ML21271A167
| ML21271A167 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/20/2021 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Nourbakhsh, Hossein, ACRS | |
| References | |
| NRC-1680 | |
| Download: ML21271A167 (176) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Safety Research Program Subcommittee Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
teleconference Date:
Monday, September 20, 2021 Work Order No.:
NRC-1680 Pages 1-135 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W., Suite 200 Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433
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1 2
3 DISCLAIMER 4
5 6
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONS 7
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 8
9 10 The contents of this transcript of the 11 proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 12 Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 13 as reported herein, is a record of the discussions 14 recorded at the meeting.
15 16 This transcript has not been reviewed, 17 corrected, and edited, and it may contain 18 inaccuracies.
19 20 21 22 23
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 4
(ACRS) 5
+ + + + +
6 SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM SUBCOMMITTEE 7
+ + + + +
8 MONDAY 9
SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 10
+ + + + +
11 The Subcommittee met via Videoconference, 12 at 2:00 p.m. EDT, Vesna Dimitrijevic, Subcommittee 13 Chair, presiding.
14 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
15 VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Subcommittee Chair 16 MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, ACRS Chairman 17 JOY L. REMPE, ACRS Vice Chairman 18 RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member 19 VICKI M. BIER, Member 20 DENNIS BLEY, Member 21 CHARLES H. BROWN, JR., Member 22 GREGORY H. HALNON, Member 23 JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 24 DAVID A. PETTI, Member 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
2 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
ALSO PRESENT:
3 Christian Araguas, RES 4
Holly Cruz, RES 5
Alan Kuritzky, RES 7
John Nakoski, NRR 8
Sean Peters, RES 9
Mehdi Reisi-Fard, RES 10 Mark Salley, RES 11 Mark Thaggard, RES 12 Jason Thompson, RES 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
3 AGENDA 1
I.
Opening Remarks and Objectives......
4 2
II.
Overview of the Division of Risk Analysis 6
3 III. Discussion of Technical Research Activities 4
and Focus Areas 5
Performance and Reliability Branch.... 39 6
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch
... 55 7
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch. 69 8
Human Factors and Reliability Branch 101 9
Adjourn....................
135 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
4 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
2:00 p.m.
2 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay, I have 2:00 3
p.m. here, so I think we can start our meeting, so the 4
meeting will now come to order. So, this is a Safety 5
Research Program Subcommittee meeting in preparation 6
of Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards biennial 7
review of the NRC Safety Research Program.
8 I am Vesna Dimitrijevic, Chairman of 9
today's Subcommittee meeting and the ACRS lead for the 10 review of the activities in the Division of Risk 11 Analysis of the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
12 Members in attendance as I saw last is 13 Dave Petti, Greg Halnon, Jose March-Leuba, Joy Rempe, 14 and Matt Sunseri. I have not seen Ron Ballinger or 15 Vicki Bier, and Charlie Brown will a little late, and 16 I think Dennis had some obligation and Walt Kirchner 17 is traveling, so.
18 We hold these open meetings to gather 19 information to support our biennial review of the 20 NRC's Safety Research Program. The ACRS sections of 21 the U.S. NRC public website provide our charter, 22 bylaws, agendas, monthly reports, and full transcripts 23 of all full and subcommittee meetings, including 24 slides presented there.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
5 The meeting notices and agendas for these 1
meetings are also posted there. We have received no 2
written statement or request to make an oral statement 3
from the public.
4 The Subcommittee will get the information, 5
analyze relevant issues and fact, and formulate a 6
proposed position and action as appropriate for 7
deliberation by the full Committee.
8 A transcript of the meeting is being kept 9
and will be made available. Due to the COVID 10 pandemic, today's meeting is being held over Microsoft 11 Teams for ACRS and NRC staff. There is also an audio 12 line allowing participation of the public over the 13 phone.
14 When addressing the Subcommittee, the 15 participants should first identify themselves and 16 speak with sufficient clarity and volume so that they 17 may be readily heard. When not speaking, we request 18 the participants mute their computer microphone or 19 phone.
20 Okay, we will now proceed with the meeting 21 and I will call up Mark Thaggard, Director of the 22 Division of Risk Analysis for the NRC Office of 23 Nuclear Regulatory
- Research, to begin today's 24 presentation. We can see presentations on the screen, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
6 so Mark, please proceed.
1 MR. THAGGARD: Okay, good afternoon. As 2
was mentioned, I'm Mark Thaggard. I'm the Director of 3
the Division of Risk Analysis. I assumed this role at 4
the beginning of 2021 with the retirement of Mike 5
Cheok, which I think many of you may remember.
6 For those of you that don't know me, I've 7
been with the agency for more than 30 years. I've 8
worked in various offices at the agency, including 9
NMSS, NRO, NSIR, and Research, as well as I spent some 10 time working for former Chairman Meserve. Prior to 11 becoming the Division Director, I served as the deputy 12 in the division since 2016.
13 I do appreciate the opportunity to come 14 before the Committee this afternoon to go over the 15 activities within the division. We always value the 16 feedback and insights that the Committee provide 17 through these biennial assessments.
18 Our plan this afternoon is for me and my 19 deputy, Christian Araguas, who you'll hear from 20 shortly, to provide a general overview of the division 21 activities, and then you'll get a briefing from each 22 of the branch chiefs on the specific activities within 23 each of their branches. Can I have the next slide?
24 So, I want to begin by going over five 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
7 primary objectives for the division. The first is to 1
be ready for future technologies.
2 One of the initiatives that we have been 3
following with respect to advanced reactors is a joint 4
effort by EPRI and Vanderbilt University to look into 5
conducting a safety assessment for advanced reactors.
6 We had started a similar initiative, but 7
decided to forego our effort to see what insights we 8
could gain through following the EPRI effort.
9 The EPRI/Vanderbilt assessment included 10 looking at existing tools, methods, and best practices 11 that could be applied to analyzing the safety of 12 advanced reactor designs. This project showed how 13 hazards could be identified early on in the design 14 stage.
15 This work has been completed. We're still 16 looking at their reports to see what possible insights 17 that we can gain from it.
18 MEMBER REMPE: Mark, this is Joy. You 19 sounded like you were getting ready to change to 20 another slide or topic and I wanted to ask questions 21 on this, but if you had more on this topic --
22 MR. THAGGARD: No, no, I was getting ready 23 to change to the next topic, so go ahead.
24 MEMBER REMPE: I'm good with my ESP over 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
8 virtual reality software. Okay, elaborate more 1
because I know I just recently became aware that your 2
division had done this, and did this Vanguard/EPRI 3
effort cover all different types like a gas reactor, 4
a molten salt reactor, and a sodium reactor?
5 Did it consider all the hazards, the spent 6
fuel, for the ones, the microreactors as they're being 7
placed on site when they're loaded with a core? I 8
mean, how much depth did you cover?
9 MR. THAGGARD: So, I don't have a lot of 10 the depth personally. Maybe one of my staff members 11 can jump in if one of them -- but the reactor that 12 they focused on, and it was EPRI and Vanderbilt 13 University that did the work, the design that they 14 focused on was primarily the molten salt reactor 15 design, although they conducted it with the mindset of 16 it being technology neutral.
17 So, they wanted to try to see if, you 18 know, whatever they came up with, it could be applied 19 to any type of design. So, you know, they focused on 20 the molten salt reactor. Supposedly, from the 21 insights that have been provided, it could be applied 22 to any type of design.
23 I don't recall specifically whether or not 24 they looked at all of the different type of hazards.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
9 That's a level of detail I don't specifically have.
1 I don't know if one of my staff members who followed 2
that work, if they're on, maybe they could chime in on 3
it. If not, we'll have to get back to you on that.
4 MEMBER REMPE: So, I'm not hearing anyone 5
chime in, so I would like more details about this 6
because, again, I keep seeing the public workshops 7
where the DSA staff has gotten a source term for each 8
type of reactor, and there's different types of 9
initiating events and different challenges.
10 And so, again, I don't mean to be overly 11 skeptical, but it just doesn't have the same -- it 12 doesn't appear on the surface to have the same amount 13 of depth that we're getting for these other reactors, 14 but maybe I'm wrong because I don't have all of the 15 details.
16 MR. THAGGARD: Okay, yeah, we'll have to 17 follow up with you on that, Joy, to get you more 18 information. I thought one of my staff members were 19 going to be on, but they may have gotten tied up.
20 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you, because again, 21 that was one of our conclusions from prior times was 22 that we actually would like to have seen the same 23 plant analyzed with the same -- with different tools 24 from DRA, and DSA, and now we hear only one is being 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
10 done by DRA, and so you understand where I'm coming 1
from.
2 MR. THAGGARD: Yeah, and so when we were 3
going to undertake this effort, our initial thought, 4
we were going to focus on the high-temperature gas 5
reactor, that design, because we thought, in terms of 6
trying to develop a PRA model, we thought there might 7
be the most amount of information available on that.
8 I'm not exactly sure why they 9
particularly, they selected the molten salt reactor 10 design, but as I said, their focus was trying to be 11 technology neutral. I think presumably they could 12 have selected any specific design.
13 And I see somebody's got their hand up, so 14 maybe they --
15 PARTICIPANT: Michelle Gonzalez has her 16 hand up.
17 MR. THAGGARD: Oh, okay.
18 PARTICIPANT: Go ahead, Michelle.
19 MS. GONZALEZ: Hi, Mark, this is Michelle 20 Gonzalez from the Nuclear Regulatory Research Division 21 of Risk Analysis. I was involved in this work. I 22 came in later on when we were pretty much just 23 completing the work and finalizing the document.
24 But at least what I remember from this, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
11 pretty much the objective of the work was to achieve 1
meaningful integration of safety throughout the full 2
design process since the start of the design process, 3
so this would help to fill a void in early stages of 4
safety for non-LWRs.
5 So, in terms of if it covers all the 6
hazards or all the -- I'm not sure, and I'll follow up 7
with Mark and I'll provide additional information on 8
that.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Yeah, when you say the 10 molten salt, is it something with the pebble fuel or 11 is it something where it's got the fuel floating 12 around in the coolant? What type of molten salt 13 reactor are you looking at?
14 MS. GONZALEZ: So, it started off, it was 15 divided into phases. The first phase was a focus on 16 the molten salt reactor and it was pretty much from 17 utilization with the technology and all of that for 18 molten salt.
19 The second phase used the MSRE Project, 20 and then they refined the methodology pretty much with 21 what they call learn by doing, and then for the pilot 22 study, they used a Kairos Power fluoride-salt-cooled 23 high-temperature reactor.
24 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, yeah, please do 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
12 follow up, and if you can, clarify to me why you think 1
this will help you with evaluating PRAs from 2
microreactors and gas reactors, and why it's believed 3
that this is a justified exercise that's technology 4
neutral, okay?
5 MS. GONZALEZ: Will do.
6 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
7 MR. THAGGARD: Okay, so our current 8
support for the advanced reactor program has picked up 9
recently and is expected to increase over the next 10 couple of years.
11 One of the primary areas of support that 12 we're providing right now is in the PRA standards 13 development area. This is an important area because 14 the standard is needed in order to provide the basis 15 for determining the acceptability of PRAs that will be 16 used in support of any license submittals.
17 Our staff, along with the staff at NRR, 18 were heavily involved in reviewing and providing 19 comments on the recently piloted non-light water 20 reactor PRA standard, and we're currently working on 21 the regulatory guide that will endorse the use of that 22 standard. The Future Plant Design Subcommittee of the 23 ACRS was briefed on that this morning and I think that 24 just completed.
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13 And as you heard during that briefing, a 1
significant challenge is that the non-light water 2
reactor PRA standard is going to cover areas not yet 3
endorsed by the light water, covered for light water 4
reactors.
5 Also, in support of the advanced reactor 6
program, we are conducting research on a graded 7
approach to scale and target human factor engineering 8
reviews for small and microreactors.
9 This includes developing human factor 10 engineering review criteria. We're also working with 11 the NRR staff in developing technology inclusive 12 operator training and examination requirements.
13 Through our involvement under a recently 14 signed agreement to participate in a newly formed 15 holding project, we're looking at operator performance 16 in digital control rooms, human performance in 17 operation of small modular
- reactors, operator 18 performance in highly automated plants, and the 19 effects of adaptive automation on operator 20 performance.
21 We also have a future-focused research 22 project on the use of dynamic PRAs which may have 23 application for analyzing passive systems. You'll 24 hear more about this project in one of the branch 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
14 presentations.
1 We also recently signed off on the user 2
need with NRR to develop PRA guidance that will be 3
needed to support licensing non-light water reactors.
4 This will include developing guidance to address PRA 5
uncertainty, which would be an important issue for 6
non-light water reactors where we don't have OpE 7
information.
8 In addition to work supporting advanced 9
reactors, we are finishing up development of SPAR 10 models for Vogtle Units 3 and 4 which will be needed 11 to support oversight of these units when they become 12 operational. We're also continuing to maintain and 13 make enhancements to SPAR models for operating 14 reactors.
15 Like the other two research divisions, we 16 are doing some limited work on artificial 17 intelligence. This includes a scope and assessment of 18 AI use within the industry. As part of this effort, 19 we recently issued a Federal Register Notice to get 20 specific feedback on anticipated AI use.
21 We also recently signed a MOU with DOE to 22 work with them on sharing information and insights on 23 the use of AI techniques for analyzing OpE data.
24 Again, we will come back to this in one of the branch 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
15 presentations. Another --
1 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: So, Mark, I ask you, 2
so you are giving us just a general high-level picture 3
and all of those things will come again in the slides 4
for the branch work things?
5 MR. THAGGARD: That's correct. I mean, if 6
you got questions now, we can handle them, but our 7
intent was to cover them in a little bit more detail 8
in the branch presentation.
9 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay.
10 MR. THAGGARD: Another objective of the 11 division is to complete several launch research 12 projects. This includes work on the aluminum heat 13 issue, the Level 3 PRA Project, and the probabilistic 14 Flood Hazard Assessment Project.
15 We have faced some challenges in 16 completing these projects, but our aim with each of 17 these activities is completion of high-quality 18 products that are useful to the program office.
19 Again, you'll hear about each of these 20 projects during the branch presentations. However, I 21 would like to point out one thing regarding the Level 22 3 PRA Project as it relates to advanced reactors.
23 We are looking for ways to leverage 24 insights from the Level 3 PRA work to support our 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
16 readiness for licensing advanced reactors. For 1
example, the Level 3 PRA Project is expected to 2
provide insights on accessing the -- excuse me, is 3
somebody trying to ask a question? If you're not 4
asking a question, can you put it on mute? Thank you.
5 So, as I said, we are looking to leverage 6
insights from the Level 3 PRA work to support our 7
readiness for licensing advanced reactors. For 8
example, the Level 3 PRA Project is expected to 9
provide insights on assessing the risks from multi-10 unit sights and integrated site risks which could 11 prove useful for licensing small modular reactors.
12 We are also attaining insights on the use 13 of the License Modernization Project and use of 14 alternative risk metrics. Our plan is to document 15 insights we gain from the project so that they can be 16 readily used for licensing advanced reactors.
17 A third objective of the division is to 18 facilitate transformation. DRA has an important role 19 in the Agency's transformation effort through 20 overseeing the innovation activities.
21 Innovate NRC 2.0, if you've heard of that, 22 or the IDHEAS scale software, both of those are 23 managed by staff within the division.
24 A fourth objective of the division is to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
17 grow the Agency's risk-informed decision making 1
capabilities. In line with the emphasis that the 2
Agency in recent years on using risk insights in 3
decision making, we are looking for ways to provide 4
risk tools for non-risk practitioners.
5 This includes developing SPAR, ASP, and 6
human factor dashboards to help inspectors and license 7
reviewers in understanding the risk importance of 8
reactor systems and initiating events.
9 We are also looking for opportunities to 10 expand our support beyond NRR. We are currently 11 working with NMSS in developing risk tools for dry 12 cask storage licensing reviews and providing 13 environmental support for their decommissioning 14 program.
15 We see a potential need for support by 16 NSIR and their efforts to use risk insights and fiscal 17 security. We also see a possible need for more 18 research on the effects of extreme weather events.
19 The fifth objective of the division is to 20 build and enhance staff capacity. One challenge to 21 the division is staffing. Based on our recent 22 strategic workforce planning assessment, we anticipate 23 having a shortage in one of our core positions over 24 the next five years. This anticipated shortage is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
18 expected with our reliability and risk engineers due 1
to retirements.
2 Key competency is the greatest focus for 3
us or risk analysis and quantification methods and 4
risk integration. Our strategy to address this need 5
includes hiring and training staff, rotational 6
assignments, and staff developmental assignments.
7 We recently hired entry level staff and 8
have converted a couple of summer hires into co-op 9
students, which we hope will give us some opportunity 10 to develop the competencies of greatest need.
11 We also recently started an effort to 12 cross train staff across branches to give us greater 13 flexibility in handling staff losses and to broaden 14 staff skills.
15 This overview of the division's key focus 16 areas shows that we have efforts underway to be ready 17 for future technologies while also supporting key 18 Agency priorities such as risk-informed decision 19 making and transformation. We're also aggressively 20 working to address anticipated staffing issues.
21 To ensure that we manage these activities 22 in a smart way, we recently started an effort to 23 revise our strategic plan to ensure that we are 24 working on the right activities and to anticipate 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
19 future changes in line with the Agency's environmental 1
scan. Can I have the next slide?
2 So, we're always looking for opportunities 3
to leverage resources and skills through collaborating 4
with others. This slide reflects our current 5
collaboration efforts, both internationally and 6
domestically. I would like to highlight a few 7
specific examples to show some of the benefits that we 8
get out of these interactions.
9 We are active participants in the risk, 10 external events, and human and organizational factors 11 CSNI working groups with NEA. In particular, the 12 working group on risk is currently working on an 13 effort to look at PRA uncertainty, which as I've 14 previously stated, could be useful in our support for 15 advanced reactors.
16 We have a bilateral arrangement with 17 France's IRSN to collaborate on flood risk modeling 18 where they are sharing some of their modeling 19 capabilities on riverine floods and storm surges.
20 We are exchanging human performance data 21 with the Czech Republic and South Korea to expand our 22 human performance database.
23 And lastly, I would like to mention that 24 both EPRI and NIST have provided a lot of technical 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
20 expertise and modeling support for our work on the 1
2 So, with that, I will turn the briefing 3
over to Christian unless you have some specific 4
questions on the items I've gone over so far.
5 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Well, I have one 6
specific question. I assume though the technical 7
staff will come to the presentation of the branches, 8
but this high-level stuff which you brought, like 9
facilitate transformation, grow risk-informed decision 10 making capability, building capacity, in this area, I 11 have a question which I think will be best addressed 12 by you.
13 When you say facilitate transformation, 14 how do you guys visualize the goal of transformation?
15 What are you trying to facilitate?
16 MR. THAGGARD: With transformation?
17 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Yeah.
18 MR. THAGGARD: Okay, so one of the 19 Agency's efforts, part of this transformation is 20 innovation, and so we, right now, we have the lead for 21 that whole effort. So, right now, we're facilitating 22 staff's ability to submit ideas when they -- new ways 23 of doing things, and we also facilitate crowdsourcing.
24 I believe Sean Peters, his branch runs 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
21 that effort. I believe he's going to cover this in a 1
little bit more detail when it gets to his briefing, 2
but the bottom line --
3 (Simultaneous speaking.)
4 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Yes, please.
5 MR. THAGGARD: Yeah, the bottom line is 6
that so we have staff in our division that, you know, 7
that basically runs that whole effort. They help 8
staff in terms of when they come up with ideas, help 9
them either get that in the right place or, you know, 10 or if staff have suggestions, they help facilitate 11 getting that suggestion in the right place.
12 So, as I said, you know, all of that is 13 run through our IDHEAS scale software platform, and 14 our staff, they run that platform.
15 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: I have a specific 16 actually -- is something I struggle with because in 17 the general, I thought that this transformation should 18 result in better focused regulation, right, something 19 which is streamlined and not overly complex and 20 unpractical. So, you know --
21 MR. THAGGARD: Well --
22 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: -- is that how you 23 visualize this transformation? Because it's not the 24 more we learn, the more innovation which we have. It 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
22 seems like the process is becoming more complex, and 1
complex, and complex, and wants more and more details.
2 So, my question was sort of how do you guys visualize 3
what this transformation is leading to?
4 MR. THAGGARD: Well, the whole idea of the 5
transformation of the Agency is to become a modern 6
risk-informed regulator, and it's got more than just 7
the innovation piece of it.
8 There are pieces related to, as I said, 9
you know, using risk insights. You've probably heard 10 of like Be RiskSMART, that whole initiative. That's 11 part of the Agency's transformation effort.
12 And I'm kind of failing openly, but there 13 are like five components to the Agency's whole 14 transformation effort. The innovation piece of it is 15 just one part of it, but the overall transformation, 16 part of it is the change in culture, which we also 17 have a piece of that too.
18 But the overall effort is to become a 19 modern risk-informed regulator, and so your ideal 20 about, you know, streamlining regulations and, you 21 know, doing things in a more streamlined fashion, 22 that's all part of the overall transformation effort.
23 The innovation piece of it is just one part of that.
24 I don't know if that --
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23 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: No, no, that's all 1
right. Yeah, okay, I was basically trying to define 2
what does it mean, modern? I mean, you know, you have 3
so many loose ends, you know, which can be tied to 4
make these things more efficient, but we also have a 5
lot of unanswered question. All right, all right, I 6
will address that --
7 MEMBER REMPE: Well, Vesna, I'd like to 8
chime in with the first part of your question because 9
when I heard about this a while back, maybe a couple 10 of years ago, it sounded like John and his branch were 11 basically helping to develop a spreadsheet-based 12 software for taking the input, you know, sending out 13 a call to the staff for good ideas to put in to some 14 sort of software, and then tabulating them and ranking 15 them, and is that what you're meaning, Mark, when you 16 say they facilitate? Do they develop the software?
17 Do they help rank --
18 MR. THAGGARD: No, the --
19 MEMBER REMPE: -- the ideas, or what is it 20 that they do?
21 MR. THAGGARD: So, I think one of my staff 22 members probably want to weigh in on that, so I should 23 probably let -- and maybe Nev. She's running that.
24 So, if you want to go ahead, Nev?
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24 MR. PETERS: Mark, this is Sean Peters.
1 MR. THAGGARD: Oh, Sean, okay, yeah, go 2
ahead, Sean.
3 MR. PETERS: Yeah, so innovation is a 4
couple of things. Our human organizational factor 5
specialists signed in with the EDO's office. We 6
distributed three people to the EDO's office to help 7
them design and modify the innovation program so it 8
could be sustainable.
9 So, we actually develop the pieces of, you 10 know, how you solicit ideas, how you process those 11 ideas, and then how you, I want to say staff and fund 12 the ideas, and how you get those ideas forward.
13 And so, the actual software that we 14 utilize is an organizing aspect of it, but it's not 15 the entirety of the program, right? You actually have 16 to build an infrastructure and teams that implement 17 the innovation.
18 The other thing that we're doing, and this 19 kind of may answer some of Vesna's questions, you'll 20 see later in some of our presentations that our groups 21 are developing risk tools and evaluation criteria that 22 are scaled based upon the risk of the facilities, and 23 so when I get into our human factors presentation 24 later, I'll be talking about our scalable human 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
25 factors engineering guidance.
1 The old human factors engineering guidance 2
we had was developed for large light water reactors, 3
big Part 50 applications, and applying a major cross-4 sectional look at entire human factors engineering 5
programs is kind of ominous
- for, like, say 6
microreactors.
7 So, what we do is we develop that scalable 8
- criteria, and that's one of those kind of 9
transformative concepts that we have for applying the 10 right level of review to risk of the facilities.
11 MEMBER REMPE: So, this is Joy, and thank 12 you, and it's coming back to me. This was actually an 13 EDO user need request, right, that --
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MEMBER REMPE: -- to address this 16 transformation.
17 MR. PETERS: Absolutely right. So, our 18 team worked in the EDO's office, but we just couldn't 19 indefinitely loan them to the EDO's office, so what we 20 did working with them, we transitioned the entire 21 program over to the Office of Research to run that 22 innovation piece.
23 So, Innovate NRC 2.0 is run out of 24 Research with those same organizational factor 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
26 specialists, and what that does is allows us to 1
continue operations efficiently whenever we have 2
changes in the organization.
3 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
4 MR. THAGGARD: Okay, if there are no other 5
questions for me, I guess we'll go ahead and turn it 6
over to Christian.
7 MR. ARAGUAS: All right, so I'm looking at 8
the time. I know we're over our allotted for this, so 9
I'm going to try to move us through the continuing 10 theme of the high level. I've got about three slides 11 to get through and then we'll get to the branch 12 presentations.
13 So, with that, again, good afternoon, 14 everybody, and my thanks as well for the opportunity 15 to come and speak with you today. So, as Mark alluded 16 to, I'm the newest member of the DRA leadership team 17 having joined in February of this year, and I am the 18 Deputy for the Division of Risk Analysis.
19 And I'll take a minute here as well just 20 to share a little bit about my background. I came 21 into the Agency with a degree in electrical 22 engineering, and over my 20-year career here at the 23 NRC, I've had the opportunity to work on operating 24 reactors, new reactors, advanced reactors, and as well 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
27 on our materials programs serving in a variety of 1
different roles.
2 And I also spent three years in the EDO's 3
office as an executive technical assistant servicing 4
a number of offices, but more notably, the Office of 5
Nuclear Regulatory Research, so I was able to see 6
firsthand the critical role that we play in supporting 7
the Agency's mission. So, next slide?
8 So, just like you saw with the Division of 9
Systems Analysis and the Division of Engineering, you 10 know, we too play an important role in supporting the 11 Agency's mission.
12 We do so through establishing and 13 executing timely research programs that support our 14 partners in the reactors and materials business lines.
15 And I'm really proud of the work this 16 division performs and I wanted to take a moment just 17 to acknowledge some of our achievements depicted on 18 this graphic since we last briefed you.
19 We completed a major effort to update all 20 68 of our Standard Plant Analysis Risk or SPAR models 21 for all sites to allow for the use of diverse and 22 flexible mitigation capability or flex equipment for 23 licensing and oversight applications.
24 We issued over 30 technical reports or 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
28 guidance documents in the form of NUREGs, research 1
information letters of RILs, white papers, and 2
regulatory guides, and we also held over two dozen 3
public meetings and workshops and seminars on 4
technical topics.
5 Most notably, this spring we held the 6
sixth annual Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment 7
Workshop which had over 300 attendees, and then most 8
recently this summer, we had the Subsurface Soil 9
Surveys Public Workshop which had just under 200 10 attendees.
11 We also became the permanent home, as we 12 just talked about here, for the Agency's innovation 13 program, successfully transitioning the program into 14 the division, putting in place the infrastructure and 15 processes to maintain long-term program 16 sustainability.
17 And I'll just add before we move off this 18 slide, I wanted to revisit -- I know one of the 19 primary focus areas of the ACRS during the last 20 biennial and as highlighted during this year's kickoff 21 in April, which was better understanding whether the 22 office has sunset any research activities.
23 I'll say that so we interpreted that as to 24 cover both work completed, or work that was 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
29 terminated, or work that was no longer -- I'm sorry, 1
work that we terminated because there was no longer a 2
need or work that we sunset because we felt that 3
sufficient research had been completed.
4 I think, as I shared, you know, we've 5
completed several research activities. I think one 6
that I didn't even capture on the list is user need 7
driven for NRR and this was the work on human factors 8
for non-destructive examination.
9 A fair amount of reports were developed, 10 and we're in the process of developing a summary NUREG 11 and plan to close out that user need.
12 But I will say that in terms of looking at 13 research activities where we would have been 14 terminated or sunset, we haven't terminated or sunset 15 anything, I think, in that time period.
16 But I wanted to highlight, you know, I 17 believe the question is absolutely valid. As Ray 18 mentioned previously in April, you know, we should 19 strive to understand when enough research has been 20 done to support our role as a regulator, or 21 additionally, when our priorities have shifted such 22 that a specific activity is no longer needed.
23 And I'll just say I'm confident that 24 between the monthly counterpart meetings we have with 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
30 our partners, leveraging our work request processes to 1
align on specific work, our quarterly work request 2
status meetings with division management, our annual 3
program review meetings with our partners, our annual 4
review of prioritization for the budget cycle, and 5
certainly our engagement with you, that we have a 6
sufficient framework in place to align on needed 7
research or when, in fact, there needs to be a course 8
correction.
9 And I'll just highlight I think a good 10 example of this is our recent course correction on the 11 research that we've been doing on high energy arc 12 vaults, and I don't want to steal Mark Salley's 13 thunder as he plans to cover this a great deal during 14 his presentation. So, next slide?
15 Let me just turn to how we are organizing 16 the division. Our division is responsible for the 17 establishment and execution of research programs 18 relating to probabilistic risk assessments, human 19 factors, and human reliability analysis, performance 20 and reliability
- analysis, and movement of 21 radionuclides through environmental systems, operating 22 experience, and generic issues and fire safety.
23 Our mission is to provide, as stated here 24 on the slide, is to provide world class technical 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
31 support for the implementation of risk-informed 1
regulatory activities and decision making in nuclear 2
safety and security.
3 We are comprised of four branches being 4
led by a technically strong group of branch chiefs 5
that in most cases have been in their respective 6
positions for a number of years.
7 The first branch you'll be hearing from 8
will be our Performance and Reliability Branch or PRB.
9 Mehdi Reisi-Fard, who you heard from this morning, is 10 the branch chief, and he is the newest branch chief in 11 the group joining in 2020, but he brings a wealth of 12 experience having joined the NRC in 2007 as a risk and 13 reliability analyst, and serving in this capacity in 14 both research and NRR before assuming his current 15 role.
16 His team is responsible for managing the 17 operating experience data collection analysis program 18 which serves as the foundation for keeping our risk 19 tools current, and is in charge of the Accident 20 Sequence Precursor Program.
21 PRB is also the lead for developing and 22 maintaining risk-informed decision making guidance 23 documents, as well as development and endorsement of 24 PRA standards.
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32 Next, you're going to hear from our 1
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch, PRAB. John 2
Nakoski is the branch chief and he has been the branch 3
chief in the division for the last eight years, and 4
serving in this current role for the last four years.
5 John is currently on rotation, so Holly 6
Cruz, who is acting branch chief, will be presenting 7
on his behalf. She is no stranger to research as 8
she's a technical assistant for the Division of 9
Engineering and has been doing a great job backfilling 10 for John.
11 PRAB is primarily responsible for 12 maintaining and enhancing computer codes and methods 13 used by the Agency for conducting risk analysis, so, 14 for example, our SPAR models or SAPHIRE code.
15 And then next, we'll hear from the Fire 16 and External Hazards Analysis Branch. Mark Salley is 17 the branch chief there and he's served in this role 18 for the last 17 years. His branch is responsible for 19 fire risk, external hazards, and environmental hazards 20 research.
21 And then we'll wrap up with a presentation 22 from Sean Peters who also is no stranger to the ACRS.
23 He is the branch chief for the Human Factors and 24 Reliability Branch and has served in this role for the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
33 last 13 years.
1 His branch is responsible for the 2
planning, developing, and managing research programs 3
related to human performance and human reliability 4
analysis, and as previously mentioned, he's also 5
responsible for managing the Agency's innovation 6
program. Next slide?
7 So, I'll just spend a few minutes here 8
providing a high-level overview. I know you've seen 9
this similar view graph before for some of the other 10 presentations, but a high-level overview of our 11 program's resources.
12 At a glance, our overall budget for the 13 Risk Analysis Research Program in fiscal year 2022 is 14 about $16.5 million, which equates to about 36 expert 15 staff overseeing nearly $10 million.
16 While this represents a six percent 17 increase from our fiscal year 2021 budget, the 18 majority of that increase was driven out of the 19 decision to have DRA serve as the new home for the 20 Agency's innovation program.
21 So, our program resource levels have 22 remained largely flat over the last few years and will 23 likely continue to remain so into the future. Having 24 said that, we would expect there to be variability in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
34 the resource levels across the business lines to align 1
with Agency priorities.
2 For example, we know that advanced 3
reactors is a high priority for the Agency, and we are 4
working on a few work requests, user needs that could 5
support increases in our advanced reactor budget over 6
the next five years.
7 Conversely, we would see, with the 8
wrapping up of HEAF activities, such that resource 9
needs for fire research could significantly decrease 10 in the out years.
11 And just to help make this slide and 12 budget discussion more meaningful, we use the same 13 categories that we typically use when we develop our 14 budget input to the program offices.
15 But for additional context and similar to 16 what you saw or heard from the Division of 17 Engineering, about 84 percent of our work is in the 18 operating reactors business line, seven percent is 19 associated with new reactors, five percent with 20 advanced reactors, and four percent for the materials 21 business lines.
22 And now I'll just kind of roll through 23 very quickly the line items on the slide. So, 24 starting with the first line item, about 20 percent of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
35 our budget is planned to support the development and 1
enhancement of risk analysis tools. Most of that goes 2
towards maintaining our SPAR models and the SAPHIRE 3
code used to run those models.
4 About 19 percent of our budget goes 5
towards operational events analysis programs. This 6
includes implementation of the accident sequence 7
precursor program, as well as assessing operating 8
experience, maintaining operating experience data 9
systems, and leveraging insights from this data to 10 enhance our risk tools.
11 Our guidance and development budget sits 12 at about 15 percent of our overall budget and includes 13 support for risk-informed decision making activities, 14 development of PRA standards, updates to PRA guidance, 15 and technical support for human factors guidance.
16 About 14 percent of our budget supports 17 work on human reliability analysis methods and data 18 collection, and this also includes our involvement in 19 the Halden human technology organization project.
20 Our fire research program makes up about 21 11 percent of our resources in FY 22, and includes 22 work on improving fire PRA realism and our efforts to 23 complete research on high energy arc vaults.
24 Our external hazards budget makes up eight 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
36 percent of our budget, and includes work on our 1
probabilistic flood hazards analysis, and that's 2
basically the primary driver.
3 We have another eight percent that is a 4
mix of smaller projects or areas where we provide some 5
nominal level of support. That includes support for 6
the materials business lines, our work on the Level 3 7
PRA, and future focus research items which you'll hear 8
about in the branch presentations, and our ownership 9
of the Agency innovation program.
10 For NMSS, we support, you know, both the 11 spent fuel
- storage, and transportation, and 12 decommissioning of low-level waste business lines, and 13 this is an area that we are also looking to expand our 14 support.
15 An example I can give is related to the 16 spent fuel storage and transportation business line, 17 and that is they have expressed interest in leveraging 18 DRA to develop a risk took to help scope future 19 reviews of transportation packages.
20 And lastly, about five percent of our 21 budget is focused on research to support the Agency's 22 readiness to review advanced reactor applications. As 23 I mentioned earlier, this is certainly an area that we 24 expect to increase over the next several years, and a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
37 lot of the focus up to now has been on our code work, 1
but as you're aware, there's a fair amount of 2
attention shifting towards guidance needed in the 3
human factors area and in PRA acceptability.
4 And with that, that wraps up the budget 5
discussion, so I'll open it up for questions.
6 Otherwise, we'll turn it over to the branch 7
presentations, starting off with Mehdi Reisi-Fard to 8
kick us off.
9 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: I have a general 10 question because obviously there is a lot of cross, 11 you know, cross interaction within this area, and when 12 you said they're developing advanced standard, the reg 13 guide for advanced reactors belongs to guidance 14 developed.
15 I noticed when I compared your 2018 16 presentation and distribution, the guidance have 17 increased significantly by advanced reactor bodily 18 change in two years, which is strange for me, but now 19 I understand there is a lot of cross things because 20 you are developing guidance for advanced reactors, but 21 that's classified under guidance development. Am I 22 right there?
23 MR. ARAGUAS: That's correct.
24 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: So, therefore, we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
38 cannot really -- when you are in charge of innovation 1
as you say, innovations can be anywhere in any area, 2
even probably most of innovations will be, you know, 3
connected to advanced reactor business, right?
4 MR. ARAGUAS: So, yeah, I would look at 5
innovations as really sort of us serving as the 6
support for the Agency and trying to embrace being 7
more risk informed through the various tools, whether 8
that's guidance for advanced reactors, whether that's 9
updating our SPAR models to support NRR, or even, as 10 I mentioned, in the materials business line.
11 I think for the spent fuel storage and 12 transportation business line that doesn't lend itself 13 to traditional PRA, you know, how can we support them 14 to be more risk informed, more focused for their 15 licensing reviews?
16 And so, that's where I see, you know, as 17 Mark alluded to in his response, us supporting the 18 Agency's goals of being more risk informed, so I think 19 it spans the full gamut of the items on this list.
20 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Well, another thing 21 I noticed, I mean, after our discussion this morning, 22 that since the PRA requirements for the non-light 23 water advanced reactors will require a lot of PRA, you 24 know, this bullet with the Level 3 PRA also applies to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
39 advanced reactors. So, basically, there is a lot of, 1
even I will say this is just such a --
2 I mean, five percent on advanced reactors 3
now, it doesn't sound at all, I mean, you know, should 4
meet the Agency needs, but actually since you have 5
this cross interference, you can define all of the 6
efforts which are applicable for advanced reactors.
7 MR. ARAGUAS: That's correct. Okay, I 8
will turn it over to Mehdi.
9 MR. REISI-FARD: Good afternoon. My name 10 is Mehdi Reisi-Fard. I'm the Branch Chief for the 11 Performance and Reliability Branch in the Office of 12 Nuclear Regulatory Research.
13 I joined the Agency in 2007 and I've 14 worked in research and NRR as a reliability and risk 15 analyst, and later as a team leader before starting as 16 the branch chief in PRB in May of 2020. Can we go to 17 the next slide, please? I'm on slide number nine.
18 PRB supports, my branch, PRB, supports the 19 mission of the division and the Agency's risk-informed 20 activities by planning and managing research programs 21 to systematically collect operating experience and 22 assess reliability information, perform event 23 assessments, and support development of guidance for 24 risk-informed decision making.
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40 As shown here, PRB activities cover three 1
major areas. The first area is coordinating 2
activities to develop and maintain guidance related to 3
risk-informed decision making and PRAs.
4 Under this area, we develop approaches to 5
determine the acceptability of PRAs used to support 6
regulatory applications, and we also address the 7
development of guidance for licensing and oversight 8
using risk information.
9 Under this area, we support developing 10 processes, develop process tools to risk inform dry 11 cask storage licensing and oversight of regulatory 12 activities.
13 Another example of activities under this 14 functional area is the future-focused research on 15 using the Licensing Modernization Project known as LMP 16 for operating reactors, and I'll get into a more 17 detailed discussion about all of these in future 18 slides.
19 The second functional areas is the 20 Accident Sequence Precursor or ASP program. The ASP 21 program involves the systematic review and evaluation 22 of operating events that have occurred at U.S. plants.
23 The ASP program identifies and categorizes 24 events which have the potential to lead to core damage 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
41 under a set of hypothetical circumstances. This 1
evaluation is performed with the goal of gaining 2
operational experience insights.
3 The third area is collection, review, and 4
evaluation of OpE information under Management 5
Directive 8.7. Through our processes under this 6
functional area, we generate reliability data that are 7
used by NRC and industry in risk models and risk-8 informed decision making.
9 I will provide more details on ongoing 10 projects, accomplishments, and future direction for 11 each functional area in the next slides. Can you 12 please move to the next slide? I'm on slide number 13 ten now.
14 This slide provides a list of ongoing 15 projects. In the area of risk-informed decision 16 making and PRA guidance, we have the major task of 17 endorsing the non-light water reactor standard that 18 was published early in 2021, as well as the industry 19 peer review guidance in NEI 20-09.
20 Endorsement of this standard, as you heard 21 this morning, was a significant effort as the PRA 22 standard covers most hazards and radiological sources, 23 and the endorsement may affect potential endorsement 24 of future standards such as low power shutdown, level 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
42 two, level three, and other standards.
1 The staff values guide is developed under 2
a very aggressive schedule to support the regulatory 3
needs. Staff determined that issuing a trial use is 4
most appropriate, similar to the first endorsement of 5
level one standard. That gives us the ability to 6
review the trial implementation and make necessary 7
adjustments in the final guide.
8 With respect to light water reactor 9
standards, we support issuance of a number of PRA 10 standards. Level one is expected to be published by 11 the end of the calendar year.
12 Other standards such as level two and 13 advanced light water reactor will follow the 14 publication of level
- one, and the staff is 15 participating in various working groups for developing 16 and finalizing those standards.
17 Besides these items, we have several other 18 activities that are driven by a work request that we 19 expect to be formalized very soon. Some examples 20 include two databases that we plan on developing, one 21 for PRA standards and one for PRA methods. We 22 anticipate working on enhancing guidance on treatment 23 of uncertainties and developing guidance or reg guides 24 on PRA acceptability.
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43 One area to highlight in the area of risk-1 informed decision making guidance is development of 2
risk tools for spent fuel dry storage. This work is 3
nearly complete.
4 A
report was published last year.
5 Research will provide additional support to NMSS 6
during the implementation phase, and we support making 7
any additional changes as needed to the guidance.
8 The last item --
9 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: I just want to say 10 that I think this was my favorite slide when I went 11 through this because, you know, it was a typo which 12 says treatment of certainty, because we always talk 13 about treatment about uncertainty, but here we get to 14 develop treatment of certainty and I thought that was 15 a pretty nice typo.
16 How do we treat certainty actually, you 17 know, what we know versus what we don't know? I don't 18 know did you notice this typo, but it was sort of 19 interesting.
20 MR. REISI-FARD: Yes, definitely thought-21 provoking and it was not intentional. It's a typo, 22 but interesting concept though.
23 MEMBER REMPE: So, this is Joy, and since 24 we've already broken your flow, you said a database to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
44 support the guidance and standards. What's going to 1
be contained in that database?
2 MR. REISI-FARD: I get to that a little 3
bit more later on --
4 MEMBER REMPE: Oh, okay.
5 MR. REISI-FARD: -- but at a high level, 6
it's going to be repository of all standards, 7
published standards, as well as some trial use 8
standards and relative standards, and it's going to 9
create a workflow process so that the staff can see 10 the interconnections between different requirements in 11 the standards.
12 And the staff will be able to use the 13 database to document their positions and endorsements, 14 and that documentation, that workflow process will end 15 result in having kind of the database basically 16 publish the endorsement of the staff, basically a 17 workflow process from entering all of the requirements 18 in the standard to staff developing their position on 19 different requirements.
20 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
21 MR. REISI-FARD: Sure, the last item in 22 the area of risk-informed decision making is the 23 future focused research that utilizes the NRC's Level 24 3 PRA model and the LMP methodology to gain risk 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
45 insights on operating reactor technology.
1 Phase one of the FFR used selected 2
initiating events, SSCs, from the existing Level 3 PRA 3
results for internal events. Phase two will expand 4
the scope of the project to include the results from 5
the expanded Level 3 PRA model that includes external 6
events and credit for flex.
7 Phase one is complete. We completed 8
several other things and the final report. Phase two 9
was started early in the summer and we expect to 10 complete it by early 2023.
11 For the ASP program, in addition to our 12 normal activities regarding screening and analyzing 13 events, we are collaborating with NRR, especially 14 after the Duane Arnold derecho event, to explore how 15 we can better use ASP insights in regulatory 16 activities.
17 In the area of operating experience, last 18 year, the PWR Owners Group raised a number of 19 technical issues in one of the reports primarily 20 related to the analysis and derivation of basic event 21 parameters used in the NRC and industry risk models.
22 In the last year or so, the staff 23 evaluated those issues, developed and published a 24 response to the PWR Owners Group. In that process, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
46 the NRC response identified a number of enhancements 1
to the NRC data and analytics activities.
2 We continue to issue our periodic reports 3
on initiating event rates, LOOP, system studies, and 4
component reliability.
5 The last item on this slide is the 6
development of AI machine learning and data analytics 7
tools to analyze OpE and risk information. This is a 8
somewhat limited scope activity and is mostly focused 9
on activities under the newly established MOU with DOE 10 at this time, and I will discuss that in the next 11 slides in more detail. Can you go please to the next 12 slide? I'm on slide number 11.
13 In the next few slides, I highlight some 14 recent accomplishments and future direction for each 15 functional area. Starting from RIDM and PRA guidance, 16 staff published Reg Guide 1.200 and the revision to 17 Reg Guide 1.200 in December of last year.
18 Their revision endorses the PRA review 19 process and criteria for reviewing the newly developed 20 methods, as well as it endorses the seismic code case.
21 In addition to Reg Guide 1.200, we revised 22 three other reg guides which include Reg Guide 1.177 23 for risk-informed decision making for tech specs, Reg 24 Guide 1.178 for in-service inspection of piping, and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
47 Reg Guide 1.175 for in-service testing. Revisions for 1
these guides provide updated guidance for 2
consideration of defense-in-depth among other changes.
3 We supported issuance of the non-light 4
water reactor PRA standards. As I said, it was 5
published earlier in 2021. The last accomplishment 6
that I'd like to highlight in this area is completing 7
the framework for the database for PRA standards.
8 The database includes, as mentioned 9
earlier, a repository of published, and in some cases, 10 trial use, and balloted PRA standards. It provides 11 tools for staff in their review of standards to 12 identify connections among numerous requirements in 13 the standard, and provides the workflow to develop and 14 publish the endorsement.
15 Right now, a framework is complete. We 16 have some more work to do to complete it, to populate 17 the database and, you know, have all of the functions 18 in place before we can fully utilize it.
19 MEMBER HALNON: Mehdi, this is Greg 20 Halnon. Is that going to be available to the industry 21 or public, or portions of it to help them navigate the 22 same?
23 MR. REISI-FARD: Some aspects of it, yes.
24 So as you all know, the standard itself is copyrighted 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
48 material, so we can't make the entire database 1
publicly available, as we planned on making the staff 2
endorsements publicly available. And it's going to be 3
through the database, and it's going to have, you 4
know, the flexibilities that a database would provide, 5
such as search functions, sorting, and publishing 6
functions that typical databases provide. So the 7
short answer is yes --
8 MEMBER HALNON: Okay. Thanks.
9 MR. REISI-FARD: So for future direction, 10 all the items under the future direction are from the 11 work request that we expect to be formalized soon. We 12 are closing the existing user need in this area. It's 13 NRR-NRO 2011-009, which we are planning on closing.
14 The new user need will have an expanded 15 scope. The expanded scope addresses the necessary 16 activities to support the integrated framework for 17 risk-informed decision-making, such as issues related 18 to work on PRA acceptability for non-light water 19 reactors, enhancements to the risk-informed decision-20 making framework for light water, as well as advanced 21 reactors. The user need also addresses the increased 22 use and development of PRA consensus standards, as a 23 number of new standards are expected to be published.
24 And, finally, it addresses the need to enhance and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
49 somewhat modernize the tools to enable us to maintain 1
review and endorse the newly-published industry 2
documents consistently and efficiently.
3 Can you go to the next slide, please? I'm 4
on slide number 12.
5 I start talking about the area of data 6
collection and analysis. We're talking about some of 7
the accomplishments in this area. We responded to a 8
work request to identify gaps in implementing the 9
causal alpha factors in modeling CCF and to determine 10 whether the existing alpha factors accurately reflect 11 current industry performance. A report on this task 12 was that included our technical analysis was published 13 in early 2021.
14 We have issued on-site electrical system 15 reliability study.
That study represents a
16 comprehensive evaluation of the performance of key 17 electrical components. We supported audits and 18 interactions with PWR Owners Group on FLEX reliability 19 data, and we issued a number of components reliability 20
- reports, system
- studies, and reports on LOOP 21 evaluations and initiating events rates.
22 On the future direction, I have already 23 covered some of these items. A couple of items to 24 highlight. The first is that we are renewing our 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
50 contract with INPO. This will be another five-year 1
contract to gain access, to be able to gain access to 2
input data. The other item is on efforts to explore 3
the use of advanced computational tools to analyze 4
OpE.
5 In June, we formalized an MOU with DOE to 6
collaborate in the areas of operating experience and 7
applications of data analytics. The MOU supports us, 8
you know, both the NRC and DOE, in the development of 9
tools and techniques to analyze OpE data and by 10 sharing data; technical information; lessons learned; 11 tools; and, in some cases, the cost related to the 12 development of approaches and tools.
13 We have had period information exchange 14 meetings with DOE for several months now with broad 15 participation from all interested organizations in the 16 agency.
17 On a related note, we plan on issuing a 18 report on potential uses and applications of advanced 19 computational tools and techniques for nuclear power 20 plants. This report included an analysis of responses 21 to an FRN that was issued earlier in the year. We 22 issued and Mark Thaggard talked about it earlier in 23 his presentation, the issue of an FRN requesting 24 public comments on the emerging role of AI immersion 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
51 learning in the U.S. commercial industry, nuclear 1
industry. Comments were requested in response to a 2
series of questions focusing on the potential 3
application and perceived efficiencies from adoption 4
of these new tools. As I said, the report that we 5
plan on finalizing in the next month or so will have 6
an evaluation of the responses received from the 7
industry.
8 Can you go to the next slide, please?
9 Last area is the ASP program. Some 10 accomplishments include revising the office 11 instruction for the ASP program. The revision 12 includes some new information on including the risk of 13 all hazards for which the SPAR models are available, 14 treatment of missing hazards as a source of 15 uncertainty, and more explicit consideration of 16 uncertainties in general. The revision also includes 17 guidelines to include the timeliness of the analysis.
18 We developed and released the ASP 19 dashboard. This dashboard is an attractive source of 20 precursor information that provides various filters 21 and slicing tools. All final precursor reports are 22 hyperlinked within this tool. This is the first 23 Microsoft Power BI dashboard that is available on the 24 NRC's public page.
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52 For future direction, we participate in 1
efforts to identify methods for improving the 2
application of ASP information in the ROP. The Duane 3
Arnold derecho event, as I mentioned earlier, it has 4
some important risk insights, and we are trying to 5
find a way to better incorporate lessons learned from 6
the ASP program in the oversight activities.
7 Again, under the MOU with DOE, we are 8
exploring the use of AI immersion learning and data 9
analytics to identify risk insights and trends from 10 past ASP analysis. In the long run, we are exploring 11 whether we need to modify the ASP program framework or 12 risk criteria to make them more suitable for risk 13 evaluation of operational events for a broader set of 14 reactor designs, including advanced reactors. And we 15 continue providing our knowledge management sessions 16 to staff at the headquarters, as well as regional 17 offices.
18 Next slide, please. This is my last 19 slide, and this is just a snapshot of the dashboard 20 that I mentioned earlier. Without getting into any 21 detail, I just wanted to show how we can communicate 22 and categorize various information using this 23 dashboard related to hundreds of ASP analyses that 24 were done in the past 30 - 40 years.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
53 MEMBER REMPE: So before you leave us, I 1
have another question about this database. From the 2
guides and standards, was that motivated by a user 3
need or self, I don't know, initiated? What caused 4
you guys to decide to do this?
5 MR. REISI-FARD: It is part of the user 6
need that we are formalizing now, but when we started 7
working on the PRA acceptability for non-light water 8
reactor, we kind of, you know, it kind of became 9
obvious that we had to look at a number of other 10 standards in order to develop our positions for the 11 non-light water reactor. And, you know, currently, we 12 have the 2009 version of Level 1 LERF standard. We 13 have a number of balloted standards for Level 1 LERF 14 in the past few years or so.
15 So we were dealing with a number of 16 standards, and it became clear that we need to better 17 understand the connections between different 18 requirements and different standards, and it was born 19 out of that. And, you know, once we tried to put it 20 together, we saw this is kind of something that can 21 help us in the long term as more standards will be 22 published. In fact, not speaking for JCNRM but, you 23 know, kind of having heard some of their discussions, 24 I think at the industry level they are also moving to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
54 develop, I don't want to call it similar but a 1
database, as well, for their own, so that they can 2
track different standards that they're developing.
3 MEMBER REMPE: Sounds like a good idea.
4 I'm a little puzzled when you said you're starting to 5
do this before the user need is written, but I don't 6
quite understand how that works, but maybe it would be 7
better, it might be something you might want to 8
clarify.
9 And then, last, it seems like there might 10 be a way you guys could coordinate somehow or other 11 with this effort or perhaps not. Maybe you want to 12 have an independent NRC database. Any thoughts on 13 that?
14 MR. REISI-FARD: We did think about that.
15 There are advantages to have some level of 16 independence. We are maintaining and updating this 17 database for, you know, for specific regulatory 18 reasons and uses. The industry database may serve 19 different purposes. So I think we thought that it's 20 better to have some level of independence.
21 And, you know, when I mentioned the --
22 just one clarification on the database. When we 23 started working on this, it wasn't really -- again, it 24 started as an idea to compare different standards. In 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
55 fact, at the beginning, we used to call that, even now 1
in some cases we call that the comparison database, 2
basically comparing different standards. And we 3
needed to do that to support the non-light water 4
reactor PRA acceptability project.
5 Later on, when we started on engaging with 6
NRR to formalize this new user need that I mentioned 7
in my presentation, we kind of worked with them more 8
in this area and developed a kind of more specific 9
framework to develop that database.
10 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you. That helps.
11 MR. REISI-FARD: Sure. So with that, I 12 turn it over to Holly Cruz, the acting Branch Chief 13 for Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch.
14 MS. CRUZ: Thanks, Mehdi. For those 15 following along separately, I'm on slide 15.
16 As Medhi mentioned, I'm Holly Cruz. I'm 17 acting for John Nakoski as the Branch Chief of the 18 Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch, PRAB. My 19 background is in mechanical engineering, and I've been 20 with the agency for 15 years, primarily in NRR. As 21 Christian mentioned, I've been in research for the 22 last year and a half as the technical assistant for 23 the Division of Engineering.
24 Next slide. This is slide 16. PRAB 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
56 plans, develops, integrates, and manages research and 1
development programs relating to probabilistic risk 2
assessment models and methods and supports agency 3
efforts to use risk information in all aspects of 4
regulatory decision-making. PRAB activities fall 5
under two functional areas: risk-informed decision-6 making activities where we support the agency by 7
developing probabilistic risk assessment guidance and 8
methods for new and emerging areas and the development 9
of risk models and tools, including software, to 10 support agency-wide risk-informed regulatory programs.
11 Next slide. This is slide 17. The work 12 captured under risk-informed decision-making 13 activities includes the full-scope comprehensive Level 14 3 Probabilistic Risk Assessment, which we'll talk 15 about more on a follow-on slide; external hazards and 16 FLEX modeling, recovery and restoring functions 17 credit, international standards participation where we 18 have John Nakoski as a member of the committee on the 19 Safety of Nuclear Installations Working Group on 20 External Events. Additionally, PRAB staff are 21 involved with the International Common-Cause Failure 22 Data Exchange Project led by the Organization for 23 Economic Cooperation and Development through the 24 Nuclear Energy Agency. We also plan to have a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
57 Japanese foreign assignee join us in early calendar 1
year 2022.
2 Continuing on, this work includes PRA 3
research on accident-tolerant fuel, dynamic PRA as a 4
part of future focused research -- we have an 5
independent slide on that, as well -- and advanced 6
reactor and regulatory guide support.
7 The work captured under the development of 8
risk models and tools includes: SPAR model updates 9
with current plant information; all-hazards SPAR 10 modeling including seismic, high winds, and internal 11 flooding. One or two models include fire, as well.
12 The SPAR-DASH risk data dashboard, IDHEAS-ECA 13 application, SAPHIRE software updates and 14 enhancements, and cloud-based SAPHIRE. We'll talk 15 about these risk models and tools more on the next 16 slide.
17 This is slide 18. A large part of the 18 work PRAB does supports the SAPHIRE code and SPAR 19 models. These risk tools have been developed for 20 event assessment, reactor oversight, and reactor 21 licensing, and to maintain staff PRA skills and 22 knowledge management. Under accomplishments, the 23 staff have incorporated FLEX modeling into 68 SPAR 24 models and completed 12 significant model updates 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
58 since the last ACRS manual. We complete approximately 1
six updates per year. Idaho National Laboratory 2
completed six models in 2020, and they're in the 3
process of completing the last two models for 2021.
4 We developed a pilot version of the SPAR-5 DASH data visualization dashboard using Microsoft 6
Power BI. The SPAR-DASH project is aimed at providing 7
a user-friendly format of risk-informed information 8
regarding the operating fleet of nuclear reactors.
9 This project supports the use of risk-important data 10 and regulatory decisions associated with the Be 11 RiskSMART framework and has three stages: data 12 extraction, cleaning, and visualization.
13 Looking forward for SAPHIRE and SPAR 14 improvements, we plan to expand and enhance the SPAR 15 model scope and implement a cloud-based SAPHIRE code.
16 We talked a little about SPAR-DASH. We've developed 17 a communications plan that includes sharing the pilot 18 with partner offices to obtain feedback and developing 19 staff guidance and workshops. We also have some SPAR 20 model reassessments under development, such as the 21 human failure event reassessment using IDHEAS-ECA, a 22 software tool capable of modeling both internal events 23 and the use of FLEX equipment.
24 Next slide, please. Could you advance to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
59 the next slide, please?
1 MR. THOMPSON: Past Level 3 --
2 MS. CRUZ: Pardon me?
3 MR. THOMPSON: I think it showed the Level 4
3 PRA.
5 MS. CRUZ: Okay. Sorry. It's not showing 6
on my screen. Is that still showing SAPHIRE and SPAR?
7 But I'll go ahead.
8 So I'm on slide 19. The next project I'd 9
like to talk about is the Level 3 Probabilistic Risk 10 Assessment. In a staff requirements memorandum from 11 2011, the Commission directed the staff to develop a 12 full-scope site Level -- sorry -- site Level 3 PRA to 13 support risk-informed decision-making, reflect State-14 of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analysis, SOARCA, 15 insights in the proper risk context, and further 16 enhance staff PRA skills.
17 In March 2012, the staff provided the 18 Commission with the initial Level 3 PRA project plan, 19 and, in September 2012, the staff provided the 20 Commission with its plans to apply the Level 3 PRA 21 project results to the NRC's regulatory framework.
22 Since that time, the staff has provided annual project 23 briefings to commissioners' assistants.
24 The staff have completed substantial work 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
60 on the Level 3 PRA projects, including incorporation 1
of the SOARCA technical and project management 2
insights. To provide some context, the staff 3
completed 19 base case models, which translates to 90-4 percent completed for phase 1. Phase 1 covers the 5
development of the initial model and internal report.
6 Phase 2 covers development of the final model and 7
internal report, incorporating review comments from 8
the Level 3 PRA Project Technical Advisory Group, 9
feedback from the ACRS, and any other reviews. The 10 technical advisory group consists of NRC technical 11 advisors in PRA and related fields, as well as two 12 senior PRA experts from
- industry, one from 13 Westinghouse and one from EPRI.
14 The staff have also completed three 2020 15 FLEX models which translates to 18 percent completed 16 for phase 1 and completed five public reports which 17 translates to 23 percent of the draft reports under 18 review. We plan to complete the technical work in 19 early 2023 and to submit a final NUREG summary volume 20 publications by mid-2024.
21 As we move forward towards these 22 milestones, we plan to release project reports to the 23 public in batches. Research will work with the 24 program offices, the Office of Public Affairs, and a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
61 voluntary licensee on releasing the reports. In 1
addition, we plan to present the public reports to the 2
ACRS for review and comment.
3 We previously briefed the ACRS Reliability 4
and PRA Subcommittee on many of the phase 1 models and 5
results. Due to the pre-decisional status of the 6
information, most of these subcommittee briefings were 7
conducted in closed sessions. We plan to brief the 8
ACRS on the phase 2 models and results in open 9
sessions and will work with the ACRS staff to schedule 10 the briefings likely in calendar year 2022.
11 The staff envisions this model will be 12 used as a tool to gain risk perspectives on some of 13 the NRC's current or emergent activities, such as 14 accident-tolerant fuel or the licensing modernization 15 project.
16 Next slide.
17 MEMBER PETTI: I have a question.
18 MS. CRUZ: Oh, okay.
19 MEMBER PETTI: This is Dave. In terms of 20 the number of plants that are going to be looked at at 21 Level 3 PRA, are they bound or, you know, we've got a 22 couple of the old BWIs and a couple of the newest ones 23 and PWRs from the different vendors. How was the 24 subset picked?
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62 MEMBER PETTI: So I believe we have Alan 1
Kuritzky, who is our lead for the Level 3 PRA project 2
on the line, and I will defer to Alan on that question 3
if that's okay.
4 MEMBER PETTI: Okay.
5 MR. KURITZKY: This is Alan Kuritzky with 6
the Division of Risk Analysis in the Office of 7
Research and the lead to the Level 3 project. So 8
we're actually looking at a single plant. It's a 9
Westinghouse four-loop plant, large dry containment.
10 We always intend only to look at a single site, a 11 single plant, just due to the vast scope of the 12 project. And the determination of what plant to use, 13 we had actually come up with some criteria at the 14 beginning of the project, at the outset, and actually 15 held some public meetings to go over and describe what 16 we were looking for and to get feedback from industry 17 and their support. The Commission actually told us to 18 in the SRM to work with industry to come up with a 19 volunteer licensee, and there were actually several 20 volunteers that we were going to choose from. But, 21 unfortunately, because it was timed right around the 22 Fukushima accident and, once all the post-Fukushima 23 PRA responsibilities were starting to fall down on the 24 industry, they quickly backed off supporting the Level 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
63 3 project, so we ended up with a single volunteer, 1
fortunately, that was able to support a very 2
significant effort in supporting us and we're very 3
appreciative of that. So there's only one plant, 4
again, a four-loop Westinghouse, unlike the --
5 MEMBER PETTI: Okay. That answers --
6 MR. KURITZKY: -- where, of course, we 7
looked at all different types.
8 MEMBER PETTI: Right, right. Thanks.
9 MS. CRUZ: Thanks, Alan. So I think we're 10 ready for the last slide, which is slide number 20.
11 The last project I'd like to cover for 12 PRAB is dynamic PRA. Dynamic PRA refers to PRA 13 approaches that simulate system behavior and accident 14 scenario development over time. As a supplement to 15 commonly used event tree or fault tree methods, the 16 use of dynamic PRA has the potential to provide 17 additional useful risk insights for operating plant 18 designs and operations.
19 PRA-based applications can also be 20 anticipated for future advanced reactor designs.
21 Dynamic PRA also plays a major role in university PRA 22 and research and development programs, and the 23 Department of Energy is supporting significant 24 national laboratory work, including large-scale tool 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
64 development at Idaho National Laboratory.
1 The objective of this future-focused 2
research is to prepare NRC staff on the efficient use 3
of dynamic PRA tools for anticipated submittals 4
developed using dynamic PRA methods. This study will 5
primarily focus on staff development for the efficient 6
use of dynamic PRA tools and methods and consists of 7
three main tasks. The staff will initially complete 8
a literature review to leverage ongoing dynamic PRA 9
activities identifying methods, approaches, and 10 available dynamic PRA tools. The staff will also 11 participate in training exercises to develop 12 capabilities for using the existing dynamic PRA tools, 13 and the staff will develop hands-on experience by 14 using dynamic PRA tools to develop a simple dynamic 15 PRA model.
16 The results of the study consists of three 17 main deliverables noted under accomplishments and 18 future direction. First is an interim report 19 documenting literature review and dynamic PRA 20 activities. We have a draft in progress expected to 21 be complete by the end of October. Next are training 22 sessions on the use of dynamic PRA tools. Three of 23 them completed to date, including an introduction to 24 dynamic PRA virtual workshop in November 2020, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
65 training on the Event Modeling Risk Assessment using 1
Linked Diagrams, EMERALD, software tool in January 2
2021, and the Reactor Analysis and Virtual Control 3
Environment, RAVEN, tool training in May 2021. The 4
final report documenting dynamic PRA model results is 5
expected in July 2022.
6 We hope to leverage this work to maintain 7
awareness of a still-developing cutting-edge PRA 8
technology and monitor industry interest to ensure 9
readiness for future licensing activities.
10 That's all I have for PRAB.
11 MEMBER BROWN: Can I ask a question?
12 MS. CRUZ: Sure.
13 MEMBER BROWN: I was a non-PRA person, so 14 bear with me. What's the difference between a dynamic 15 PRA and the standard PRA I've been listening to for 16 the last 13 years?
17 MS. CRUZ: So, again, I'm going to phone 18 a friend, and I think we have Michelle Gonzalez on the 19 line who is the lead for this effort. So if she's on 20 the line, I'm hoping she can address that question.
21 MS. GONZALEZ: I'm here, Holly. So in 22 very short words, basically, for dynamic PRA, we use 23 simulation tools. We have incorporation of the 24 programs to obtain the results or what we want to look 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
66 at instead of just using the regular event tree, fault 1
tree approach.
2 MEMBER BROWN: Excuse me. So you're using 3
transient analyses type approaches? When you say 4
simulation, that's what that means to me.
5 MS. GONZALEZ: Well, no. We can 6
incorporate, it's an incorporation of different tools 7
actually. We can use tools for thermal hydraulics and 8
see how the things react over time.
9 MEMBER BROWN: That's a transient then, 10 right? I mean, you're talking about time transients 11 for certain events or certain types of parameters that 12 you monitor in the PRA and see how the transient 13 performance affects your various parameters that 14 you're looking for in determining whether everything 15 is okay or not? I'm just trying to understand what 16 the difference is; that's all.
17 MS. GONZALEZ: Yes. John has his hand 18 raised. John, if you want to add something to this.
19 MR. NAKOSKI: Yes. This is John Nakoski.
20 I'm the Branch Chief. Holly is acting for me. I'm 21 listening in. The simple way I think about this is a 22 dynamic PRA, and it was mentioned, uses, like you 23 said, a transient analysis, thermal hydraulic codes, 24 to see what the effect of an action is over time.
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67 Simply thinking, I think, of our current models as 1
more static. There are some time dependencies in 2
there, of course, but they're more a static snapshot, 3
a moment in time on what the risk is based on that.
4 And I think that's the biggest difference, simply 5
speaking, in my mind.
6 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. I look at the event 7
tree approach and how you come up with your final 8
answers as being, like you say, a static specific type 9
of an analysis. So you're just trying to make other 10 time-based tools in order to make some of these 11 assessments, as well.
12 MR. NAKOSKI: That's correct. And, you 13 know, you're looking for one of the things that we 14 have in our mind is looking at recovery actions: are 15 there some things, you know, time dependencies in 16 there that perhaps we could leverage some of the 17 dynamic tools that are, dynamic PRA tools that are out 18 there to give us insights on the timing of recovery 19 actions so that is there a credit that we can give and 20 what impact would that have on the final risk 21 assessment. That's kind of looking over the horizon 22 a little bit. That's not something we're going to be 23 doing tomorrow, but, you know, looking three, five 24 years down the road, what can we do.
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68 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. It's an interesting 1
thought. I hadn't thought about it in that way 2
before, so thanks.
3 MR. NAKOSKI: Yes.
4 MS. CRUZ: Thank you, John and Michelle.
5 So I'd like to now --
6 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: I have one short 7
question on Level 3, and then I think this is a good 8
time for us to take a break. We are right in the 9
middle of the presentation.
10 So I have a question on Level 3. Would 11 Level 3 include the risk integration for the multiple 12 plants on the site? I think somebody mentioned that 13 today, and I was wondering, I was wondering, since you 14 only have one unit as an example, would risk 15 integration be part of some of Level 3 consideration?
16 MR. THAGGARD: So I can answer that, if 17 you want, Holly. The answer is yes. The site that 18 we're using actually has more than one unit, and it's 19 not only the multiple units but we're also looking at 20 spent fuel pool and dry cask storage. So the 21 integration, so integration is a big piece of that.
22 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Excellent, excellent.
23 Thank you. So I propose, now is like around 3:30, I 24 propose that we make 15-minute break and then we get 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
69 back at 3:45 and then continue with our, I think the 1
fire and external hazards is next, right?
2 MS. CRUZ: Yes.
3 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay. Excellent. So 4
we will reconvene at 3:45. Thank you.
5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 6
off the record at 3:31 p.m. and resumed at 3:45 p.m.)
7 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: We can resume the 8
meeting. I guess that Mark Henry Salley will be our 9
next presenter on the Fire and External Hazard 10 Analysis Branch. So, Mark, please take it over.
11 MR. SALLEY: Thank you very much. I'm 12 Mark Henry Salley. I'm the Branch Chief for Fire and 13 External Hazards Analysis.
14 Background on me, I started the fire 15 research team actually back in 2004. It grew into a 16 branch.
17 Back around the 2016 time frame we 18 combined the fire research with the environmental 19 transport branch. And that's the fire hazards and 20 external, excuse me, the fire and external hazards 21 analysis branch as we know it today.
22 Prior to that I was eight years in NRR in 23 plant systems branch. And ten years before that I was 24 the corporate fire protection engineer for TVA 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
70 Nuclear.
1 Go to the next slide please. A little bit 2
about FXHAB. We have three distinct areas, three 3
diverse areas, that we have that make up this branch.
4 The first one if the fire research branch. Or excuse 5
me, the old fire research branch.
6 The fire research area looks at two areas.
7 There's two tracks basically. As you're well aware, 8
half the industry stayed with the 10 CFR 50 Appendix 9
R licensing basis. The prescriptive licensing basis.
10 The other half evolved to the 10 CFR 5048 11 C, which is the risk informed performance basis, 12 licensing basis commonly called NFPA 805. And that's 13 the work that's done in this area to support those two 14 different tracks.
15 A second functionally area is the external 16 hazards. Of course the big one that we talk a lot 17 about there is the probabilistic flood hazards 18 assessment. It worked PFHA.
19 We're also looking at other things that we 20 don't want to miss. For example, high winds, we're 21 going to talk a little bit about, we well as some 22 other weather affects that we should deal with.
23 The one thing we do not do in external 24 hazards is seismic. So the earthquake and the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
71 seismic, that belongs to DE, the civil engineering 1
folks.
2 The third area, it's kind of a new area 3
but it's not really new. And I've got it here as 4
environmental hazards. I really should have titled 5
this as environmental impacts. And it's some work we 6
do, typically with our partners in NMSS.
7 Next slide please. We'll just touch on 8
the major projects and then we'll take a little deeper 9
dive into each of them.
10 If we look at fire PRA, the term you'll 11 hear today that's thrown a lot is fire PRA realism.
12 But if we go back to 2004 there was a report, it was 13 the first time we worked together really closely with 14 the Electric Power and Research Institute, EPRI.
15 And we jointly published a report commonly 16 referred to as NUREG-CR-6850. It's actually that or 17 EPRI-109-1989. Like I said, it was the first time we 18 ever jointly published.
19 And this is basically the method of how do 20 you do a fire PRA. This report was important for a 21 couple of reasons.
22 It affects some of the how we do risk 23 informing with fire for STP, but it also formed the 24 basis for the plants that wanted to go forward with 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
72 NFPA 805. As this gave them methods on how to do the 1
fire PRA.
2 We can't forget post-fire safe shutdown.
3 That, of course, goes back to March 22nd, 1975, the 4
Browns Ferry fire in Appendix R. And there still was 5
an amount of work that we've done in there. And 6
occasionally things come up that we still support 7
that.
8 An area that's probably the biggest thing 9
we're working on today in fire research is high energy 10 arcing fault, or HEAFs. You can think of those as a, 11 first steps would be an arc flash, which is something 12 that's fairly commonly, but when the fault stays 13 locked in it develops into a HEAF.
14 And I'll just point out that this is kind 15 of a newer area. This was not in our lexicon until 16 really the 2004 time frame. The first place that 17 you'll really see this mentioned is in NUREG-CR-6850.
18 This is kind of a newer phenomena. Based 19 on a lot of what we've seen in operating experience 20 has lead us to this. And also, be aware that it's not 21 unique to nuclear power plants.
22 Anywhere there is a lot of electricity, 23 specifically medium voltage, HEAFs can occur. So 24 that's the area.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
73 And the final area that I want to touch 1
on, that I think is important, is training. You can 2
do a lot of really good research things but if you 3
don't get it out in people hands in training them how 4
to use the models and tools sometimes it's all for 5
not.
6 Other major projects we got, the external 7
hazards of course if the PFHA work. PFHA we're 8
completing the first part of raising a seven year 9
project getting Phase 1 completed where we're working 10 into Phase 2. I'll talk about that in a little bit.
11 There is three phases to that project.
12 High winds is a newer area that we're 13 looking at. There has been some research done. We've 14 supported part of it with other partners. We will 15 discuss that with high winds.
16 And another area that we're starting to 17 explore is weather extremes. This past year, anyone 18 who's just watched the news saw that with the cold 19 weather in Texas, as well the hot weather, some of the 20 things that their nuclear plants have gone through.
21 So weather extremes/intensity is something we want to 22 take a look at.
23 The other area, like I said, is the 24 environmental impact. I shouldn't have used hazards 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
74 there it should have been impact, I think is a better 1
description.
2 But here we're looking at things like 3
subsurface characterizations, radon and ET covers, as 4
well as the MARSSIM's agreement, which we'll talk 5
about in a little bit. So those are the ten thousand 6
foot major projects that you'll see within this 7
branch.
8 Next slide please. As I said, the thing 9
you'll hear a lot in industry is improving fire PRA 10 realism. That seems to be the goal. That's what we 11 strive for.
12 If I take you back in time to, I think 13 August 24th, 2018 we were in front of the ACRS, and if 14 you remember it, we showed you a graph that EPRI had 15 put together and presented in a RIC session, and we 16 called it the skyscraper chart, if you remember it.
17 And it listed the first 16 or so plants 18 that had come in for NFPA 805. And where they were 19 finding their high fire risks.
20 And if you remember the first one, it was 21 electrical enclosures, cabinet fires. The second was 22 transients. And the third was high energy arcing 23 faults.
24 Since that time we've been doing a lot or 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
75 work. Most of it, many times, in partnership with 1
EPRI under an MOU. And we've reduced some of the 2
conservatism, brought a little more realism to how we 3
model things like electrical enclosure fires.
4 The picture off to your left there is an 5
experiment we ran at NIST. And where we were modeling 6
how group cable trays burn and the flames spread and 7
the heat released produced from these cable tray 8
fires.
9 So we've done a lot of work in that area.
10 And we're brought a lot more realism to those types of 11 fires.
12 Transient was another one. We just 13 completed a big project. EPRI did half the testing at 14 Jensen Hughes, we did the other half in NIST. We 15 combined our data and we developed some methods on how 16 better to model transient fires.
17 That's an area that we're going to 18 continue to do a little more research on and come up 19 with simpler methods for our inspectors to model 20 transient fires and what risk they play when they find 21 them in the plants.
22 The third area that we're going to talk 23 about, of course, is the high energy arcing faults.
24 That we'll have a separate slide on, and we'll get 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
76 into that in a little bit.
1 We've produced a number of work. The 2
joint work with EPRI was NUREGs. Some scientific 3
research we were also able to do with NIST.
4 For example, where the fire is located in 5
a compartment actually makes a difference when you 6
model it or when you see it in real life. So we've 7
done some testing with NIST and published those as 8
research information letters.
9 Next slide please.
10 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: I have a question.
11 MR. SALLEY: Sure.
12 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: I have a question of 13 this slide because I think some of those failures are 14 very, very, you know, very crucial areas for that 15 area, I mean, the fires, as much as I remember when I 16 was doing fire PRAs.
17 When it comes to the cabinet fires, there 18 is another topic which is slightly different than 19 which you define here. This is, you know, you can 20 analyze inside fire and propagation as an (audio 21 interference). But also you can analyze cabinet 22 inside the area which is being heated up by fire.
23 Was any research done on what temperatures 24 in the elemental temperature the cabinets are, should 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
77 be considered to start failing their functions and 1
what type of failure modes are these associated with 2
it.
3 MR. SALLEY: That's a very interesting 4
question. And yes, cabinets tend to make up one of 5
the major risk factors.
6 Simple things we looked at was, early on, 7
was the cabinet opened or closed with the ventilation 8
makes a very big difference. But your question, it 9
deals with fragility.
10 And if there is another cabinet on fire or 11 a ground based transient fire, whatever the source may 12 be, it could be an oil fire, et cetera, when does it 13 take the cabinet out. We are actually looking at that 14 right now with the high energy arcing faults because 15 one of the things we look at with the high energy 16 arcing faults is we developed, which we call a ZOI, a 17 zone of influence, we do the same with a thermal fire.
18 And the question becomes, what temperature 19 do I get when I see the fragility of the cabinets of 20 fail. Now, the big thing is cables. Cables tend to 21 be the big target that we see in cable trays and 22 conduits.
23 But that project right now is actually 24 looking at that. And we're doing some modeling with 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
78 the HEAF at the source term, if you will, to see when 1
we get that failure in cabinets and other targets. So 2
that's --
3 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay. All the 4
breakers and switches too, you know, in addition to 5
the cables. So then you can start, you know, can 6
consider spurious operations and things like that.
7 MR. SALLEY: Most definitely. Most 8
definitely. And the cabinets by you a bit. I mean, 9
we see with things like conduits, if a cable was at 10 least an air drop versus one that's in a medium or a 11 rigid conduit, of course the material adds some 12 thermal heat sink for you and it actually buys you 13 some time.
14 So we have an ongoing effort right now 15 doing that as part of the HEAF program.
16 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay, thanks. Thank 17 you.
18 MR. SALLEY: Sure. Sure. And again, to 19 follow up on your point, one of the research projects 20 we got going, that we'll deal with NIST, and again, it 21 gets to the ventilation control with the fire 22 obviously, heat, fuel and oxygen, but again, the 23 ventilation can control about how much oxygen you're 24 getting in for combustion.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
79 And that's something that we saw early on.
1 Just to touch on the conservatism that came up with 2
the early cabinet fires. And the Europeans still do 3
a lot of this, is that if you open the cabinet door 4
and burn what's inside, obviously there is ample 5
oxygen. So it becomes a fuel limited fire. And you 6
tend to see the larger fires that way.
7 However, what we see in OpE is a lot of 8
times the cabinets are closed so all you have is a 9
ventilation louvers to lobby oxygen in. So you can 10 think of it like your fireplace. If you're limiting 11 the oxygen then you're controlling the combustion.
12 And that's an area that we still want to 13 do a little bit of work with NIST. And scientifically 14 we can nail that down for our models. So that's the 15 last item on there.
16 Next slide please. HEAF. HEAF is the big 17 one we've been working. We've been working on this 18 one for quite a while.
19 I guess the most recent news is that this 20 used to be known we pre-GI 018 for the aluminum high 21 energy arc faults. In the past month we have exited 22 the GI program.
23 Right now there is nothing. This was the 24 last item that was in the generic issue program. So 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
80 that program is currently vacant or empty.
1 We brought this back to research. We need 2
to do a little additional work. It's work that's 3
ongoing, along with EPRI.
4 We formed a working group a couple of 5
years ago to really, on this side. This is kind of a 6
new area for us to go into.
7 It's not an area that's very well 8
explored, which you'll find a lot in the literature.
9 I mentioned earlier was arc flashes and NFPA, the 10 IEEE. They've done a lot of work in this area. But 11 again, their primary mission there was electrician 12 safety for personnel safety.
13 So their durations of the event were 14 limited, roughly, to two seconds. When we see the 15 HEAFs, it's basically an arc flash that has stayed 16 locked in for some reason and it grows quite a bit 17 from what we see in the arc flash.
18 So that's an area that we're still doing 19 an amount of work on. Again, with that, NRR is going 20 to do a LIC-504 project to try to get a handle on some 21 of the risk insights for this so they can get some 22 decision making. And that is ongoing.
23 Final piece, with HEAF, is this all 24 started out as international research. Research we've 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
81 done with the OECD, NEA. And that's kind of where we 1
were trying to get a handle on it.
2 And actually what we were trying to do was 3
to do the research to validate Appendix M in NUREG-CR-4 6850. Which is how we model the HEAF events. Of 5
course, things were going fairly well until we ran 6
into some aluminum components and we saw a different 7
failure mechanism. A much more energetic fault.
8 And from there we kind of entered the 9
generic issue program, which we've since exited. But 10 that's where we're at with that. We've done an 11 information notice, 2017-04 I believe it is. And we 12 put that out.
13 As a final thing with the HEAF project, 14 like I said, it's still ongoing. There is a lot of 15 deliverables that are going to be coming due in FY22.
16 We've created a website. And all the 17 latest information on this project can be found on the 18 website.
19 MEMBER HALNON: Hey, Mark, this Greg 20 Halnon.
21 MR. SALLEY: Go ahead.
22 MEMBER HALNON: Yes. When this issue 23 first came out it caused a lot of consternation 24 throughout both regulatory and the industry. How do 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
82 you guys stay in sync with the inspection folks and 1
what's going on at the sites when you have an issue 2
like this?
3 Did it get into the generic energy program 4
late or did it, what happened there and why now are we 5
kind of deciding that it's not as serious an issue as 6
it was?
7 MR. SALLEY: I don't think seriousness is 8
the key. I think what brought us out of the generic 9
issue program is that you're not supposed to stay in 10 a generic issue program forever.
11 And this program, this research, was there 12 for five or six years and we weren't making enough 13 progress. There still needed to be some additional 14 research done.
15 So following the process is pretty much 16 why we had to remove this from the program and bring 17 it back to research until we complete those pieces and 18 then reevaluate it as to where it needs to be. We 19 still follow all of the regions quite a bit.
20 December 16th last year the Harris plant, 21 they experienced a HEAF due to some insulation 22 problems on the aluminum bus stop. So we try to stay 23 well informed and work with our original partners on 24 that to get the last information.
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83 MEMBER HALNON: Okay.
1 MR. SALLEY: The thing with HEAFs is 2
they're not super rare, but they're super common. So 3
every few years we tend to see one. And that was kind 4
the crux of the information notice that we needed to 5
stop, go back and look at the OpE over time and 6
connect the dots, if you will.
7 MEMBER HALNON: Okay.
8 MR. SALLEY: So that's where we're at with 9
that. Mark Thaggard, do you want anything else on 10 existing the generic issue process?
11 MR.
THAGGARD:
No, I
think you 12 characterized it correctly. So it's not a, we didn't 13 make any determination on the significance of the 14 issue, as Mark Henry said.
15 If you look at the criteria for getting 16 something into the GI program, there is certain 17 criteria. One of them is whether or not you can make 18 a, come to a resolution in a timely manner. And we 19 just haven't been able to do that yet. We need to get 20 some more work done.
21 MR. SALLEY: Okay.
22 MEMBER REMPE: So this is Joy. And I 23 really appreciate this discussion because I've read 24 the industry notices or the popular press notices and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
84 they clearly say it was pulled out because you 1
couldn't, you can't do research for a long period of 2
time for a GI issue, or generic issue.
3 But I haven't heard anything in the 4
popular press saying, with an additional research it 5
can go back in. And that's what I'm hearing from you 6
guys today, which we just don't have enough 7
information to evaluate it and maybe it got in 8
prematurely?
9 MR. SALLEY: Yes. When we originally went 10 in, I think we thought we had a little better handle 11 on what we needed to do from the research side. There 12 was a lot of confusion back then.
13 Part of the thing, if you go back in time 14 and look at it was just how much aluminum was out 15 there. And from the informal surveys that NEI did 16 it's like, well, there's little to none. So it was 17 kind of framing itself as a different kind of problem.
18 As we look further, EPRI just finished a 19 survey this past year and found that aluminum is 20 basically in every plant in the country. So we're 21 still learning a lot about it.
22 Yes, I believe it can reenter the program, 23 but for the decision makers in the regulatory office 24 I think they need to move ahead faster and further 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
85 than us. And that's what the LIC-504 process should 1
help them to inform their decision.
2 MR. THAGGARD: Well, the other thing is, 3
I wouldn't say it was entered prematurely, I think 4
we've learned a lot. I mean, that's part of the 5
working.
6 One of the thing that we've learned is 7
that there are some issues here that are a lot more 8
complicated than I think we originally understood when 9
we first got into it.
10 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, this really helps.
11 And I get, that's why I'm kind of repeating my take on 12 it so I can make sure my take on it is correct, so I 13 appreciate you pointing that out to me. Again, this 14 has been a very helpful discussion.
15 MEMBER BROWN: Can I speak up? This is 16 Charlie.
17 MR. SALLEY: Sure, Charlie.
18 MEMBER BROWN: Can you hear me?
19 MR. SALLEY: Yes, sir.
20 MEMBER BROWN: My mind is blowing. Five, 21 six, seven years ago, this issue of the energy arc, 22 how the energy arc faults came up.
23 And back in the early to mid-'80s we had, 24 I was in the naval nuclear program, submarines and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
86 aircraft carrier parts of it. And arc faults are not, 1
it's not a matter of aluminum or copper it's a matter 2
of loose connections, and aluminum just contributes to 3
loose connections better than copper does, for the 4
most part.
5 And it was a big problem in submarines and 6
aircraft carriers. And we almost killer people with 7
a couple of high energy arc faults. It blew out of 8
the panel.
9 Fortunately the petty officer happened to 10 be leaning over tying his shoe strings at the time and 11 he didn't get a fireball through his back. And we 12 embarked on a huge program which we then developed arc 13 fault detectors. They were installed in all the 14 submarines, as well as in aircraft carriers.
15 And I brought this up to the research 16 group, and I forgot who else, pointed them to the 17 documents and their hardware. I mean, you can really 18 search the hell out of this, but it's fixable.
19 It doesn't seem like anybody wants to fix 20 it, they just want to research it. I'm being a little 21 bit sarcastic when I say that because I was surprised 22 that this pops back up again like this and all we're 23 doing is worrying about all the aspects of analysis 24 and research and can you predict it and all this other 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
87 kind of stuff when it's fixable. Why research it if 1
you can fix it.
2 MR. SALLEY: Yes, Charlie, Commissioner 3
Ostendorff used to also beat me up with this too with 4
his navy background. He'd hit me in a few commission 5
meetings with the same thing.
6 But again, it takes us into the world of 7
backfit. And I don't know that we're there to even 8
consider that yet.
9 MEMBER BROWN: Well why research it if 10 they're going to fix it? I mean, researching 11 something that's a fire, put out the fire then if 12 they're not going to fix it.
13 I know you can't mandate anything. But it 14 seems resources spent time studying it when you're not 15 going to do anything about it seems like the money 16 would be better spent in some other areas.
17 MR. SALLEY: You know, one of the things 18 with the HEAF, and when we entered the generic safety 19 issue program, the mantra, or the thing that we heard 20 a lot of was, oh, here we go again, another GSI-191.
21 And it's going to develop into that.
22 Part of the reason to how we work through 23 the GI program, and the reason it stayed a pre-GI it 24 never went to a generic issue, was that we didn't want 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
88 to repeat the same mistakes. We wanted to have the 1
full understanding of it, we wanted to have the 2
analytical tools.
3 When we do an analysis, or a plant would 4
use our methods to go out there and analyze if they 5
have a potential risk, we wanted them to be the best 6
we could possibly be, not some overly conservative 7
method. And if that's --
8 MEMBER BROWN: Why bother? You can 9
analyze the heck out this stuff. And if industry is 10 not worried about it on the small occurrences that 11 they have, that they wouldn't backfit stuff to prevent 12 them, then I have a hard time seeing why we're 13 spending research money on it.
14 MR. THAGGARD: Well, we need to spend --
15 (Simultaneously speaking.)
16 MEMBER BROWN: -- a little bit critical 17 here because you cannot mandate backfit, I agree with 18 you, but I don't see that. We had a reason to do it.
19 When you're enclosed in a submarine hole 20 or you're enclosed in a machinery space in an aircraft 21 carrier, you've got some real severe problems when you 22 have one of these things blowout. So we had a real 23 incentive.
24 I don't know how that applies to the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
89 commercial world, but you say it doesn't happen that 1
often, and obviously the industry is not interested in 2
backfitting any equipment in there to prevent them so, 3
or respond and de-energize stuff when they occur.
4 MR. THAGGARD: Well --
5 MEMBER BROWN: There are ways to do it, 6
so, I'm sorry for my, I'm not trying to be mean or 7
nasty, it just seems to me that if we're looking for 8
resources we ought to be using them in the places 9
where they might be more, have some results when 10 something gets done.
11 MR. THAGGARD: Well, the reason that we 12 were doing the research is to determine whether or not 13 that something needed to be done. We haven't made 14 that decision.
15 And then if we make that decision that 16 something needs to be done, then we need to have 17 information to be able to support that. But also to 18 determine what is the fix that we would recommend. So 19 we have to do the research to understand whether or 20 not this is an issue or not.
21 MEMBER BROWN: You've got the data of how 22 often it occurs. You don't have to figure out all the 23 nuances and micro details about why they may or may 24 not occur.
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90 MR. THAGGARD: Well, we need to know, I 1
mean, Mark mentioned earlier this thing, the zone of 2
influence. So you take that for an example.
3 We need to know how big this zone of 4
influence to know what equipment is impacted. If it 5
turns out that nothing is impacted, then you know you 6
don't have an issue.
7 MEMBER BROWN: Well --
8 (Simultaneously speaking.)
9 MR. THAGGARD: Well, there hasn't been 10 enough of these things to be able to make that 11 conclusive statement because it hasn't happened.
12 Something isn't going to happen in the future.
13 MEMBER BROWN: That's the point. There 14 are not enough of them. And industry is very 15 particular about stuff that damages plants and takes 16 things out of commission.
17 So apparently it's not a big enough of an 18 issue that the industries and the utilities have not 19 gone after that to install or prevent them. So I 20 just, hey, I'll quit. I'm just bringing it back up 21 again. It just seemed like resources that would be 22 better spent other places. Just an observation.
23 MR. SALLEY: No, Charlie, I respect your 24 comment. And there's a lot of frustration on this, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
91 with this project.
1 As we get into it, there is still things 2
we learned. And Mark was talking about the ZOIs. And 3
one of the things we're looking at is the different 4
voltages, the different ways that you can get it.
5 Whether it's feed from the generator, if 6
a plant has a main turbine, excuse me, a main 7
generator breaker. A lot of different scenarios. So 8
when we're trying to work through that.
9 A couple of things. One thing, by looking 10 at it and studying it, EPRI has put out a couple of 11 documents, a couple three documents, on not just the 12 survey of what's out there and where they see the 13 potential risk, but also on some good preventative 14 maintenance in that. So it brought it to the 15 forefront there.
16 And as you well know, in a defense-in-17 depth environment, prevention is always the best 18 thing. If you can do prevention.
19 So hopefully we've done some good there 20 with industry doing some good PMs. And hey, if we got 21 to go thank the bolts and the buses and that's for 22 this outage, but we're going to put that off until the 23 next outage. Maybe that's not a good idea. Maybe we 24 need to go and look at that because we are seeing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
92 these types of events.
1 So hopefully we've done some good there.
2 But again, I think we need to shake the research out 3
the whole way to see just how bad it is.
4 And it's going to be very plant specific.
5 Some plants may have no issue at all. Other plants, 6
again, it's just like an Appendix R circuit analysis 7
where you get a pinch point.
8 Where you have the wrong two pieces of 9
equipment, the wrong two trains of equipment coming 10 together. And that's kind of what we're trying to get 11 the methodology and the tools out there for someone 12 who wants to look for that to be able to find that.
13 MEMBER BROWN: Well this stuff happens in 14 450 volt circuits just like it does in medium voltage 15 circuits.
16 MR. SALLEY: Yes. Yes, it does. It 17 happens in D/C as well as A/C.
18 MEMBER BROWN: Yes. So zone of influence, 19 obviously it just has not been a problem for 40 years, 20 50 years and nobody has done anything about it. So I 21 will reiterate my comment that it seems to me that, 22 and I'm not worried about it being a generic issue or 23 not a generic issue, that's not the point, the point 24 is, this is fixable.
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93 And trying to fiddle around with figuring 1
out what zone of influence this is, you're going to 2
try to convince the industry to go off and do 3
something. Their experience doesn't prove necessary.
4 And I'm not arguing for or against, I'm 5
just saying there are ways to do it. The navy has 6
equipment already developed with technics for more 7
open switchboards as opposed to watertight 8
switchboards.
9 So I just, it's like spinning your wheels, 10 as far as I'm concerned. It's just an observation.
11 MEMBER REMPE: So, to just cut it bluntly, 12 the only way the Commission usually does something 13 like what Charlie wants, is that they perceive it's an 14 adequate protection issue or they need to issue an 15 order or something like that.
16 And I don't think you have enough evidence 17 to motivate the Commission to do something, so you 18 have to make it into a fact that you have to do the 19 research. Is that a true statement, Mark?
20 MR. SALLEY: That's spot on. You're 21 exactly right. And that's the due diligence that 22 we're going for.
23 And, again, Charlie, I sympathize with 24 what you're saying. If we look at Japan, we're doing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
94 a lot of research with Japan. If we go back to 2011, 1
the great earthquake, the plant that was closest to 2
the epicenter was a plant called Onagawa.
3 Of
- course, Fukushima overshadowed 4
everything, but if we look at the operating experience 5
at Onagawa and they had multiple HEAFs there that 6
lasted up to eight hours. Japan has a very big 7
research programing, bigger than ours, that's going on 8
to explore this.
9 And their regulatory stance, as we seem to 10 understand it, is they're going for that being able to 11 limit it to less than two seconds with things like you 12 use the sensors and the detectors. And that's what 13 they're doing in Japan.
14 I don't know that we would ever get to 15 that. But again, we're trying to do what Dr. Rempe 16 said and get to that due diligence in research.
17 So this is the problem, we understand it 18 and this is the risk it poses. And those are the hard 19 questions that we're trying to answer right now.
20 MEMBER BROWN: I give up.
21 MEMBER REMPE: I think we can't change the 22 way the rules are about the whole Commission, Charlie.
23 MEMBER BROWN: No, I think --
24 MEMBER REMPE: So we should move on.
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95 (Laughter.)
1 MEMBER BROWN: No, I understand. I mean, 2
I'm not arguing for backfits or not, I'm arguing that 3
I don't see where there is a huge problem that we need 4
to spend research money on, that's all.
5 MR. SALLEY: If I can bring that around to 6
what I said earlier, and I which I had some backup 7
slides here, but if we go back to the EPRI skyscraper 8
chart, this was the number three risk driver they saw 9
when they did the 805.
10 We've been very successful in bring down 11 the first two, but when you get into this game, as you 12 suppress risk in one area often times it pops up in 13 another area. So this was their third big risk driver 14 for the plants that we're doing the transition to NFPA 15 805.
16 We've lowered the first two, cabinet fires 17 and transients. But I think with HEAF, again, in the 18 vein of looking for realism, we're going to see that 19 there is a potential increase here. So, that's what 20 I would say, would be some of the justification to 21 continue on forward with it.
22 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay, thank you. We 23 have interesting discussion on this topic obviously.
24 MEMBER BROWN: I quit.
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96 (Laughter.)
1 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Not much we can do 2
about it. So, okay, so we can continue then please.
3 MR. SALLEY: Okay. So that pretty much 4
takes care of HEAF. Good flip on the slides there, 5
Jason.
6 The second area that we'll talk about is 7
our work in PFHA. Very busy year for us. We're 8
winding down roughly the first seven years of the 9
program.
10 This is where we develop a lot of the 11 technical basis. We looked at things like climate, 12 precipitation, riverine flooding, paleoflooding, some 13 hydrology, coastal flooding and some combined 14 mechanisms.
15 The reasons for this was to establish the 16 technical basis. And that's basically what the first 17 phase of the program has done.
18 Again, right now we're doing a lot of 19 knowledge transfer from our contractors who had done 20 work for us to the research and the NRR staffs and 21 sharing that information. And we're moving into the 22 phase two, which is at the bottom there. The three 23 pilot studies.
24 That's going to be the big effort for 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
97 2022. We're roughly three-quarters of the way 1
complete.
2 And we're looking at three pilot studies.
3 A site scale flooding study, including LIP, which is 4
local intense precipitation. A riverine flooding 5
model, which includes a dam failure. And also some 6
coastal flooding.
7 After we've completed those pilots, then 8
in 2023 we will start to start thinking about, do we 9
need to do some regulatory guidance. And that would 10 be the third phase of the PFHA program.
11 Another very important piece of this 12 program, and I'm very so proud of my people that have 13 worked on this, we'll talk about, I have a separate 14 slide, is on the workshop that we do. We've done six 15 of them, and we're going to be doing our seventh one 16 this year. We've already got our dates. The seventh 17 one will be held February 15th through the 18th of 18 this year.
19 And we're learning, and also expanding 20 this, to pick up other external hazards. High wind 21 being one thing that we definitely want to look at.
22 Next slide please. So, you can see some 23 of the topics. We've already covered these. Our last 24 workshop and agenda are listed there. These are all 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
98 the presentations.
1 The last years was done completely 2
virtual. It was very well received. Over 300 3
attendees.
4 I think we can go to the next slide, 5
Jason. And I love this slide that the guys made up 6
and worked on it.
7 And this is kind of drilled down a little 8
bit to who is looking at this workshop and where is 9
the interests. You can see that it's pretty broad and 10 it's international.
11 We've got academia, we've got other 12 federal agencies in here. A lot of participation. A 13 lot of conversation, a lot of good exchange of 14 information.
15 And as you well know, one of the big 16 things with the NRC is communication. And being good 17 communicators and sharing technology, being 18 transparent.
19 This workshops is a model of that. And 20 it's brining all the right people together to discuss 21 all the right information. And like I said, I really 22 enjoy this slide because it kind of brings it all 23 together.
24 The seventh one is scheduled. It will 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
99 probably be virtual, although we do have the 1
auditorium scheduled for this year. We'll have to see 2
what COVID does. But we're looking for bigger and 3
better.
4 And like I said, expanding into some other 5
areas of, we've expanded a little bit into OpE. With 6
some of the stuff like the Fort Calhoun flood.
7 We've had presentations, as well as the 8
events that have happened in France. And this year 9
we're looking to bring in a little bit more of the 10 external hazards.
11 Next slide please. The next area that I 12 just want to touch base on, I said this is an area 13 we've done a little bit in the past.
14 If you remember around 2017 time frame we 15 had a NUREG, I believe it was 7231. I know it's one 16 of Mark Thaggard's favorites, but this is when we 17 modeled the radioactive, excuse me, we modeled the 18 radionuclide transport in fresh water. Which was 19 lakes and rivers.
20 It shared a lot of good information that 21 we had put together. We expanded some of the work 22 that we're doing with our partners in NMSS.
23 Looking at things like radon covers and 24 how they've held up over
- time, ET
- covers, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
100 geomembranes, guidance for how to look at this. And 1
we're also looking at the MARSSIMs.
2 There is a revision coming up. Of course 3
that's NUREG-1575. That program is one that we're 4
with a number of partners. DOE, the DPA is a lead on 5
it and the DOD. And it's for the, a lot of the 6
cleanup work. It's kind of the go to document that's 7
out there.
8 Another area that we're working with here 9
is we had a workshop, I believe the next slide if we 10 could Jason, on subsurface monitoring and how this 11 went. Using PFHA as a model we tried to do something 12 similar with our partners at NMSS to look at 13 subsurface.
14 And this is kind of, again, the drill down 15 for the first time we've done it. Some feedback on 16 this that we received has been very well. You can see 17 we've had a couple hundred people, just under 200 18 people, I believe, attended. If my numbers are 19 correct.
20 The agreement states. I had so much 21 positive feedback from the agreement states it seems 22 that we don't maybe cater to them or involve them 23 enough. But this workshop really brought them 24 together.
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101 And a lot of the feedback that I got from 1
a few of the states was, hey, this really wasn't a 2
workshop we viewed this as a training because we just 3
learned so much listening to what's going on in so 4
many different areas that they were very pleased with 5
this.
6 This is something that we hope to grow in 7
the future. We're going to have a RIL, we're going to 8
put out a research information letter, a RIL, and 9
document everything that we have. And you can see the 10 workshop materials right now if you care to take a 11 look at it, it is there.
12 So this is an area, again, with our 13 partners in NMSS that we're hoping to expand. And 14 again, the idea of communication throughout the 15 industry and with all the best practices and the best 16 information is what we're striving for here.
17 So I believe that brings me to the end of 18 my presentation. If there is no further questions, I 19 will turn this over to Sean Peters.
20 MR. PETERS: Thank you, Mark. I'm Sean 21 Peters, I'm from the Human Factors Liability Branch.
22 From a background for myself, I'm a space 23 mechanical engineer in my background. I worked in the 24 Air Force 1 and Air Force 2 projects in technical 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
102 support. I worked in the space programs as a design 1
engineer for space shuttles, space station and Delta 2
IV rocket programs.
3 I've done research in seismic engineering 4
and alternative energy. I've worked in the oil 5
industry.
6 And then after that long, I guess resume 7
right there, I've also spent 22 years with the Nuclear 8
Regulatory Commission. Came in as a inspector in 9
Region I, safety system design inspector.
10 I was a reactor systems engineer doing 11 accident analysis in NRR and worked as a project 12 manager in technical system throughout NRR before I 13 came over to research. And research I did a brief 14 stint as a branch chief over our nondestructive 15 examination groups.
16 And now I work in the human factors and 17 reliability branch and I've been here for 13 years.
18 So thanks for having me. And I know you guys have 19 heard a lot from me over the years so I'll try to be 20 brief on the areas you've heard a lot from me on.
21 Next slide. So, HFRB, we developed and 22 maintain state of the art human organizational factors 23 and human reliability analysis guidance and methods.
24 You guys know a lot about my HRA work, but 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
103 from a human factors perspective it's about half of 1
the branch work and human organization factors. And 2
what we do in the human factors world is we provide 3
expertise to support human factors technical issues 4
across all business lines.
5 Historically we've worked with the Office 6
of Administration, we've worked with ENSR, we've 7
worked with the regions, we've worked with NMSS, NRR.
8 If you name an organization that involves a human, 9
we've worked with it.
10 We typically develop human factors rule 11 language and review guidance for, well, I'm sorry, not 12 typically, typically we do human factors review 13 guidance development. We developed that rule 14 language.
15 Right now one of the more high profile 16 items we're working on in the human factors world is 17 developing review criteria for new and advance 18 reactors. Including looking at things like advance 19 operations, automations and control concepts. I'm 20 going to talk a little bit more about this on a 21 further slide.
22 For organizational factors we provide 23 technical support for implementation of our safety 24 culture programs. We support the NRC's desired 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
104 culture initiative. And we develop and implement the 1
integration programs. I will also talk about that on 2
a further slide.
3 HRA methods and human reliability data 4
will also have its own slide. And the ACRS is pretty 5
familiar with what we're doing, at least on the HRA 6
methods.
7 HRA, data we collect data from utilities, 8
from our own, given from its test facility where we 9
have our own pressurized water reactor simulator and 10 we collect human data for that to support our 11 programs.
12 And we also work with our international 13 partners. Mark Thaggard alluded to it that we work 14 with the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, 15 KAERI, out of Korea.
16 And we also work with UJD Res out of 17 Czechia, also known as the Czech Republic. We work 18 with the groups there to collect human reliability 19 data.
20 And we also try to coordinate 21 internationally with the Holland Reactor project to 22 establish new data programs to improve that data.
23 So next slide. So human factors. I'm 24 going to tell you a little bit about the projects that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
105 aren't as well known.
1 So fitness for duty is one of our longest 2
standing projects that we've had in HFRB. And fitness 3
for duty, it encompasses both drugs and alcohol use 4
and abuse and detection and fatigue.
5 And what we've learned with fatigue is 6
that fatigued is a very subtle science. There's not 7
a lot of work going on in there anymore now that we 8
have rule language in place and implemented across the 9
industry.
10 But drugs and alcohol, at least on then 11 drug side of it, are constantly evolving. It almost 12 seems to be an exponential rate increase in the number 13 and types of drugs and evasion technologies.
14 So we're trying to stay on top of that by 15 having a program that looks at international best 16 practices. What are they doing overseas to detect 17 these and how can we affect our own regulations to 18 catch up to the different technologies that are out 19 there.
20 Nondestructive examination is another item 21 that we were looking into. It stemmed back in the 22 mid-2010s from items where our NEA folks were finding, 23 or at least NEAs were finding flaws in some of the 24 vessel piping welds.
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106 And what they were saying is that these 1
flaws should have been detected on numerous, previous 2
attempts but weren't and they were trying to 3
understand why were they found in this final attempt 4
and not in the early attempts.
5 And so, one of the things that came up was 6
that there are significant human factors challenges 7
when you look for welds. When you train operators and 8
they get their, I'm sorry, when you train inspectors 9
and they get their licenses for doing them, to start 10 the examination of facilities, they train in a 11 classroom type environment where they have easy 12 access, controlled temperatures, controlled lighting.
13 But when you're out in the field it's just a 14 completely different beast.
15 And so we did an evaluation of that. We 16 looked at the training practices. And we have reports 17 that have been completed on this activity that tell 18 about these best practices and best ways to train.
19 And look at the human factors challenges out there in 20 the industry and what can be done about it.
21 So, human factors training program 22 development, so the NRC has hired several new staff to 23 do human factors technical review for NRR. And when 24 we know that this is kind of a pipeline to other jobs 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
107 throughout the agency, we know there is going to be a 1
consistent turnover in that field.
2 And so, what they're looking at is trying 3
to find ways to train non-human factors experts with 4
a base set of knowledge so that they can apply that in 5
their field and become experts in licensing reviews of 6
human factors issues.
7 So we developed this training program and 8
we expect to have it completed in the October time 9
frame of this year. And the materials we have for 10 that training we plan to share internationally. Not 11 just with the U.S. but with our counterparts through 12 the Nuclear Energy Agency, through our working group 13 of human organizational factors.
14 And then OpE reviews. We constantly scan 15 the operating experience out there in the industry to 16 understand what are the human factors challenges out 17 in the world and what can we do about it in our 18 regulatory programs.
19 So, new advance reactors. I'm going to 20 talk about that on a later slide. Organization 21 factors also.
22 But from an organization practice 23 perspective, one thing that we won't talk much about 24 is our reactor oversight process tech support. This 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
108 kind of builds off the human factors operating 1
experience review.
2 We look at the, as implement inspection 3
programs, and well look at ways that we can enhance 4
those programs and improve how they examine, not just 5
human factors issues but also the safety culture 6
issues at facilities.
7 So, I'm going to go to the next slide.
8 This is going to be Slide 34. So, advance human 9
factors licensing review guidance updates.
10 This is, again, a very high profile 11 project. And what we do in human factors, we have a 12 strange regulation that says, licensees must design 13 controls with state of the art human factors 14 principles.
15 And because it dictates that they have to 16 state of the art not just adequate, it means us, as a 17 research entity, we have to stay on top of what that 18 state of the art is and what those new principles are.
19 So what we've done, since I've come here, 20 I came here in 2008 and we were at the advance stages 21 of the, well, the early stages of the nuclear 22 renaissance, there was a lot of look into seeing what 23 were the new reactor technologies that were coming out 24 and what kind of human challenges were going to be 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
109 associated with that.
1 So remember that time that we developed 2
six technical reports on the advance technologies, 3
we've developed enhance guidance for small modular 4
reactor reviews based upon our experience supporting 5
the NuScale reviews. And this is, we've updated that 6
through our NUREG-0711. Which is our human factors 7
engineering program review model.
8 And NUREG-0700, which is our human system 9
interface design review guidelines. And so, we've 10 updated those guidance, both for small modular reactor 11 and advance technology control and reviews.
12 But one thing we're finding with advance 13 control room reviews is that they are definitely 14 different than what we used under Part 50. So Part 50 15 reviews are for large light-water reactors.
16 Our full program review, while we'll going 17 right down to the details and the nut and bolts of the 18 entire program, and doing cross-sectional looks at how 19 they implement that in the facilities looking at the 20 control room technologies and doing integrated system.
21 Integrated system validation of those technologies and 22 how they operate at the control room side. And that's 23 been very useful for even our part 52 applicants 24 looking out at the Vogtle Plant.
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110 But when you're looking at advance 1
technologies or advanced reactors, there is a wide 2
scale. There are large ones that are not too 3
dissimilar for the scope and feel of a Part 50 type 4
review, all the way down to almost plug and play type 5
reactors. Little tiny batteries that you kind of push 6
a button and leave and leave it alone.
7 So the challenges are review guidances 8
built for that large review, but not for these tiny 9
reactors. And so, we've been developing right with 10 NRR scalable human factors engineering review 11 guidance. So we're looking at, how do we scale that 12 based upon the details of reactors that come in.
13 And we're also looking at how we scale the 14 operator licensing requirements based upon the 15 reactors that are coming in the door. Like a reactor 16 knowledge set in training needs to be a certain level 17 for large light-water reactors, but probably not so 18 much for some of these smaller plug and play type 19 reactors. So we'll looking at how to scale that.
20 MEMBER HALNON: Hey, Sean, this is Greg.
21 MR. PETERS: Yes.
22 MEMBER HALNON: I'm going to ask a 23 question and give you some clarifying comments. I 24 assume that when you say state of the art control room 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
111 designs you're saying that state of the art is better.
1 And I ask that because the touchscreen 2
aspect of the new control rooms and digital control 3
rooms takes what an old operator, like myself, takes 4
the human machine interaction piece, the feel of it, 5
the listening of it, out of the picture. And I think 6
that's not better.
7 Now, it may just be that I'm an old guy, 8
but I've operated a digital plant, I've operated a 9
normal plant. When I say normal I mean the 1970, '80s 10 vintage.
11 And now I have a car that I can't figure 12 out how to turn the air conditioner on and off because 13 I had to go through three pages of touch screens.
14 (Laughter.)
15 MEMBER HALNON: Are you guys looking at 16 that aspect of it from the perspective of, is state of 17 the art better all the time?
18 MR. PETERS: Yes. So, the state of the 19 art, we have to look at our state of the art human 20 factors engineering design principles. And so, we 21 have to make sure that how we evaluate that is state 22 of the art.
23 So those new technologies, you're 24 absolutely right, some can have detrimental effects.
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112 There not always for the positive. Right?
1 What you're alluding to are things like 2
key-holding where you have to go through menu after 3
menu to find the item you want. That's not 4
necessarily a good thing.
5 And you're looking at this kind of tactile 6
response you have from analog control rooms are really 7
great. You know when you flip the switch.
8 But I've also got to work on the generic 9
PWR up in Idaho and I got to try to close valves and 10 operate pumps. And I had to touch that thing like two 11 or three times just to get it to work. And then you 12 got to play real close attention if it actually 13 flipped because you weren't getting that tactile 14 response.
15 So you're right, there are challenges.
16 And that's what we do with our scalable guidance. We 17 get to tackle those particular challenges. And we do 18 research that. And we have reports out there on that.
19 And one of the things we found, at least 20 for the touchscreen, is that they tend to be more 21 difficult for people to navigate then, what do you 22 say, like a mouse click type interface for some of the 23 newer designs.
24 So what we see out in France is that they 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
113 don't really do touch screens, they go to the mouse 1
click type interface.
2 MEMBER BALLINGER: Hi, this is Ron 3
Ballinger. And I'll beat a dead horse.
4 (Laughter.)
5 MEMBER BALLINGER: Have you read the book 6
called the Glass Cage?
7 MR. PETERS: I have not. No.
8 MEMBER BALLINGER: Highly recommended.
9 Highly recommended.
10 MR. PETERS: I'll look it up.
11 MEMBER BALLINGER: By me. By me anyway.
12 MR. PETERS: Okay.
13 MEMBER BALLINGER: It's about what happens 14 when you, basically when you become fixed and captured 15 by the screens. And you lose track of things in two 16 ways.
17 One, you lose track of things because 18 you're like doing a video game. And you also lose 19 track of things because the computer software that's 20 behind all that stuff becomes a surrogate for your 21 brain if you're not very careful.
22 And so it allows you to, you make 23 mistakes, but in addition to that, that software 24 compensates for the competency of the operator, to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
114 some extent. And you have to be very careful because 1
it allows you to, in affect that I don't think the NRC 2
does this, but in some cases it allows you to hire 3
somebody that would not otherwise be hired because of 4
competence thresholds.
5 MR. PETERS: Yes. And I think you're 6
describing what we have a concerns about, which are 7
these kind of, we call it just the black box, that the 8
machine is doing something and you don't comprehend 9
how it's working and then it spits out a direction for 10 you to go. And that loss of connectivity and 11 understanding a plant physical processes, that's a 12 very important factor that we look at with our advance 13 principles.
14 Next slide. Okay.
15 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Yes, I would like, I 16 just would like to add one small comment about this 17 enhanced guidance for small modular reactor.
18 The NuScale was specific in this area that 19 this was a small modular reactor, the significant 20 passive features. Which actually allowed plenty of 21 time for the human actions.
22 If this is not the case that having 23 multiple modules on small location should make an 24 operator actions much more complex and it will 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
115 introduce, like if you have a 12 unit, there is a 1
likelihood that each of them could be a different PRA.
2 One would be under schedule. Or the other thing is 3
you can have initiated events, which affect all 12 4
units in the same time.
5 So basically, small modular reactor have 6
a, there's a small modular reactor, just small modular 7
means the operator actions can be much more complex.
8 And they're both introducing a NuScale case that 9
different relaxation is it has a significant passive 10 features.
11 So this thing, you have two different.
12 One is bringing the more complications and one is 13 simplifying the human actions that NuScale was having 14 about characteristics.
15 MR. PETERS: Yes. That's why the review 16 is absolutely needed because you have to do the 17 combined effect, right. If it was just one module, 18 oh, advance reactors would be easy.
19 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Right.
20 MR. PETERS: Much easier than operating 21 reactors. But when you're throwing 12 open 22 simultaneously, yes, absolutely, you have to prove and 23 validate that you can actually maintain these if there 24 are these large accidents.
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116 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Right. And because 1
they're the regular, you know, performance shaping 2
factors have changed, you know. Stress level like is 3
completely different if you have things happening in 4
multiple units versus that single. And so, all 5
performance shaping factors will be affected with a 6
number of the units.
7 So, I just wanted to make these comments 8
because I know we just adjusted the views, the number 9
of operators in the, but that's because of the passive 10 features not because they're small modular reactors.
11 Okay.
12 MR. PETERS: Yes. Passive features and 13 longtime frames for performing the actions.
14 Absolutely. Thanks, Vesna.
15 Next slide. So, one of the things that 16 consuming, oh, we got a hand by Vicki Bier.
17 MEMBER BIER: I don't know if this is the 18 right time for the question or not. Feel free to 19 defer it if you prefer.
20 But this morning there was a very brief 21 discussion about errors of commission and whether we 22 are or not yet ready to handle them more broadly in 23 PRA. So at some point, can you give a bit of where we 24 are in that process and whether there is any ongoing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
117 research, et cetera?
1 MR. PETERS: Yes, I can talk about it on 2
my next slide.
3 MEMBER BIER: Super.
4 MR. PETERS: I can talk about HRA methods 5
on the next slide.
6 MEMBER BIER: Great. Thanks.
7 MR. PETERS: Awesome. Thanks, Vicki.
8 Make myself a note here.
9 So, organizational factors. The things 10 that are consuming a lot of staff energy in HFRB right 11 now are agency innovation and agency culture change.
12 So, we are one of two places in the agency 13 that has organizational factor specialists. There are 14 some in the Office of Chief Human Capitol Officer.
15 And the rest are in the Office of Nuclear Regulator 16 Research.
17 And back when innovation started, this big 18 push in innovation started, I think OCHCO was just 19 hiring specialists into OCHCO.
20 So we had multiple staff members in HFRB 21 move into the EDOs office in a technical support role.
22 And they helped build the innovation program from its 23 Innovation 1.0 over to what we call InnovateNRC 2.0 24 program.
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118 And what that helped was we built that 1
infrastructure and we drove the procedures and 2
processes for maintaining and sustaining innovation.
3 Using that organizational factor of science of how do 4
you actually keep these things in a perpetual state.
5 So, we built that program. We brought it 6
over it to HFRB and we're actively running it. And 7
the goal of it is to help us improve in all aspects of 8
our operation of the NRC.
9 Before all of our organizational factors 10 specialists supported our safety culture commonly 11 language programs and the inspections and technical 12 support out there at the, at licensee's facilities.
13 So we were out there on a regular basis 14 looking at issues and problems that we could see in 15 licensee operations. But we weren't applying that to 16 our NRC operations.
17 And so, this was a great opportunity to 18 not just have this outward look on how organizations 19 performed but take our expertise and help the agency 20 itself improve its performance and become this modern 21 risk informed regulator that we're looking for.
22 So, our staff is still doing that.
23 They're still doing the safety culture common 24 language, we're still doing support for 95002 and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
119 95003 inspections where we're looking at multiple 1
degraded cornerstones.
2 And we are supplying the technical bases 3
behind these determinations of operators, or 4
operational capabilities at plants. And so, on top of 5
NRC, again, we're trying to help both NRC and the 6
industry and prove their organizational capabilities.
7 And
- finally, safety agency culture 8
improvements. Our Staff are major supporters of our 9
desired culture initiative.
And you've seen 10 presentations from our staff members and they help 11 target improvements, not just in research, but in 12 individual offices around the agency.
13 So the future for this program, we would 14 like to take a look at, we'd like to continue to 15 foster the culture of continuous innovation at the 16 NRC. And we also, we've worked really hard and have 17 major successes in our internal crowd sourcing 18 capabilities.
19 And that helps us a lot in internal 20 processes. And sometimes in technical challenges that 21 people want to get outside of that, of their existing 22 mind set and framework and get other people from the 23 NRC to weigh in on.
24 But we've gotten to see presentations from 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
120 external organizations where external crowd sourcing 1
is a major component to their programs that helps them 2
solve longstanding technical issues that you've had in 3
their technologies.
4 And so, what we're doing right now is 5
we're working on developing MOUs and getting the 6
contracting processes ready so that we can start 7
harnessing the power of external technical experts in 8
different fields to help weigh it and maybe provide 9
new ideas to solve some of our longstanding challenges 10 in the NRC.
11 And I have a couple in mind in HRA that 12 I'm trying to hash out the additional stages of it 13 right now. But they're out there.
14 And one that Vicki may have alluded to is 15 errors of commission. So I'll get to that on the next 16 slide. Any questions on Slide 35 here.
17 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Are you going to 18 extend looking on that human actions to shut down?
19 MR. PETERS: From a human factors 20 standpoint we are not doing anything in human factors 21 and shutdown, but on HRA, the IDHEAS method was 22 specifically built to help the human factors and 23 shutdown.
24 But let's move over to Slide 36. And we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
121 can get into some of the HRA discussion.
1 So, shutdown involves a lot of manual 2
actions and some reduction in defense-in-depth 3
simultaneously and kind of weird configurations of the 4
facility.
5 So what we have developed with IDHEAS-ECA 6
was this human-centered technical approach where you 7
can apply it to areas that just aren't highly 8
proceduralized control rooms, like our old HRA methods 9
were. And these are actually field operations you can 10 apply in those areas.
11 So what we're doing in our HRA methods and 12 data, at least for the, maybe the few ACRS Members who 13 haven't been in all the IDHEAS presentations, but 14 we're trying to improve HRS realism. And we're trying 15 to do that through enhancing our methods, reducing 16 uncertainty, and utilizing data.
17 So, enhancing the methods, we're trying to 18 make strong scientific links between the HRA methods 19 and the existing scientific literature from human 20 factors. And when we do that, we're trying to reduce 21 uncertainty because uncertainty is a major driver of 22 HRA.
23 Large orders of magnitude in uncertainty, 24 what we found in some of our background research. And 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
122 so we had targeted work in improving what we 1
considered a couple of high aspects of uncertainty in 2
the methodology. And of course, we're trying to 3
collect as much data as we can to try to data inform 4
those methods.
5 So, over the time I've been here on this 6
program, we've developed 14 technical reports, we've 7
developed two improve HRA methods, we've developed a 8
comprehensive database of human error data.
9 This is our IDHEAS data, which the ACRS 10 got to look at late last year. No, I'm sorry, early 11 this year. I'm getting my (audio interference) as I 12 meet with the ACRS, or at least the Subcommittee and 13 PRA regularly, so.
14 We also have a software tool for HRA 15 implementation, which is our IDHEAS-ECA software 16 method. And we have a software tool for HRA data 17 collection, which is our SACADA method. SACADA is the 18 scenario authoring characterization and debriefing 19 application.
20 And that took is implemented out our 21 partnering utility. And we collect all the training 22 data from every scenario that they run on their 23 simulator at that facility. And that provides us a 24 plethora of data.
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123 We also collect data from our own testing 1
platform that we have. Our pressurized water reactor 2
that we test with our partners at University of 3
Central Florida. And we collect human factors and 4
human reliability data out of that.
5 Feature directions for the program. Right 6
now we are testing our IDHEAS-ECA and CN3 (phonetic) 7 applications in NMSS. We plan to get that report out 8
here in the late fall, early winter time frame.
9 Depending upon how many technical revisions we need to 10 make to it.
11 And once that is in play, NMSS has plans 12 to try to promote the use of our IDHEAS-ECA software 13 tool for the fuel cycle industry. And once we get 14 into fuel cycle we're also going to be looking at 15 other, because the method is human-centered, it's very 16 technology neutral.
17 We're looking at also expanding that into 18 other applications in NMSS. Of course, we've already 19 IDHEAS-ECA in all of our reactor operations. It's 20 already built for applications in all of our operating 21 reactor applications.
22 The other thing we're working on right now 23 is, I just got a dependency model, a new dependency 24 model, based upon the ACRS recommendations back in the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
124 summer of early to mid-timeframe in our IDHEAS 1
program. And so that's on my desk.
2 I hope to be able to review it this week 3
or get it out for concurrence for everybody, but it's 4
a much stronger method. It gets into more details as 5
to what are the causes and implications of dependency, 6
which allows a better focus on targeting safety 7
related improvements to those interdependent actions.
8 Once we get that dependency method out the 9
door we would like to take a look at what can we do 10 for crediting recovery in our HRA methods. Is there 11 something that we can build off the dependency or is 12 there something new that we need to create.
13 Other things we're looking into, we're 14 developing a draft report on new and joint human error 15 probabilities. Trying to understand what's the 16 current state of the art, the technology behind it and 17 what can we do to enhance that.
18 And finally, uncertainty. Just starting 19 now, now that we go to this dependency model in place, 20 we're trying to understand other major sources of 21 uncertainty in HRA and looking at, basically 22 prioritizing ranking of which ones can we tackle now 23 and where can we get our best bangs for the buck.
24 And finally data. We, again, we have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
125 utility partners and we're looking for more utility 1
partners. We have several international partners.
2 And we're working with our, through the Halden Reactor 3
project.
4 We created a new task for international 5
HRA data exchange. And so, what we're trying to do is 6
get that data out there so that our analyst can 7
collaboratively work on it from the data that we 8
capture from all over the world and see how we can 9
inform our human error probabilities with it to 10 provide a more granularity, more realism to HRA 11 methods.
12 And that is my last slide. So I know 13 there may be some questions out there. Vesna has 14 already unmuted so --
15 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Yes. I have a very 16 short question because it just reminded me when you 17 mentioned the criticality. Did you use this when you 18 were completing the FLEX models?
19 MR. PETERS: So no, we did not credit 20 recovery when we did the FLEX models. So that's a 21 great, it's a great insight there.
22 So once we get this understanding of how 23 we can, you know, credit recovery then we can start 24 applying it back to some of our old models.
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126 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: So wait, wait, wait.
1 But you couldn't do the FLEX without human actions 2
even if you didn't call them recovery, right? I mean, 3
that's all human actions.
4 MR. PETERS: Yes. I mean, human action is 5
the primary driver for risk and FLEX scenarios. Once 6
you get to that world it's all, what does the human do 7
and how can they get the equipment running properly.
8 There are, there tend to be long lead 9
times in that, so you tend to have multiple 10 opportunities for recovery over that. Those time 11 frames for human actions and FLEX scenarios.
12 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay. All right.
13 Well, the other thing which I just want to mention, 14 because I, one of the reason I ask about shutdown 15 because earlier we were talking about errors of 16 commission, errors of commission, and you said that 17 you're outsourcing that program, if I understood you 18 well. Right?
19 MR. PETERS: Um --
20 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: That you have 21 external experts looking in these errors of 22 commission. I just want to mention, I don't know, 23 significance of error of commissions, it could be much 24 higher in shutdown because that's where, you know, and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
127 we may have a backup knowledge in data but not that of 1
commission and shutdown. I just want to make this 2
comment for you all.
3 MR. PETERS: No, thank you very much.
4 Yes, to get to Vicki's question about errors of 5
commission. So thanks for the reminder. Definitely 6
a high error probability on my side for remembering 7
that.
8 But errors of commission, there was a 9
project that the NRC did, and I think Dennis Bley was 10 one of the team members on that project, when we 11 developed the ATHEANA methodology. They developed 12 that method specifically to try to create a way to 13 help identify what we consider logical error of 14 commission.
15 It's a very good methodology. There's a 16 very high quality qualitative analysis piece to it.
17 It's not very much -- it's not implemented in a lot of 18 places in the industry right now. It's one of the two 19 methodologies that they can use, can do the 20 quantitative analysis -- I'm sorry, qualitative 21 analysis for fire HRA. So there is an approach. But 22 the challenge was that errors commission that it's 23 very, very resource-intensive to try to understand how 24 to capture the data definition into a PRA model.
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128 So that's probably the main reason it's 1
not implemented. And I guess with that, I think it's 2
a very tough question, how do we deal with that in the 3
future. I mean, I don't know that we got a 4
comprehension or understanding of how we can totally 5
capture errors of commission.
6 So I think getting our experts together, 7
understanding that we do have this ATHEANA method, are 8
there things that we can do to enhance that? Or other 9
different, like, computing tasks that can complement 10 that qualitative analysis.
11 MEMBER BIER: Thank you. And I wasn't 12 particular pushing that it should be done, I just 13 wanted to kind of come up to speed on what the current 14 status was, so.
15 MR. PETERS: Yes, not a problem. So yes, 16 as far as status, we haven't touched it for a while.
17 It is one of those longstanding issues in HRA. But I 18 always call certain projects like our holy grails.
19 And that's one of our holy grails. To try to really 20 capture the Commission to try to tackle uncertainty.
21 I mean, these are these kind of things 22 that are really nebulous problems for the HRA 23 community. Thank you.
24 So that concludes my presentation. So the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
129 next presenter will be Mark Thaggard. Thank you.
1 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Thank you.
2 MR. THAGGARD: Okay. So before we 3
conclude the presentation this afternoon I would like 4
to take a couple of minutes and go over a couple of 5
years for anticipated future engagements with the 6
Committee.
7 I just listed three here, there may be 8
others. We anticipate coming back to the Committee as 9
we've prepared published reports for the Level 3 PRA.
10 I think that was highlighted.
11 We also anticipate coming back to the 12 Committee to brief the Committee on the HEAF project 13 as that projects draws to closure. As well as, excuse 14 me, someone have a question? Okay.
15 As well as we anticipate possibly having 16 additional engagement on Reg Guide 1.247, as was 17 mentioned at this morning's meeting.
18 And we're certainly open, interesting in 19 hearing from the Committee if there are other specific 20 areas that they would like for additional engagement.
21 So, can I have the next slide, Jason.
22 Well, the, one more. Okay. So let me conclude by 23 saying that the division of risk analysis activities 24 align with the Agency's efforts to accommodate modern 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
130 risk-informed regulator.
1 Our effort in leading the agency's 2
innovation activities is an important part of the 3
agency's transformation efforts, as we've mentioned.
4 And we are fully engaged in efforts to be ready for 5
future technologies. We also have activities to 6
support the use of risk and decision making.
7 Hopefully what we --
8 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Sorry to interrupting 9
you, but I would also like if you touch on that 10 because I thought that his miss, this is something 11 we're missing in presentation.
12 What do you see as your biggest 13 challenges?
14 And, you know, basically on the status of 15 those efforts. Do you see that anything has 16 shortcoming stops or any other big challenges?
17 MR. THAGGARD: So, I think, you know, I 18 mentioned that one challenge we have is a staff area.
19 We are a small division.
20 We anticipate losing some of our core 21 positions. Maintaining risk and reliability engineers 22 is a real challenge for us.
23 In terms of the technical areas, some of 24 the big projects that we've been working on that we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
131 face a number of challenges. And some of those also 1
relate to staffing.
2 And so, one of the big challenge is trying 3
to get those projects concluded. Come to a conclusion 4
on them.
5 The Level 3 PRA project is a prime 6
example. That project has gone on for a number of 7
years. And the biggest challenge we've had there is 8
staffing. You know, we keep losing, keep people on 9
project. And that's kind of pushed the schedule out.
10 So, clearly, one of our challenges is 11 getting those projects, also the aluminum HEAF, we've 12 had some discussions on that, getting those projects 13 to a conclusion is a challenge. Some of it's related, 14 as I said, to staffing.
15 The other thing is, I alluded to this at 16 the beginning of my, at the beginning of the 17 presentation, there are some areas where I think that 18 we would like to move into, and has some additional 19 research in the area, for example, in the security 20 area, I think we could maybe have more, provide more 21 support in the physical security area. So we are 22 trying to do some work in that area.
23 And I think there is a need for more 24 research in terms of looking at some of these extreme 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
132 weather events. As I think Mark Henry pointed that 1
out.
2 So I don't know if that gets to your 3
question, Vesna, but I tried to highlight some of the 4
things that I think I see as challenges or areas that 5
we need to look at in the future.
6 MEMBER HALNON: Mark, this Greg.
7 MR. THAGGARD: Yes.
8 MEMBER HALNON: So extreme weather events 9
and how that, I was going to ask you about that, and 10 how the --
11 MR. THAGGARD: Yes.
12 MEMBER HALNON: -- weather transpositions 13 may effect guidance going out to the large light-water 14 reactors would be a really good, maybe a single slide 15 on that next time you do an update.
16 MR. THAGGARD: Okay.
17 MEMBER HALNON: Because we've seen a lot 18 of heavy, heavy storms that have drawn precipitation 19 down. And when I look at how we used to transposition 20 some of those storms to other areas, it could really 21 affect the guidance coming out just based on maximum 22 probability, probable floods and those types of ravine 23 levels and whatnot. So a single slide on that would 24 be excellent.
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133 MR. THAGGARD: Okay.
1 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: This answered my 2
question. My concern was, is there something we can 3
do to help you in the overcoming challenges and things 4
like that? I was curious how do you see them.
5 MR. THAGGARD: Okay.
6 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay. Anybody, any 7
Board Members have questions or comments they would 8
like to make?
9 All right. If not, we thank you for a 10 wonderful presentation, which was finished right on 11 right time. That was very nice. Slides were 12 beautiful and we stayed within the time frame.
13 MEMBER REMPE: Vesna?
14 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Yes. Yes. Yes.
15 MEMBER REMPE: Can you hear me? This is 16 Joy.
17 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Yes.
18 MEMBER REMPE: I'm a phone line.
19 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Oh, okay.
20 MEMBER REMPE: So I tried to cut in early 21 and it takes a while to unmute mute. But anyhow, 22 Mark, I'm wondering if we could request, after we hear 23 a bit more about what's going on with non-LWR 24 technology neutral report, PRA, is that something that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
134 we should asked to be briefed on?
1 MR. THAGGARD: Yes, we can provide a 2
briefing on it. You know, it may be a short briefing 3
but we can provide a briefing on it.
4 (Laughter.)
5 MEMBER REMPE: Yes. Let me learn a bit 6
more about it.
7 MR. THAGGARD: Yes. Yes.
8 MEMBER REMPE: I just am kind of wondering 9
about why there has been such a change. And so, it 10 might be something where we might have some 11 suggestions on what else might be needed to make that 12 exercise fruitful. But anyway, let's kind of exchange 13 information, if we can see the reports. I think it 14 might be helpful.
15 MR. THAGGARD: Yes.
16 MEMBER REMPE: Okay.
17 MR. THAGGARD: Yes. We can certainly 18 provide the reports. So that might be a good starting 19 point.
20 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, that sounds good.
21 Thank you.
22 MR. THAGGARD: Okay.
23 MEMBER REMPE: Sorry to interrupt.
24 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Thanks, Joy, to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
135 remind us that that stays as an open --
1 MR. THAGGARD: Yes.
2 CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay. If no any 3
other Members have comments we can ask the public, if 4
anybody from the public would like to make a comment?
5 Okay, hearing none, this means we are 6
finished for today. Thank you very much for the 7
presentation. Thank you for everybody's participation 8
and have a nice evening.
9 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 10 off the record at 5:03 p.m.)
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Biennial Review September 20, 2021 Mark Thaggard, Director Division of Risk Analysis Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
Key Messages B e a p r o m i n e n t a g e n c y r e s o u r c e o n r i s k - r e l a t e d m a t t e r s d e v e l o p i n g a n d p u r s u i n g s o l u t i o n s t o c u r r e n t a n d a n t i c i p a t e d r e g u l a t o r y c h a l l e n g e s.
Our Vision B e r e a d y f o r f u t u r e t e c h n o l o g i e s Our Objectives C o m p l e t i o n o f h i g h - q u a l i t y r e s e a r c h p r o d u c t s F a c i l i t a t e Tr a n s f o r m a t i o n G r o w t h e a g e n c y ' s R I D M c a p a b i l i t i e s B u i l d a n d e n h a n c e s t a f f c a p a c i t y 2
Collaborations 3
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Biennial Review Christian Araguas, Deputy Director Division of Risk Analysis Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
Accomplishments 303 Licensee Event Reports Reviewed 19 New staff, Co-Ops, and summer interns 2
HRA methodologies Improved 40 Events Identified as potential precursors licensee flood hazard submittals reviewed 7
6 R e s e a r c h I n f o r m a t i o n L e t t e r s I s s u e d 68 SPAR Models Enhanced 9 NUREGs Issued R e p o r t s o n C o m p o n e n t R e l i a b i l i t y a n d S y s t e m s S t u d i e s 9
D R A r e m a i n s c u r r e n t o n r e l e v a n t r i s k -
i n f o r m e d a n d o t h e r r e l a t e d r e g u l a t o r y i s s u e s a n d a n t i c i p a t e s a n d m e e t s t h e f u t u r e n e e d s o f o u r s t a k e h o l d e r s.
4 RGs Revised 27Public Meetings Workshops, and Seminars 7
Events Identified as precursors 12 Preliminary L3PRA Models 5
i n n o v a t e N R C 2. 0
Division of Risk Analysis Performance and Reliability Branch Mehdi Reisi-Fard Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch John Nakoski (Holly Cruz, Acting)
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Mark Henry Salley Human Factors and Reliability Branch Sean Peters Mission: To p r o v i d e w o r l d c l a s s t e c h n i c a l s u p p o r t f o r t h e i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o f r i s k -
i n f o r m e d r e g u l a t o r y a c t i v i t i e s a n d d e c i s i o n m a k i n g i n n u c l e a r s a f e t y a n d s e c u r i t y.
6
Program Overview 16.5 million FY22 Resources Risk Tools 20%
Operational Experience 19%
Guidance Development 15%
Human Reliability Analysis Methods 14%
External Hazards 8%
Fire 11%
Advanced Reactor Readiness 5%
NMSS, L3PRA, FFR, Innovation Support 8%
7
Performance and Reliability Branch Mehdi Reisi-Fard
Performance and Reliability Branch About PRB PRB plans, develops and manages research programs to systematically assess reliability information, perform event assessments, and support the RIDM framework Functional Areas RIDM AND PRA GUIDANCE AND STANDARDS OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE, DATA COLLECTION, AND ANALYTICS
Direct the collection, review and evaluation of OpE Information for maintaining risk models used in risk-informed decisionmaking.
ACCIDENT SEQUENCE PRECURSOR (ASP) PROGRAM
Evaluate operating experience to identify, document, and rank operational events by calculating the risk associated with events or conditions.
Develop and maintain guidance and tools for risk-informed decisionmaking and use of PRAs 9
Performance and Reliability Branch
Issue Trial Use Guide 1.247
Support issuance of PRA Standards
Tasks under the newly established UNR related to
Regulatory guidance on PRA Acceptability and Integrated Risk-Informed Decision Making, treatment of certainty, the PRA database, Glossary of risk-related terms, Database of Methods Used in PRAs
Development of risk tools for spent fuel dry storage
Future Focused Research on LMP for Operating Reactors
Routine screening and analyses of events
Support activities to enhance the application of ASP information in the ROP
Address the issues identified in PWROG-18029
Issue the IE, LOOP and CCF summary reports
Develop AI, ML, and data analytics tools to analyze OpE and risk information RIDM AND PRA GUIDANCE AND STANDARDS OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE, DATA COLLECTION, AND ANALYTICS ASP PROGRAM Major Projects 10
Performance and Reliability Branch RIDM and PRA Guidance and Standards Accomplishments I s s u e d R G 1. 2 0 0, R e v. 3 ;
R G 1. 1 7 7, R e v. 2 ;
R G 1. 1 7 8, R e v. 2 ;
R G 1. 1 7 5, R e v. 1 S u p p o r t e d i s s u a n c e o f t h e N L W R P R A S t a n d a r d ( J a n. 2 0 2 1 )
D e v e l o p e d t h e P R A S t a n d a r d s D a t a b a s e
Issue RG 1.247
Support issuance of L1/LERF, ALWR, Level 2, Level 3, LPSD PRA Standards
Regulatory Guidance on PRA Acceptability
Enhance guidance on the treatment of uncertainty
Update of glossary of risk-related terms
Develop a database of methods used in PRAs
Develop guidance on RIDM
Develop guidance on uses of non-PRA techniques Future Direction Develop approaches determining the acceptability of PRAs to provide confidence in the results of the PRA for risk-informed decision making; Address development of guidance for licensing and oversight of risk-significant technical areas 11
Performance and Reliability Branch Data Collection and Analytics Accomplishments I m p l e m e n t e d c a u s a l a l p h a f a c t o r s i n m o d e l i n g C C F I s s u e d O n - S i t e E l e c t r i c a l S y s t e m R e l i a b i l i t y S t u d y R e p o r t s I s s u e d
Finalize resolution of issues identified in PWROG-18029
Renew the contract to access INPO data
Explore the use of advanced computational tools to analyze OpE
Use data visualization tools to present LERs, other OpE information
Issue the IE, LOOP and CCF summary reports Future Direction Directs the reviews and evaluations of OpE Information for the purpose of maintaining and updating models used in risk-informed decision-making 12 S u p p o r t e d a u d i t s a n d i n t e r a c t i o n s w i t h P W R O G o n F L E X r e l i a b i l i t y d a t a 12
Performance and Reliability Branch ASP Program Accomplishments R e v i s e d O f f i c e I n s t r u c t i o n D e v e l o p e d a n d r e l e a s e d t h e p u b l i c A S P d a s h b o a r d C o m p l e t e d D u a n e A r n o l d d e r e c h o e v e n t r i s k a n a l y s i s
Improve the application of ASP information in ROP
Use of AI/ML and data analytics
Event risk assessments for a broader set of reactor designs
Continue providing KM sessions Future Direction Evaluates U.S. NPP operating experience to identify, document, and rank operational events by calculating a CCDP or a CDP 13
Performance and Reliability Branch 14
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch John Nakoski (Holly Cruz, Acting)
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch About PRAB PRAB plans, develops, integrates and manages research and development programs relating to probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) models and methods, and supports agency efforts to use risk information in all aspects of regulatory decision making Functional Areas RISK-INFORMED DECISION-MAKING ACTIVITIES DEVELOPMENT OF RISK MODELS AND TOOLS
Develop and maintain PRA models and software to support agencywide risk-informed regulatory programs
Support agency RIDM activities by developing PRA guidance and methods for new and emerging areas 16
Full scope, comprehensive Level 3 PRA
External Hazards & FLEX Modeling
Recovery/Restoring Functions Credit
International Standards Participation
WGEV, ICDE, Japanese Foreign Assignee
Dynamic PRA (FFR)
Advanced Reactor Support
Regulatory Guide Support
SPAR model updates with current plant information
All Hazards SPAR Modeling
SPAR-DASH risk data dashboard
IDHEAS-ECA application
SAPHIRE software updates and enhancements
Cloud-based SAPHIRE RISK-INFORMED DECISION-MAKING ACTIVITIES DEVELOPMENT OF RISK MODELS AND TOOLS Major Projects Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch 17
SAPHIRE and SPAR Models Accomplishments I n c o r p o r a t e d F l e x M o d e l i n g i n t o 6 8 S PA R M o d e l s S i g n i f i c a n t M o d e l U p d a t e s P i l o t - v e r s i o n o f S PA R - D A S H d a t a v i s u a l i z a t i o n
Expand and Enhance SPAR Model Scope
Cloud-based SAPHIRE
SPAR-DASH:
Share/Obtain Feedback (partner offices)
Staff Guidance/Workshops
Application of IDHEAS-ECA Future Direction Develop risk tools for event assessment, reactor oversight, and reactor licensing, and to maintain staff PRA skills and knowledge management.
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch 12 18
Level 3 PRA Accomplishments B a s e C a s e M o d e l s
( 9 0 % c o m p l e t e d P h a s e 1 )
2 0 2 0 - F L E X M o d e l s
( 1 8 % c o m p l e t e d P h a s e 1 )
P u b l i c R e p o r t s
( 2 3 % o f d r a f t r e p o r t s u n d e r r e v i e w )
ACRS Interaction
Meetings/Public Release of Reports
Knowledge Management and Risk Tool to Support Regulatory Decision-making Future Direction Develop full-scope, site Level 3 PRA to support risk-informed decision making, reflect State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analysis (SOARCA) insights in the proper risk context, and further enhance staff PRA skills.
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch 19 3
5 19
Dynamic PRA Accomplishments I n t e r i m R e p o r t
( l i t e r a t u r e r e v i e w, a c t i v i t y s u m m a r y )
S t a f f T r a i n i n g o n t h e u s e o f D P R A To o l s
Final Report (document model result)
Follow-on Workshops/Training
Support Changing Environment Future Direction Future Focused Research to prepare NRC staff on the efficient use of Dynamic PRA (DPRA) tools for anticipated submittals developed using DPRA methods.
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch 1
3 20
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Mark Henry Salley
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch About FXHAB FXHAB is responsible for Fire Research and External Hazards Research (except earthquakes)
Functional Areas FIRE RISK RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS RESEARCH
Provide expertise in the area of environmental hazard analysis EXTERNAL HAZARDS RESEARCH
Provide expertise in the area of external hazard analysis except for seismic
Provide expertise in the area of fire hazard analysis and fire PRA 22
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch
Improve Fire PRA Realism
Post-Fire Safe-Shutdown
High Energy Arcing Faults (HEAF)
Training
Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment
Weather Extremes
Subsurface characterization
Multi Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual (MARSSIM)
FIRE RISK RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS RESEARCH EXTERNAL HAZARDS RESEARCH Major Projects 23
Improving Fire PRA Realism Accomplishments Future Direction Working with EPRI to advance and improve the realism when performing Fire PRAs Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch
Prepare NUREG-1805 Supplement 2 to implement new tools, methods, and data developed for NRC Inspectors from recently completed research projects
Work with EPRI to support additional improvements in fire PRA realism
Provided comments on draft EPRI report 3002020747, Modeling of Oil Fires in Fire Probabilistic Risk Assessment
Provided comments on draft EPRI report 3002020746, Small Electrical Enclosure Testing - Fire Test Report
Ventilated Controlled Cabinet Fires with NIST 2
R e s e a r c h I n f o r m a t i o n L e t t e r s 4
N U R E G R e p o r t s 24
High Energy Arcing Faults (HEAF)
Accomplishments Future Direction Working with EPRI,OECD/NEA to advance and understanding of the risk posed by HEAFs Exiting the Pre-GI 018 Aluminum HEAF and transferring back to research NRR performing LIC-504 evaluation Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch
Complete and publish WG tools and methods
Support NRR with LIC-504 evaluation
Resume Phase 2 of OECD/NEA Program NRC HEAF Public Website https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/research/fire-research/heaf-research.html C o m p l e t e d d r a f t R I L c h a r a c t e r i z i n g z o n e s o f i n f l u e n c e 2 P u b l i c M e e t i n g s D e v e l o p e d w e b s i t e a n d p u b l i s h e d d e t a i l e d p r o j e c t p l a n 25
Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment (PFHA)
Accomplishments Future Direction Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch
Pilot studies will be completed in 2022
Regulatory guidance will be completed in 2023
Expand Workshop into other External Hazards Te c h n i c a l s u p p o r t,
w o r k s h o p s, a n d s t a f f t r a i n i n g 20 Te c h n i c a l R e p o r t s P u b l i s h e d p i l o t s t u d i e s o n f l o o d i n g i n i t i a t e d The PFHA Research Program is developing the technical bases, tools and guidance needed by NRC staff to reviewing regulatory submittals that apply a risk-informed approach to determine a sites flood hazards and potential consequences. The PFHA research comprises three phases: (1)
Technical Basis Research; (2) Pilot Studies; and (3) Guidance Development.
3 26
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment Research Workshop On February 22-25, FXHAB held the 6th Annual PFHA Research Workshop. Participants provided information on recent results, current activities, and perspectives on future research directions.
Workshop Topics:
- C l i m a t e
- P r e c i p i t a t i o n
- S i t e - s c a l e, r i v e r i n e, a n d c o a s t a l f l o o d i n g
- M o d e l i n g f ra m e w o r k s
- F l o o d i n g Ev e n t s a n d O p e ra t i o n a l E x p e r i e n c e
- E x t e r n a l F l o o d i n g P r o b a b i l i s t i c R i s k A s s e s s m e n t
- 7 t h A n n u a l P F H A S c h e d u l e d f o r F e b r u a r y 1 5 - 1 8, 2 0 2 2
- P h a s e i n o t h e r E x t e r n a l H a z a r d s Workshop Agenda and Presentations: ML21064A395 27
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment Research Workshop 28
Subsurface characterization and waste covers Accomplishments Future Direction Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch
Develop Guidance on Subsurface Contamination Survey
Develop Guidance for Evapotranspiration (ET) Covers
Develop Guidance for Evaluation of Geomembranes
Research Assistance Request (RAR) NMSS-2021-005 (ML2119A221)
Assistance with the finalization of MARSSIM Revision 2 based on public and peer review comments to be published as NUREG-1575 Rev. 2 S u b s u r f a c e S o i l S u r v e y P u b l i c W o r k s h o p R a d o n B a r r i e r s P r o j e c t
N U R E G / C R - 7 2 8 8 i n p u b l i c a t i o n p r o c e s s
2 p e e r - r e v i e w e d p u b l i c a t i o n s Provide expertise in the area of environmental hazard analysis including subsurface monitoring, radon barriers and ET covers. This is a new area in the branch we are developing to primarily support NMSS related environmental projects 29
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Subsurface Soil Surveys Public Workshop On July 14-15, RES/NMSS held a public workshop on the technical basis for guidance on conducting and evaluating surveys of residual radioactivity in the subsurface soils of licensee sites. The NRC began to address this problem in NUREG/CR 7021, A Subsurface Decision Model for Supporting Environmental Compliance, issued January 2012.
Workshop materials: ML21208A206 State Agencies:
Industry Federal Registrants 30
Human Factors and Reliability Branch Sean E. Peters
About HFRB Functional Areas Human Factors and Reliability Branch
Provide expertise and support for human factors technical issues across all BLs
Develop human factors rule language and review guidance for new and adv reactors, including for adv operations, automation, and control concepts HUMAN FACTORS
Provide technical support for implementation of the NRC's Safety Culture programs
Support the NRC's Desired Culture Initiative
Develop, implement, and improve the NRC's Innovation programs ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS
Develop and improve HRA methods for agency risk applications HUMAN RELIABILITY ANALYSIS METHODS
Collect and analyze data to improve the NRC's human factors guidance and HRA methods 32 HUMAN RELIABILITY ANALYSIS DATA HFRB Develops and maintains state-of-the-art human and organizational factors and human reliability analysis guidance and methods
Human Factors and Reliability Branch Major Projects Operating Reactors:
International Fitness for Duty Practices
HF of Non-Destructive Evaluation Techniques
HF Training Program Development
HF Operating Experience Review HUMAN FACTORS ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS HUMAN RELIABILITY ANALYSIS METHODS
Safety Culture Program Tech Support
Reactor Oversight Process Tech Support
Agency Desired Culture Initiative
InnovateNRC2.0
IDHEAS-G, IDHEAS-ECA
Human Performance Test Facility
IDHEAS-Data HUMAN RELIABILITY ANALYSIS DATA New and Advanced Reactors:
NUREG-0711 and NUREG-0700
Part 53 scalable HF licensing guidance
Part 53 scalable operator licensing guidance 33
Advanced Human Factors Human Factors Licensing Review Guidance Updates Accomplishments 6 Technical Reports Enhanced guidance for small-modular reactor reviews Updated guidance for advanced technology control rooms
Part 53 Scalable HFE Review Guidance
Part 53 Scalable Operator Reactor Licensing Requirements Future Direction Develop state-of-the art human and organizational factors guidance for advanced technologies and concepts of operation Human Factors and Reliability Branch 34
Organizational Factors Agency Innovation and Culture Change Accomplishments Developed InnovateNRC2.0 Program Safety Culture Common Language and Tech Support Support Agency Culture Improvements
Foster a culture of continuous innovation at the NRC
Enhance capabilities to perform external crowd sourcing for significant tech challenges Future Direction Utilize organizational factors expertise to drive innovation and culture change at the NRC to ensure that the NRC is a modern, risk-informed regulator Human Factors and Reliability Branch 35
Human Reliability Analysis Human Reliability Analysis Methods and Data Accomplishments Technical Reports Improved HRA methods Comprehensive database of human error data
Methods:
IDHEAS testing in NMSS Applications
Dependency/Recovery
Minimum Joint Human Error Probabilities
Uncertainty
Data:
More plant participants
International HRA Data Exchange Future Direction Improve realism in HRA through enhancing methods, reducing uncertainty, and utilizing human performance data Human Factors and Reliability Branch Software tool for HRA implementation Software tool for HRA data collection 14 2
36
Areas for Future Engagements Level 3 PRA HEAF R.G. 1.247 37
Acronyms CDP Increase in Core Damage Probability LOOP Loss Of Offsite Power ACRS Advisory Committee for Reactor Safeguards LPSD Low Power Shutdown AI Artificial Intelligence MARSSIM Multi Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual ALWR Advanced Light Water Reactors ML Machine Learning ASP Accident Sequence Precursor NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration ATF Accident Tolerant Fuel NEA Nuclear Energy Agency BL Business Line NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology CCDP Conditional Core Damage Probability NLWR non-Light Water Reactor CCF Common Cause Failure NMSS Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards DPRA Dynamic PRA NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration DRA Division of Risk Analysis NRR Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation EPRI Electric Power Research Institute OECD Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development ET Evapotranspiration OpE Operational Experience FFR Future Focused Research PFHA Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment FLEX Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategies PRA Probabilistic Risk Assessment FXHAB Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch PRAB Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch GI Generic Issue PRB Performance and Reliability Branch HEAF High Energy Arcing Faults PWROG Pressurized Water Reactor Owners Group HFRB Human Factors and Reliability Branch RAR Research Assistance Request HFRB Human Factors RG Regulatory Guide HRA Human Reliability Analysis RIDM Risk-Informed Decision Making ICDE International Common-Cause Data Exchange RIL Research Information Letter IDHEAS Integrated Human Event Analysis System ROP Reactor Oversight Process IDHEAS-ECA IDHEAS-Event and Condition Assessment SACADA Scenario Authoring, Characterization, and Debriefing Application IDHEAS-G IDHEAS-General Methodology SAPHIRE Systems Analysis Programs for Hands-on Integrated Reliability Evaluations IE Internal Event SOARCA State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses INPO Institute of Nuclear Power Operations SPAR Standardized Plant Analysis Risk IRSN Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire SPAR-DASH SPAR Dashboard KAERI Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute SSC Structures, Systems, and Components KM Knowledge Management STP South Texas Project L1 Level 1 UNR User Need Request L3PRA Level 3 PRA USGS United States Geological Survey LER Licensee Event Report WG Working Group LERF Large Early Release Frequency WGEV Working Group on External Events LMP Licensing Modernization Project 38
Thank You 39