13 faith. They're engaged in a nihilistic effort to tear 14 everything down, and build a structure on a house of 15 cards, based on a false notion that somehow the NRC 16 should just lie down and accept the fact that anything 17 that the industry claims is an advanced reactor, 18 doesn't need the same level of review as any other 19 reactor.
20 And there's a less, a weaker burden of 21 proof to show the outrageous claims that are being 22 made for some of these designs. And frankly, I mean 23 there has to be greater, if you're not meeting 24 deterministic requirements, you -- there is a greater 25 burden to show, you know, this is in performance based NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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149 1 space, you have a greater burden to demonstrate.
2 So fine. If you don't want Part 53 risk-3 informed, use Part 52, but I mean, I don't see why the 4 staff should continue to take this abuse anymore. I 5 don't think it's fair, and it's a waste of a lot of 6 people's time. Thank you.
7 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you, Ed.
8 MR. SHAMS: Thank you, Ed. Bob, can I 9 speak for a minute, if that's okay with you?
10 MR. BEALL: Sure.
11 MR. SHAMS: That's Mo Shams.
12 MR. BEALL: Yes.
13 MR. SHAMS: NRC.
14 MR. BEALL: Go ahead, Mo.
15 MR. SHAMS: Thanks, Bob. Thanks for the 16 opportunity. And Ed, thank you. We appreciate your 17 kind words for the staff. And I also appreciate, 18 actually, the industry's words and the dialog, and the 19 questions, and the comments, you know, however stern 20 they were to us.
21 But at this point, we're working extremely 22 hard, and the staff is, and I'm proud of what the 23 staff is doing to try to build a rule that balances 24 all the needs and the designers, and ultimately 25 deliver a safe framework for these advanced reactors.
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150 1 And I think we will continue to hold these 2 meetings, and we will continue to seek your feedback, 3 but the process that we've collectively invented here 4 is one of, as you indicate here, providing feedback, 5 addressing some of it, not addressing other parts, 6 because there are reasons for that. Improving, not 7 having the entire picture all at one time, therefore 8 you feel, you know, that you're missing parts of the 9 picture.
10 So I want to continue to indicate that we 11 value your feedback. We value your input. But you 12 know, to Ed's point, there are diverse views. There 13 are several stakeholders, and at the end of the day, 14 we're an independent agency that's going to have to 15 put out a set of rules that are delivering safety to 16 the American public.
17 So we appreciate your input. We're going 18 to continue to seek it. We're going to continue to 19 seek your views and build on them. And we ultimately 20 hope to get to the place where everyone sees that 21 their views were valued and reflected in what we're 22 offering. Thanks Bob.
23 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you very much, 24 Mo. Is there any other people that can make a 25 comment, please? Please raise your hand.
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151 1 MR. NICHOLS: Bob, this is Mark Nichols, 2 but I see Tammy had her hand up before me.
3 MR. BEALL: Okay. Okay, Tammy, go ahead.
4 MS. MORIN: Thank you, Mark. And thank 5 you for letting me have the time to just say something 6 pretty quickly. It just seems from the reading of the 7 rule language right now, is that we're trying to 8 encompass all of the aspects from -- that's evolved 9 over the last six decades of working with large light 10 water reactors. And I think Bill kind of touched on 11 that a little bit.
12 But what's not coming out is that, in the 13 rule, is that there isn't a way to alleviate any of 14 these programs, and other aspects, based on the safety 15 of the plant. And maybe that's going to come later, 16 but right now, it's not showing up as being apparent.
17 There's no way to say, you know, Congress 18 says we need to be at least as safe as the large light 19 water reactors. These plants are a lot safer, just 20 generally, by their inherent safety, and yet, but 21 there doesn't seem to be a way to say if you meet X, 22 Y, and Z, then you won't have to do this program.
23 But maybe that will come somewhere else in 24 the contents. That's where I feel like we're missing 25 something. It's just not apparent how you're going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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152 1 demonstrate that you're, that -- maybe I'm not really 2 sure how to articulate it. But how you can 3 demonstrate that these programs are not necessary for 4 you because of X, Y, and Z.
5 It's just like it's going to be a program, 6 and you have to have it, and part of, you know, these 7 smaller plants, you know, small light water reactors, 8 the micros, the -- and things like that, is that we're 9 trying to alleviate burden because of staffing and 10 items like that.
11 These programs take up lots of people's 12 time too. So we're trying to figure out if this makes 13 sense for us because it does seem to be increasing 14 burden on plants that are inherently more safe. So 15 thank you for letting me have my comment.
16 MR. BEALL: Okay, thank you, Tammy. Go 17 ahead Mark.
18 MR. NICHOLS: Oh, thanks. I see Mike 19 Mayfield had his hand up, but it kept getting lowered 20 down. I wonder if Mike wanted to go before me.
21 MR. MAYFIELD: Thank you, Mark. What I 22 have is actually a fairly, I hope, simple question.
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153 1 Program, 53.870 requires an ISI, IST program, and then 2 53.890 requires this Facility Safety Program.
3 What's not clear to me is how these will 4 fit together, and why they don't become duplicative 5 requirements. It's just not clear how you guys see 6 that all going together, and I was hoping, Bill, you 7 could provide a little more insight. Thank you.
8 MR. RECKLEY: Okay. Thanks, Mike. I 9 mean, part of it again, as we had talked about 10 earlier, is just the way we structured this, and so 11 the selection of materials at the design stage that's 12 addressed in Subpart C, the designer needs to consider 13 the environments, and all of that. And I think 14 everybody would acknowledge that.
15 Then going forward, under operations, it 16 is not -- history has not shown that you can just 17 close your eyes to assume the designer got it right.
18 Often they will. Sometimes they don't. There are 19 unforeseen, there's lessons learned.
20 And so under operations, you have to take 21 measure in case the efforts of the designer, at the 22 design stage, to pick the right materials, for the 23 environments, there was an unknown. There was an 24 uncertainty that didn't manifest itself until 25 operations.
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154 1 And so I don't think that's a new concept.
2 I mean, you know, under ASME, you design it under 3 Section 3. You always had to inspect it under Section 4 11 to make sure that it performed as it was thought to 5 be.
6 So I'll acknowledge under ISI and IST, and 7 integrity management, there's some overlap, you know.
8 Just come back to us and say there's some overlap.
9 You're trying to do the same thing in a couple 10 different places. We can certainly admit that and 11 consolidate it.
12 But the notion that a requirement for the 13 designer to consider things obviates the need for an 14 operator to continue to inspect it and actually ensure 15 that it's performing as expected. I don't think we'll 16 get there.
17 MR. MAYFIELD: Bill, this is Mayfield. I 18 wasn't suggesting that you ever should get there.
19 What I was -- I thought I heard you say that you 20 thought that perhaps the Integrity Assessment Program 21 could relieve or relax some requirements for material 22 qualification.
23 MR. RECKLEY: Oh.
24 MR. MAYFIELD: And that led me to exactly 25 the kind of concerns you were raising.
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155 1 MR. RECKLEY: No, no. Sorry. What I 2 meant by the observation was to put yourself in the 3 place of an NRC reviewer. And we've tried to address 4 this in some guidance documents on -- and it's being 5 discussed a lot under the TICAP, ARCAP activities of 6 how can we, during the licensing review, take more 7 advantage of a performance based approach.
8 And an element of performance based 9 approaches is you have to have faith in the monitoring 10 programs that are key to the performance based 11 approach. And so all I was trying to say before was, 12 as we go forward under the developing of the licensing 13 documents, that it might be possible to say, as part 14 of an application, we've done all of this to try to 15 make sure the materials will perform as -- in the 16 right way for the environments they're exposed to.
17 But there are uncertainties associated 18 with that. We acknowledge. That's addressed in the 19 operating phase by the requirements to have an 20 Integrity Management Program. So I don't think that's 21 a new concept.
22 But we are looking for opportunities to 23 actually be more conscious in the review of 24 applications on how we might fit together what has 25 often been separate reviews of design and operations.
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156 1 We're trying to do it in an integrated way.
2 So I hope that helps, Mike.
3 MR. MAYFIELD: I appreciate the 4 clarification. I would just urge you, as you present 5 this in the future, to be careful about creating some 6 false expectations for folks.
7 MR. RECKLEY: And again, I'll fully 8 acknowledge that you know, if the request is to 9 guarantee how the NRC is going to behave 20 years from 10 now, that's probably something we're not going to be 11 able to do.
12 I think I explained in some of this stuff 13 early on that, you know, these -- some of the concepts 14 we're putting in her could support changes and broader 15 regulatory program, but to say the staff in this 16 rulemaking can guarantee the behavior of an agency 20 17 years from now, I'm not sure we'll be able to get 18 there. So anyway.
19 Bob, take it back before I start to 20 ramble.
21 MR. BEALL: Okay. No problem, Bill.
22 Cyril, do you want to go before Mark comes back? Or 23 do you want to let him go?
24 MR. DRAFFIN: That's Mark's choice.
25 MR. BEALL: Okay.
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157 1 MR. NICHOLS: I can go. It won't take 2 long.
3 MR. BEALL: Okay. Go ahead, Mark.
4 MR. NICHOLS: I wanted to come back to a 5 point that Bill had said, and he had said where 6 industry is, is asking or proposing to eliminate a 7 requirement, we need to be able to justify why 8 eliminating that requirement would still result in a 9 rule that would -- or create a rule that would result 10 in safety.
11 I agree with that, by the way. If we're 12 proposing to reduce or eliminate a requirement, we 13 have to justify how not having that requirement still 14 results in safety, and we've done that. There's only, 15 to my recollection without going back to my notes, I 16 think there's only one requirement from Part 50, 52, 17 that we've recommended not be in Part 53, and that's 18 the inclusion of ALARA in the Radiation Protection 19 Program, and we proposed that that could be a policy 20 statement, and by doing that, you can achieve the same 21 level of safety.
22 So we've tried to argue that. You know, 23 the NRC has not really been receptive to that, but we 24 have been doing specifically what the NRC had asked.
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158 1 where the NRC is proposing new requirements in Part 2 53, that are not in Part 50 and 52.
3 The NRC has to explain why those are 4 required in order to achieve safety. There are many 5 of them. Not to belabor what they are. And the NRC 6 hasn't done that. The NRC hasn't said that we're 7 adding this new requirement and without adding this 8 new requirement in Part 53, Part 53 absolutely is not 9 safe.
10 And when we look at it, our, you know, the 11 burden of defense shouldn't be on our part. We look 12 at it and say it wasn't in part 50, 52. Looking at it 13 in Part 53, no, we don't see why it's necessary. So 14 it should be our burden of proof to justify why adding 15 requirements that weren't necessary for 50, 52, are 16 necessary in Part 53.
17 So I do think that that is an activity the 18 NRC should pursue. I also want to take -- make a 19 point about the distinction between regulatory burden 20 and assuring safety. And they're not the same thing.
21 It's -- or I should say, it's not a one to one 22 correlation such that burden equals safety.
23 You can get to safe in a very burdensome 24 way. A lot of complexity, and a lot of activity that 25 is not really productive, and that can get you to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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159 1 safe. Or you can get to safe very efficiently, very 2 focused, very productive way of assuring safety. And 3 that would be efficient.
4 And by the way, that's one of the NRC's 5 principles of good regulation is to be efficient. And 6 where there are multiple ways to do it, choose the one 7 that's least burdensome. That's really what we're 8 asking for.
9 And what we're point out, and why we're 10 getting so animated is when we look at the alternative 11 the NRC's putting together, we see it as this very 12 complex and inefficient way to get to safety. What we 13 proposed back in February is what we think is the 14 streamlined efficient way to get to safety.
15 There's other alternatives that could be, 16 and there's obviously everything in between. And so 17 that's the discussion we want to have. Nobody's 18 asking, on the industry side, nobody's asking for, 19 let's be less safe in Part 53. We're very supportive.
20 We're very encouraged that the NRC is being as safe as 21 they are in Part 53.
22 What we want to do is get there 23 efficiently. And that gets back to the used and 24 useful comments that we had before. So that's why 25 we're getting animated, and we're trying to be kind in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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160 1 our words, but we also want to be firm and clear in 2 our views because it gets to my third point.
3 The NRC had asked, or it made the 4 statement, hopefully, we're not coming across as stuck 5 in our ways, and we're open. I'll be very clear and 6 kind, you come across as stuck in your ways. Every 7 turn that we've said you're being inefficient, we've 8 not disagreed with achieving safety. We've said 9 you're doing it in an inefficient way. Here's an 10 alternative that's more efficient.
11 The NRC has not been receptive. They've 12 often shut down that conversation before it's begun.
13 We've never gotten responses on why our proposals are 14 not feasible, or not optimal. The only progress that 15 I do continue to want to, thank the NRC for this, the 16 only progress we've made in terms of seeking a more 17 efficient approach is with this graded approach to 18 PRA. So we do appreciate that.
19 But all of these other concerns that we've 20 identified, it's not the safety level that they 21 achieve, we like that. It's the inefficiency to get 22 to that point. And we're asking for more efficient 23 ways to get to that point, and that is where the NRC 24 typically comes back and says, well, our way is the 25 only way.
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161 1 And that's why I think you get the 2 comments from Jeff Merrifield, which is a question the 3 industry should ask itself, is there any productive 4 value in engaging with the NRC on this anymore. You 5 know, we're not being heard. And it's a role that's 6 not in the right direction.
7 So unless things change, I think you're --
8 we're going to be in this friction place. And so I 9 just want to say that. Thank you.
10 MR. RECKLEY: Okay. Thanks. I mean, as 11 we go forward, one of the things, one of the things to 12 consider, and we did look at submittals that were made 13 and suggestions, is where is the efficiency gained, 14 and much of what we saw was it might be more efficient 15 in rulemaking, but it basically deferred most of the 16 decisions to be case by case decisions at licensing.
17 And we intentionally, and this maybe is 18 where the friction is coming in, is trying to be 19 specific enough that what we are developing meets 20 another aspect to the principles of good regulations, 21 which is predictability.
22 And so you know, some of this is just, 23 it's a natural friction and yes, we could go up to 24 higher levels but applicants would then have to be 25 prepared that what was allowed in the rule, or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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162 1 basically supported by the rule is case by case 2 reviews.
3 So we were and continue to be trying to 4 weigh that and also add a certain element of 5 predictability to it. So we do hear what you're 6 saying, but we're trying to weigh those competing 7 factors, if you will. Flexibility and predictability.
8 So Bob.
9 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thanks Bill. Cyril, 10 you still have your hand up.
11 MR. DRAFFIN: I do. Yes. I had five 12 points. First, safety is important to everybody. No 13 one's asking for a decrease in safety, and that's -- I 14 just want to be on record that that's important.
15 The question of efficiency and 16 predictability is a topic we've just touched upon on 17 previous meetings. But so far, at least me 18 personally, in terms -- I haven't seen the increase in 19 predictability of how the reviews are going to be done 20 faster, more efficiently. I've just seen the rule 21 language and a little bit of the thoughts of guidance.
22 And so therefore, that's a premise that is 23 going to be more predictable, but we haven't seen it.
24 I haven't seen the demonstration of that and so it's 25 hard to make a judgment based on hope.
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163 1 One can look at efficiency and so that's 2 something that could be judged probably more near 3 term, and so we are judging that. But if there's a 4 long-term case to be made, it has to be made, it has 5 to be clear, and so far, that hasn't happened. And I 6 guess that creates the frustration that you've heard 7 from some of the speakers today.
8 The third point regarding, let's say 9 integrity, why don't you consider making it an 10 optional approach? If you think it's going to be 11 better, it's not going to be a path that companies 12 might want to take, make that as an optional path, 13 rather than a requirement.
14 And there would be a couple of these 15 things where you're adding requirements for the, 16 potentially the good of the applicant, but perhaps 17 it's not necessary, or they don't want it, and so 18 therefore, if you think it's better, but not really 19 required for safety, then make it optional. And so 20 that might be a path to take in terms of how you 21 approach the ruling.
22 Fourth, you made the comment that all 23 requirements need to be justified for safety, and I 24 guess you heard Mark's response to that. Just because 25 something's stated for safety, doesn't mean it has to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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164 1 be captured in the regulations. There's lots of 2 things that are important to safety that the industry 3 does, that have been used in the past, the way the 4 licensing's done, that are not in the regulations, and 5 Part 53 seems to be adding them to regulations.
6 You know, defense of depth, PRA, you know, 7 virtual bar and regulations. So just because it's 8 something that's safe and helpful there, doesn't mean 9 that everything has to be loaded up to a formal 10 requirement.
11 And then finally, I do think that the 12 process you've been using, which is releasing language 13 when it's available, and particularly the discussion 14 columns, and the verbal presentation is helpful. So I 15 do commend the staff for the process that's underway 16 in doing this. That's all my comments for today.
17 Thanks. Or at least this section.
18 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thanks, Cyril. Not 19 seeing any other hands raised, I think this would be a 20 good time to take a break. So let's plan on coming 21 back, let's take a 15 minute break and come back at 22 3:05. So we will restart our, and move on to the last 23 topic we have, which is discussion of previous 24 released subparts at 3:05 p.m. East Coast time. Thank 25 you very much.
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165 1 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter when 2 off the record at 2:52 p.m. and resumed at 3:06 p.m.)
3 MR. BEALL: Good afternoon, everyone. So 4 we are we ready to get started here for the last part 5 of our Part 53 public meeting. We are going to now 6 start on the discussions on Previously Released 7 Subparts. Before we get into that, though, I want to 8 make sure there's no final comments on the Subpart F 9 we just went over. Okay, not hearing anything.
10 Bill, why don't you go ahead and get us 11 started on our last topic for the night. Thank you.
12 MR. RECKLEY: This is just largely a 13 session to bring up any continuing discussions. Go to 14 slide 50. There were a few because with the focus on 15 Subparts B and C we had released some language but 16 thought maybe we needed to continue some of the 17 discussions on D and E, but we're open to any 18 discussion.
19 One of the items on Subpart D was in 20 regards to using this as an opportunity to actually go 21 away from the concept of having exclusionary 22 boundaries and low-population zone defined and 23 replacing that with a requirement basically to ensure 24 no dose at the site boundary would exceed the 25 REM 25 over the course of the event and, thereby, you could NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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166 1 in theory eliminate the exclusionary boundary, or EAB, 2 in the low-population zone boundary.
3 I would be interested in kind of maybe 4 exploring that a little bit as a topic. As we 5 prepared Subpart D and referred to the SECY paper on 6 population-related siting considerations, our thought 7 was the way it's worded where we keep the EAB and low-8 population zone concepts that allows those zones, 9 those boundaries, to collapse to the site boundary if 10 that's where the dose calculation goes so you can in 11 effect have an EAB and an LPZ defined as the site 12 boundary as we discussed in that SECY paper.
13 Whereas if the requirement is put in 14 specifically to exclude a dose of over 25 REM outside 15 the boundary, then that would preclude -- actually it 16 would become a technical requirement that no reactor 17 could result in a dose exceeding 25 REM offsite. It 18 seemed to be making things more restrictive and taking 19 away some flexibility, albeit I realize most advanced 20 reactors may not foresee that, may not foresee having 21 a dose that large offsite.
22 The question is do we really want to 23 preclude it by writing EABs and LPZs out of the rule.
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167 1 about any of the previously-released subparts.
2 With that, Bob, I'll yield to anybody who 3 has questions or comments.
4 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thanks, Bill.
5 So, Mark, go ahead.
6 MR. NICHOLS: Yeah, thanks. Bill, thanks 7 for that explanation on siting. I think we see it the 8 same way in terms of, one, thank you for the 9 clarification that your version could allow for the 10 LPZ, EAB, and site boundary all to be the same so 11 there is the flexibility to be able to do that.
12 I agree with your assessment that if you 13 require it that way that it's more restrictive. In a 14 sense, yes, it does limit flexibility but I think it 15 does more than that. I'll just point out that our 16 proposal back in February would have done that.
17 It would have said that the 25 REM the 18 first two hours and the EAB site boundary are 19 essentially the same to begin with. Then over the 20 entire plume, I think, is the terminology that it 21 would be the site boundary as well versus the LPZ.
22 Now, what that does, though, actually is 23 create a higher level of safety. We somewhat knew 24 that when we proposed it. We proposed it primarily 25 based out of the efficiency. Essentially what you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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168 1 could advertise if you were to go that way which is 2 the site boundary EAB and LPZ all have to be the same 3 and you meet that 25 REM criteria is that you could 4 say Part 53 is actually going to require higher levels 5 of safety.
6 That does come with tradeoffs. As you 7 mentioned, it decreases the potential for designs to 8 make it in here. A design that would not be able to 9 achieve that could still be licensed under Part 50 and 10 52 so it's not the end of the world but it is, in 11 itself, exclusionary. I know we made several comments 12 about trying not to be exclusionary.
13 The one thing that made it somewhat 14 palatable from our perspective is that in looking at 15 these advanced reactors they are able to easily meet 16 that more conservative safety criteria, or that 17 enhanced level of safety so it really wasn't a 18 concern.
19 Now, you know, looking at a large PWR 20 would they be able to meet that? I don't know.
21 That's something that would have to be figured out.
22 Certainly, the designs that we're all pursuing today 23 would, and then it would have benefits as well.
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169 1 feel more comfortable in not having all those 2 requirements that we're concerned about. You also 3 have a good discussion or, I would say, a good 4 reassurance with other stakeholders that are watching 5 the process that Part 53 is actually enhancing safety 6 in that regard.
7 Now, I would say that our proposal had 8 built in siting with the design, the safety and 9 security design, in EP so we looked at it as a 10 complete integrated approach. In that context we are 11 able to achieve a lot of efficiencies. It was, 12 therefore, acceptable to propose it.
13 If the NRC were to go down that road, you 14 know, we would reserve out judgment on it because if 15 it doesn't achieve all those additional efficiencies 16 we are proposing, then it may not have a net benefit 17 overall so I would say there's that consideration to 18 add to it. I think it's a great conversation. I would 19 encourage anybody else in this meeting to chime in 20 with their thoughts on that topic because I don't 21 think we've had a very robust discussion around it and 22 I think it's worthy of it.
23 I want to move onto the manufacturing --
24 Subpart E, manufacturing and license. Two points.
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170 1 definition that manufacturing -- any manufacturing 2 requires a manufacturing license.
3 If you look at 1552 you can do 4 manufacturing outside of a manufacturing license. In 5 fact, if you have a construction permit operating 6 license or a COL, you delegate that manufacturing and 7 you don't need a manufacturing license so we would 8 like to preserve that in Part 53.
9 The question then becomes what do we want 10 to achieve with the manufacturing license. This is 11 one of my earlier comments in terms of what is 12 something Part 53 is trying to accomplish that can't 13 be done under 1552. Manufacturing license was one of 14 those that I mentioned. So we're looking at different 15 business models and we're putting together our 16 thoughts and we want to give those to the NRC in 17 writing, but I'll just give you a preview on some of 18 the stuff that we've been thinking about.
19 First, as we look at the scope of the 20 manufacturing license requirements, it should be 21 focused on the safety; the safety of the design and 22 manufacturing leading to operation so it should be 23 focused on the safety. It will need to consider other 24 general requirements that are applicable such as QA, 25 codes and standards, Part 21 reporting. Those are all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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171 1 interfaces. It doesn't need its own set of 2 requirements, but it will have to figure out how it 3 interfaces with those.
4 Then it will have to figure out how it 5 interfaces with the broader set of requirements 6 depending on the type of activities. If there's going 7 to be fuel involved, what's the connection to Parts 8 30, 40, 70, that sort of thing. If there's 9 transportation involved, what's the connection with 10 Part 71.
11 All those need to be -- and then 12 environmental considerations. All those need to be 13 factored in. Those aren't where we need specific 14 manufacturing license requirements Part 53, but we 15 need to understand how they are all fitting together.
16 So let me move to the business activity, 17 or business strategies and activities that we are 18 thinking about considering around here. So in this 19 concept that manufacturing and license should enable 20 something that's not available with a construction 21 permit operating license, DCD, COL, that sort of 22 thing, it's really looking at a couple of things.
23 So would you assemble a fully-functional 24 reactor and so the only thing it's lacking is the 25 fuel. Otherwise, it's completely -- in primary NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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172 1 manufacturing license we're thinking in terms of 2 micro-reactor so it doesn't need that building 3 necessarily. So all you're lacking is the fuel. Does 4 that need a manufacturing license or could you 5 actually still do that under, say, a DCD? That's one 6 question we're trying to look at.
7 Fueling. If you actually put the -- you 8 have that fully assembled -- that assembled fully-9 functional reactor and then you put fuel in it at the 10 factory, we're pretty certain that's going to need the 11 manufacturing license so let's make sure the 12 manufacturing license is looking at that and there are 13 people that are interested in it.
14 What about the transportation of that 15 reactor either with or without fuel that's under the 16 manufacturing license to an operating site. I'm 17 guessing, you know, we're envisioning it's transported 18 to a site where somebody has an operating license, or 19 combined operating license, so you're transporting it 20 to them.
21 But then some other considerations. What 22 if you want to subcontract with others that have 23 capabilities here, acquiring some components from some 24 people or some other things. Maybe you're 25 subcontracting some design. The Part 50/52 seems to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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173 1 prohibit that.
2 It seems to require that the manufacturing 3 license holder has all capabilities and facilities 4 that are needed under that manufacturing license so 5 there's no ability to subcontract or delegate. That 6 might be something we want to look at enabling under 7 Part 53. Then there's a question what about 8 speculative manufacturing. Speculative is like a spec 9 house. You build it without knowing who's going to 10 buy it.
11 In this instance the manufacturing license 12 would be able to -- if it can't be done with the DCD 13 would manufacture, say, 100 of these not knowing who's 14 going to buy one through 100 and then some time before 15 they're completed, or maybe even after they're 16 completed and on the shelf, a customer comes by and 17 says, "I want that one off the shelf. I've got a 18 truck out back. Why don't you hook it up and we'll 19 drive it to my site." That type of thing. Of course, 20 there's design and analysis function that that 21 manufacturing license capability is going to have.
22 Now, there are some activities that, you 23 know, probably fit outside the manufacturing license.
24 They might fit underneath the COL or operating license 25 and that would be things like you have that operating NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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174 1 site. What is that interface between a manufacturing 2 license and the site.
3 What if you want mobile operations, mobile 4 operations meaning you take it to a site, operate it 5 there, shut it down, move it to another site and 6 operate it there. Is that a whole set of new 7 considerations that have to be put in there, or is it 8 pretty simple that you can just move it from one 9 operating license location to another operating 10 location. That will be things to consider.
11 Then what if the manufacturing license 12 themselves want to be at that site and be the owner of 13 where it's going to operate? Is there an opportunity 14 that the manufacturing license can come with some site 15 or do you have to file a combined manufacturing 16 license and operating license to be able to do that?
17 So there's all of those factors. Then below it 18 there's a whole bunch of considerations in terms of 19 technically how do you assure that those activities 20 are being done safely.
21 I did want to lay out a framework because 22 I think the most important thing to inform the 23 manufacturing license is what are these new business 24 models that people are pursuing so that we can write 25 requirements that enable them and ensure that they're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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175 1 safe.
2 With all that said, please ask me any 3 questions you want. We're working on a paper to help 4 provide to you but we wanted to give you those 5 thoughts. We don't have any major issues with what 6 you put out, but we do see that more is needed in 7 order to enable these business plans.
8 MR. SEGALA: Hey, Mark, this is John 9 Segala. Thanks for that. I think those business 10 models will be very helpful to us. I don't know if 11 you can do it or if it's feasible but I think it would 12 be helpful for us if we had some idea of the timeframe 13 for when somebody might want to implement a business 14 model because it could be that tackling one of these 15 might be a huge effort so we want to be able to 16 understand, you know, if that's not needed for 15 17 years from now, is that something that we need to 18 include in the rule today, or is that something that 19 we could modify the manufacturing license later.
20 I'm just trying to look at, you know, 21 we've got about a year left to get the proposed rule 22 finished. I'm just trying to add some realism. We 23 want Part 53 to do as much as we can have it 24 accomplish but, at the same time, being realistic as 25 to when we need those things.
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176 1 As we look at fusion, we're seeing that 2 fusion is a little bit further off and so that might 3 be something that we handle in Part 53 or outside of 4 Part 53 but by 2027. Just trying to have some idea of 5 the timeframes when those business models might be 6 needed to be implemented will help us. Some of these 7 might be much easier to address quickly and some of 8 them might be much more involved. I don't know.
9 MS. CUBBAGE: This is Amy Cubbage. Just 10 wanted to add to that real quickly. Where it gets 11 tricky is if there are things that would require a 12 change to the act. You know, they are kind of by 13 definition not as feasible on the current schedule.
14 MR. NICHOLS: Yeah, absolutely. I left 15 off the one that we know would require a change to the 16 act and that's a general license type of approach 17 where you would get these things licensed and you 18 wouldn't have to have site-specific licensees. The 19 siting aspect is sort of taken care of generically 20 within the generic license but you would have to 21 notify the NRC before you put it at a site.
22 The generic license would have, you know, 23 a certificate of compliance which would specify the 24 site conditions that have to be met in order for it to 25 be a suitable site and you'd have to verify that and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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177 1 provide it to the NRC, that sort of thing. We didn't 2 include that. That might be longer term.
3 MS. CUBBAGE: Some of the things you were 4 saying sort of touched in that direction so I wasn't 5 sure how far you were taking it.
6 MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Yeah, you might be 7 aware of some things that require a change to the act 8 that we haven't identified. Everything I mentioned we 9 identified as not needing a change to the act but 10 certainly you might identify some things that we 11 missed. We'll also take a look at that.
12 John, we'll provide you on timing. I 13 would say part of it depends on what could be done 14 under a DCD or what could be done under DCD COLs right 15 now. That could get into policy issues. Maybe it 16 doesn't, but things like could you speculatively 17 manufacture some of these. Could you assemble a fully 18 functional reactor in a factory, both of those under, 19 say, a DCD.
20 Fueling a reactor, I'm sure you need more 21 than a DCD but could you do it with that plus a Part 22 70 license or just a Part 70 license. Are there other 23 fixes that we might be able to use before we get a 24 more efficient solution under Part 53 would be part of 25 the question.
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178 1 MR. MERRIFIELD: Mark, this is Jeff. May 2 I interject for just a second?
3 MR. NICHOLS: Please do.
4 MR. MERRIFIELD: I just want to get back 5 to John Segala's question, is it released to fusion.
6 I just want to -- I think that's a fair question. The 7 Fusion Industry Association has made it pretty clear 8 that they do see fusion going on a separate track.
9 They've suggested Part 30. That's obviously a 10 discussion that's going to need more time to play out.
11 But to your point of the timing, in their 12 business plans will they want to see progress 13 continue. The 2024 deadline that's been imposed by 14 the Commission on advanced reactors is not necessary 15 to allow the fusion industry members to move forward 16 with their plans. They certainly would feel 17 comfortable with a separate track for 2027.
18 MR. RECKLEY: Yes, thank you, Jeff. You 19 said that better than I did so I appreciate that.
20 MR. NICHOLS: And I was done with my 21 comments. Thank you.
22 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you, Mark.
23 Would anybody else like to make a comment 24 or ask a question? Go ahead, please.
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179 1 things kind of going back to the ACRS meeting 2 yesterday. They indicated that they did not find 3 value in the two-tiered approach to safety 4 requirements which is a concern we have as well.
5 Also, for discussion of PRAs, as we said 6 before PRA insights that are important for design, not 7 specific numerical requirements and we don't believe 8 the PRA should be evaluated and elevated to a 9 compliance tool in the application calling for a 10 construction permit. We think that the graded 11 approach does have certain merit so we look forward to 12 seeing that when it's available as an approach because 13 I think that would be helpful.
14 And then just to reiterate that just 15 because something is important such as ALARA as a good 16 business practice and defense of depth doesn't mean it 17 has to be in the regulations. Just because things can 18 be used and deployed as a criteria without being 19 something that's forced in regulations which has lots 20 of other ramifications for implementation. I would 21 just pause with that comment for Part B and C. The 22 other comments we've made earlier you have that from 23 previous meetings. Thanks.
24 MR. BEALL: Thanks Cyril. Does anybody 25 else have any other comments they would like to make?
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180 1 Steve Kraft.
2 MR. KRAFT: Hey, thanks, Bob. Am I on?
3 MR. BEALL: Yes, you are. We can hear 4 you.
5 MR. KRAFT: Thank you. I think I finally 6 figured out the magic here. First, what Cyril said 7 about the ACRS. Until you see the ACRS letter, you're 8 not going to really know where they are. They were 9 working on a letter this morning, as I understand it, 10 or this afternoon. They did say what Cyril said, no 11 question.
12 One of the questions they did raise and, 13 Bill, they asked you this quite a bit, was Mark raised 14 a question of transportation from the factory to the 15 site, but they were asking the other way around. What 16 happens at the end of life of one of these plants and 17 they were really focusing on micro reactors but it's a 18 good point. Whether it's 20 years, or whatever it is, 19 and there's still no place to send spent fuel, then 20 what happens? Do you have to expand the site? Do you 21 have to have a different EP? Do you have to have guns 22 and guards? All that sort of stuff.
23 Bill, is that going to be covered in the 24 life cycle, under the full life cycle of requirements 25 in this part?
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181 1 MR. RECKLEY: Yeah, we would envision that 2 we will need to cross that bridge. We haven't started 3 yet really looking at the decommissioning retirement 4 stage, Subpart G. We had even talked early on about 5 whether that would be one we would try to get done in 6 this period, or maybe one we would reserve and come 7 back to.
8 The thought is somewhere we will need to 9 address the end of life questions. Some of that will 10 interface with Part 71 in terms of how it will be 11 transported away from the site. The short answer is 12 yes, we'll have to address it somewhere. We may not 13 address the actual transportation requirements. That 14 will be under Part 71 and might be a different 15 activity, but we'll have to make sure that we have an 16 appropriate interface with those other requirements.
17 MR. KRAFT: So going back to the 18 manufacturing question, though, transport from a 19 fully-loaded unit from the factory to, then that unit 20 must meet new fuel transportation requirements which 21 may be different from HALEU that needs to be 22 addressed.
23 Secondly, if you think about it, Bill, I 24 mean, if you imagine the ability to transport, you 25 know, the classic sort of battery reactor, as we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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182 1 discussed, some place else, then you would imagine 2 either the reactor itself would have to be qualified 3 as a special transport which is really onerous, or an 4 overpack be designed at some point.
5 Then the question just sort of if you're 6 going to deal with it in advance, it needs to be 7 pointed to or say, hey, there's something that needs 8 to be considered going forward. It may not be part of 9 the licensing requirements now but you need to be 10 aware that this is something that might come up.
11 MR. RECKLEY: Right. That goes to John 12 Segala's question of -- our thought is we will need to 13 address this. The question is do we need to address 14 it in this first round of Part 53 or maybe we could 15 come back and fill in this area after this first 16 effort that's due by 2024.
17 That's a question and why we were asking 18 about potential business models and timeframes. But 19 the thought is that there's enough effort going into 20 the development of these types of reactors that we 21 will likely need to address it in Part 53. The big 22 difference comes with the loading of the fuel at the 23 factory.
24 MR. KRAFT: No question.
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183 1 about.
2 MR. KRAFT: Yeah, no question. This may 3 be more applicable to micro reactors than anything 4 else. But one of the things that you said that just 5 sort of rang a bell, if you think about -- again, it's 6 micro reactors. If you think about a 10 to 20-year 7 course, and the fact you're going to have to have 8 pretty heavily enriched material to do that, close to 9 higher levels of HALEU, attempting today to specify a 10 requirement of transport 20 years from now is hard 11 enough now.
12 Beyond that, if you don't -- I'm just spit 13 balling here, but if you don't, then you get subject 14 to requirements that you don't know yet that you have 15 to then 20 years after you put it in operation, you 16 then have to figure out how to meet the requirement.
17 That's a lot different than now when, yeah, you have 18 to meet requirement transport now but the fuel is out 19 of the pot. It's in storage some place. That's a 20 different matter altogether. I don't know how to 21 answer these questions, Bill. I'm not smart enough.
22 I'm just saying it kind of comes to mind 23 if we're going to try to be as comprehensive as 24 possible, then the question arises, I'll just raise it 25 again, is that you could have indicators, you could NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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184 1 have place holders, you can have pointers, but then 2 the question comes do you license against that and 3 say, wait a minute, this is all good with the 4 exception of there's a Part 71 thing you're not 5 meeting now. Just think about the complications that 6 gets into. I have no answer to the question, I'm just 7 thinking about it as we're talking.
8 MR. RECKLEY: Right. And I guess all 9 we're saying is we have the same questions and 10 designers will have to think through, as much as we're 11 trying to do for Part 53, the whole life cycle of the 12 machine with the added -- for these fueled variations 13 the added complexity of transport and safety in the 14 factory.
15 Mark, you're right based on the last 16 conversation we're looking at what combinations of 17 Part 70 requirements and what, if anything, would be 18 needed in the manufacturing license to address safety 19 in the factory. All of these are questions in play.
20 As NEI prepares its input, we will be very interested 21 in seeing it.
22 Bob.
23 MR. KRAFT: Thank you, Bill.
24 MR. BEALL: Okay. Are there any other 25 discussions on this topic? Okay. Not seeing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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185 1 anything, can we go to the next slide, please? Okay.
2 Are there any additional comments or questions from 3 the other topics we discussed today; Subpart A and the 4 two sections in Subpart F? Anybody on the bridge line 5 also? Use star 6 to unmute your phone. Okay.
6 Do you have any follow-up comments or 7 anything, Bill, you'd like to say?
8 MR. RECKLEY: No, I don't have anything.
9 I missed this morning so if Nan has anything, or 10 Jordan.
11 MS. VALLIERE: No, I have nothing further.
12 Thank you.
13 MR. BEALL: Okay. Can we go to the next 14 slide, please? This slide provides an overview of the 15 current Part 53 rulemaking schedule. As you can see 16 on the slide, we are still on the first milestone with 17 staff performing public outreach meetings with ACRS 18 and working on the draft proposed rule package.
19 The staff has 11 months to complete these 20 activities before the draft proposed rule package is 21 submitted to the Commission on April 2022. The staff 22 is still projecting that the Part 53 proposed rule 23 will be published for public comment in October of 24 2022.
25 Next slide, please. The staff is planning NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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186 1 to host additional public meetings each month. We are 2 proposing to hold future meetings on the first 3 Thursday of every month with our next public meeting 4 tentatively scheduled for June 3, 2021. These public 5 meetings will cover additional topics and will include 6 the release of additional Part 53 preliminary proposed 7 rule language.
8 The staff will continue to also post 9 preliminary proposed rule language and any additional 10 comments submittals received on the preliminary 11 proposed rule language on Regulations.gov under our 12 docket ID, NRC-2019-0062, prior to the public meeting.
13 The staff is also meeting with the ACRS 14 Future Plants Subcommittee to receive feedback on the 15 Part 53 rulemaking. The next meeting with the ACRS 16 Subcommittee will be May 20, 2021. Additional ACRS 17 meetings will be held every month.
18 Next slide, please. If you have 19 additional input or suggestions for future topics 20 related to the Part 53 rulemaking, please send an 21 email to Bill and I at the email addresses on this 22 slide. Your interest and comments will improve our 23 rulemaking effort. I also encourage you to monitor the 24 Part 53 rulemaking docket ID, again on 25 Regulations.gov, which is NRC-2019-0062, for updates NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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187 1 and important documents related to this rulemaking.
2 Finally, we are always looking for ways to 3 improve our public meetings and your feedback is 4 important to us. At the end of the meeting, please go 5 to the NRC Public Meeting website and click on 6 recently held meeting button and look for this 7 meeting. The meeting feedback form will be at the 8 bottom of the meeting announcement.
9 I would like to thank everyone for 10 participating in today's meeting and I hope everyone 11 has a good evening and this meeting is now closed.
12 Thank you very much for your participation.
13 MR. HOELLMAN: Hey, Bob, this is Jordan.
14 It looks like Cyril has his hand up. I don't know if 15 you want to -- I know people are dropping off now but 16 --
17 MR. DRAFFIN: Thanks. Quick question for 18 Bill. What percent of the documentation do you think 19 we've seen so far in terms of the language you'll be 20 provided and maybe anything with guidance, just as an 21 order of magnitude guess.
22 MR. RECKLEY: Less than half probably.
23 MR. DRAFFIN: Thanks.
24 MR. BEALL: Okay. Thank you very much for 25 your participation today.
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188 1 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 2 off the record at 3:42 p.m.)
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