ML21271A251
| ML21271A251 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/21/2021 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Snodderly, Mike, ACRS | |
| References | |
| NRC-1679 | |
| Download: ML21271A251 (195) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Future Plant Designs Subcommittee Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
teleconference Date:
Tuesday, September 21, 2021 Work Order No.:
NRC-1679 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
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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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 FUTURE PLANT DESIGNS SUBCOMMITTEE 7
+ + + + +
8 TUESDAY 9
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021 10
+ + + + +
11 The Subcommittee met via Teleconference, 12 at 9:30 a.m. EDT, Gregory Halnon, Chair, presiding.
13 14 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
15 GREGORY H. HALNON, Chair 16 RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member 17 VICKI M. BIER, Member 18 CHARLES H. BROWN, JR. Member 19 VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Member 20 JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 21 DAVID A. PETTI, Member 22 JOY L. REMPE, Member 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
2 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 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
3 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 1
PAGE 2
Opening Remarks 3
By Greg Halnon..............
4 4
Draft Final Rule "Emergency Preparedness for Small 5
Modular Reactors and Other New Technologies"
6 Background
7 By Kathryn Brock.............
7 8
Draft Final rule Technical Basis/Regulatory Analysis 9
By Harlon Costa.............. 12 10 Draft Final Rule Language 11 By Eric Schrader............. 19 12 Draft Regulatory Guidance 13 By Charles Murray............. 68 14 Comments on Draft Final Rule 15 By Marc Nichol 108 16 Comments on Draft Final Rule 17 By Ed Lyman...............
115 18 Opportunity for Public Comment 128 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
9:30 a.m.
2 CHAIR HALNON: Thanks Mike, let me go 3
ahead and get started. This meeting is now going to 4
come to order. This is a meeting of the advisory 5
committee of the reactor safeguards future plant 6
design subcommittee. My name is Greg Halnon, as Mike 7
said, I'm the lead member for this meeting. Members 8
in attendance today, Ron Balinger, Charlie Brown, 9
Vesna Dimitrijevic, Jose March-Leuba, Dave Petti, and 10 Joy Rempe.
11 And if I've missed anybody, speak up now, 12 because some people may be on the phone. Any other 13 members? Okay, as Mike mentioned, Mike Snodderly is 14 the designated federal official for this meeting. The 15 subcommittee will review the staff's draft final rule, 16 emergency preparedness for small modular reactors, and 17 other new technologies, and the associated reg guide, 18 1.242, performance based emergency preparedness for 19 small modular reactors, non-light water reactors, and 20 non-power production or utilization facilities.
21 Today we have members of the NRC staff, 22 the Nuclear Energy Institute, and the Union of 23 Concerned Scientists to brief the subcommittee. The 24 ACRS was established by statute, and is governed by 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 Federal Advisory Committee Act, we also refer to 1
that as FACA. The NRC Implements FACA in accordance 2
with its regulations found in title ten of the Code of 3
Federal Regulations Part Seven. The committee can 4
only speak through its published letter reports.
5 We hold meetings to gather information, 6
and perform preparatory work that will support 7
deliberations at a full committee meeting. The rules 8
for participation in all ACRS meetings were announced 9
in the Federal Register on June 13th, in 2019. The 10 ACRS section of the U.S. NRC public website provides 11 our charter, bylaws, agendas, letter reports, and full 12 transcripts of all full, and subcommittee meetings, 13 including slides presented there.
14 The agenda for this meeting was posted 15 there as well. Portions of this meeting can be closed 16 as needed to protect proprietary information pursuant 17 to 5 U.S.C. 552B Charlie four. I don't expect this to 18 be the case for this topic, but we do have that 19 option. As stated in the (Inaudible.) thank you Jim.
20 I do not expect this -- I mean, as stated in the 21 Federal Register notice, and in the public meeting 22 notice for this website, members of the public 23 desiring to provide written, or oral input to the 24 subcommittee may do so, and should have contacted 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
6 designated federal officer five days prior to the 1
meeting as practical.
2 The meeting today is being held over an 3
online platform, and as we have already determined, a 4
phone bridge line has been opened to allow members of 5
the public, and again, I would encourage anyone not 6
speaking to have their phone on mute. We often get 7
feedback, and other things that cause problems, and 8
delay, and with the amount of material we want to 9
cover in today's meeting, it will be important not to 10 have any unnecessary delays.
11 We have received written comments from Dr.
12 Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, these 13 written comments were distributed to the members, and 14 they will be included in the transcript. There will 15 be an opportunity for public comment in the agenda for 16 members of the public attending, or listening to our 17 meetings. Written comments may also be forwarded to 18 Mike Snodderly, designated federal official, and he 19 will provide his email address several times 20 throughout the meeting.
21 A transcript of the open portions of the 22 meeting is being kept, and it is requested that 23 speakers identify themselves, speak with sufficient 24 clarity, and volume so they can be readily heard.
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 Additionally participants should mute themselves when 1
not speaking, as I've already mentioned. Again, I 2
want to also emphasize that if you are going to make 3
a comment, and you're not engaged in the actual 4
conversation, state your name clearly for the court 5
reporter.
6 Okay, at this time I'll proceed, and turn 7
the meeting over to Kathryn Brock, director, Division 8
of Preparedness and Response, Office of Nuclear 9
Security and Incident Response, and she'll begin 10 today's presentation. So, Kathryn, I'll turn that 11 over to you.
12 MS. BROCK: Okay, thank you, good morning 13 everyone. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank 14 the ACRS subcommittee for the opportunity for the 15 staff to discuss the draft final emergency 16 preparedness for small modular reactors, and other new 17 technologies rule. With me today are Eric Schrader, 18 the EP technical lead from NSIR, Soly Soto Lugo, the 19 rule making project manager from NMSS. Arlon Costa is 20 the business line lead from NRR, and Charles Murray is 21 the technical lead for the reg guide, and he's from 22 NSIR.
23 But I'd also like to acknowledge the 24 working group members, and management that supported 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 the development of this draft final rule, and the 1
presentation, it really was a tremendous team effort.
2 As a matter of background, the staff last met with the 3
ACRS in October 2018 to discuss the draft proposed 4
rule, and proposed guidance, and we very much 5
appreciate all of the valuable feedback that we've 6
received from the ACRS over the course of this rule 7
making.
8 Today's presentation will provide a 9
comprehensive overview of the draft final rule, and 10 guidance, including significant changes made from the 11 proposed rule. And as you'll hear from the staff 12 today, the draft final rule outcomes are technology 13 inclusive, and performance based. They include a 14 hazard analysis for contiguous facilities, and they 15 consider a graded approach to EP, and ingestion 16 response planning.
17 So, at this time I'd like to turn the 18 meeting over to Soly Soto Lugo to begin the staff's 19 presentation.
20 MS. SOTO LUGO: Good morning, can you hear 21 me okay?
22 MS. BROCK: Yes.
23 CHAIR HALNON: Yes, you're fine.
24 MS. SOTO LUGO: Okay, thank you. Good 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 morning everyone, as Kathy mentioned, I am Soly Soto 1
Lugo, a project manager for the EPS on modern rule 2
making. And as also Kathy mentioned, this draft final 3
rule includes new alternative emergency preparedness 4
requirements for small modular reactors, and other new 5
technologies such as non-light water reactors, and 6
certain non-power production, or utilization 7
facilities.
8 This draft final rule is technology 9
inclusive, and provides alternatives to develop a 10 performance based EP program rather than using 11 existing EP requirements. The scope of this draft 12 final rule is limited to SMRs, and ONT facilities for 13 which the NRC expects to receive license applications 14 under 10 CFR part 50, or part 52. This draft final 15 rule does not include within its scope, emergency 16 planning preparation, or response for large light 17 water reactors, fuel cycle facilities, or currently 18 operating non-power reactors.
19 Next slide please. And can we go to slide 20 number 5 please? Thank you. The NRC published the 21 draft regulatory basis with a 75 day public comment 22 period in April 2017, and received 57 comment 23 submissions from the public, and stakeholders, which 24 included 223 unique comments. The NRC staff consider 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 all public comments to develop the final regulatory 1
basis, and it was published in November 2015. The 2
regulatory basis, and associated regulatory analysis 3
were used to inform the development of the proposed 4
rule.
5 Next slide please. The proposed rule was 6
published in May of last year for a 75 day public 7
comment period. Then in June, the staff had a public 8
meeting to provide the
- public, and external 9
stakeholders an opportunity to ask questions about the 10 proposed rule during the comment period. The NRC 11 received several requests to extend the comment period 12 due to the coronavirus disease 2019 public health 13 emergency.
14 The NRC extended the comment period by 60 15 days in July, and the comment period closed in 16 September 2020. Next slide please. The NRC received 17 comments from over 2000 individuals, and organizations 18 including 2087 form letters. The staff's analysis of 19 the public comments identified over 600 unique 20 comments on the proposed rule. The draft regulatory 21 guidance, regulatory analysis, and environmental 22 assessment.
23 The NRC received comments from state, and 24 local governments, tribal governments, and tribal 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 organizations, federal agencies, members of the 1
nuclear power industry, non-government organizations, 2
and private citizens. A summary of the comments, and 3
the NRC responses to the comments will be published 4
upon commission approval of the final rule. Next 5
slide please.
6 This slide provides an overview in 7
graphical form of the public comments received, and 8
topics fo interest. Most of the comments received 9
were in the areas of scalable approach for determining 10 the plume exposure pathway emergency planning zone, 11 and performance based emergency preparedness 12 framework. The staff considered all the comments 13 received to develop draft final rule. Some of these 14 comments resulted in changes to the rule language, and 15 clarifications to the statement of considerations.
16 The next presenters will expand on these 17 topics as they discuss changes to the proposed rule, 18 and draft regulatory guidance. Next slide please. In 19 parallel with this committee's deliberations of this 20 draft final rule, the staff is also moving the package 21 through concurrence across our NRC agency management.
22 The staff will present the draft final rule to the 23 ACRS full committee the first week of November, and 24 the entire draft final rule package is due 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
12 commission in September of this year.
1 With
- that, I
will now turn the 2
presentation over to Arlon Costa, who is going to 3
discuss the technical basis, and regulatory analysis 4
for this rule. Next slide please.
5 MR. COSTA: Thank you Soly, good morning.
6 I'm Arlon Costa, a nuclear engineer, and physicist, a 7
senior project manager in the office of Nuclear 8
Reactor Regulations, and in the Division of Advanced 9
Reactors and Non-Power Production or Utilization 10 Facilities. I am briefly discussing the technical 11 basis, and the regulatory analysis that are a part of 12 this final draft rule. The technical basis was 13 informed by the final regulatory basis document just 14 mentioned by Soly in the background discussion.
15 The final regulatory analysis document is 16 currently under concurrence, and will be part of the 17 document package being sent to the commission by 18 December 30th for their review, and approval. Next 19 slide please. The technical basis the approaches 20 describe in these bullets form the technical basis for 21 this draft final rule. This is in line with the NRC 22 considering the technical basis through a graded 23 approach to emergency preparedness for small modular 24 reactors, and other new technologies.
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
13 Which means that the graded approach is 1
also commensurate with the relative radiological 2
- risks, source
- term, and potential hazards.
3 Additionally this technical basis was developed to be 4
consistent with the dose consequence approach 5
described in NUREG-0396. Now, I will make a few 6
remarks regarding these approaches, as these topics 7
will come up again later in the presentation.
8 Performance based approach to emergency planning.
9 In SRM-SECY-0077 the commission approved 10 the staff's recommendation to proceed with this rule 11 making, and noted that there was a potential benefit 12 in the performance based approach to regulating 13 emergency preparedness for small modular reactors.
14 The anticipation for the performance based approach is 15 based on several factors, and I hear a few of them 16 such as existing, and future small modular reactor, 17 and other new technology applications, that they will 18 use a wide range of potential designs, and source 19 terms.
20 Another factor is that emergency 21 preparedness has been evolving because of 22 technological innovations, and advances in nuclear 23 designs could enhance emergency preparedness to 24 accommodate such technologically advanced nuclear 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 facilities. So, it is important to establish that a 1
performance based approach bases the adequacy of 2
emergency preparedness as follows.
The MNRC 3
identifies emergency response functions that effect 4
the protection of public health, and safety.
5 And then the NRC identifies the licensee's 6
successful execution of those emergency response 7
functions. Emergency response functions will be 8
discussed later in the presentation. For a technology 9
inclusive approach to emergency
- planning, the 10 technology inclusive approach means the establishment 11 of performance requirements for any SMR, or ONT 12 applicant, or licensee to use in their emergency plan.
13 It is developed using methods of evaluation that are 14 flexible, and practical for application to a variety 15 of nuclear technologies.
16 This approach is important due to the 17 uniqueness of nuclear technology designs under 18 consideration. In this case, the potential for multi 19 module facilities, and siting facilities contiguous 20 to, or near NRC licensed, or other facilities could 21 lead to a variety of accident frequencies, progression 22 times, and potential consequences for such small 23 modular reactors, or other new technologies. Some of 24 the reasons for a technology inclusive approach 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
15 this draft final rule are to incorporate recent, and 1
potentially existing, or future nuclear technology 2
advancements.
3 And also to reduce the need for a future 4
emergency preparedness rule making. As far as 5
consequence oriented, and risk informed approach to 6
emergency preparedness, or emergency
- planning, 7
consequence oriented goes hand in glove with using a 8
risk informed approach like the risk informed approach 9
planning basis for emergency preparedness that was 10 established in NUREG-0396, and this final rule is risk 11 informed, and not risk based.
12 This draft final rule offers such a 13 consequence oriented approach that establishes EP 14 requirements for SMRs, and other new technologies.
15 This consequence oriented approach refers to the 16 principle of basing decisions of the scope of 17 emergency preparedness required upon the potential 18 dose consequences from a spectrum of accidents.
19 Specifically for those accidents that could result in 20 an off site radiological release, which is a case 21 where decisions regarding emergency preparedness 22 should be based upon projected off site dose from such 23 a spectrum of accidents.
24 Additionally, emergency preparedness 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
16 this rule calls for predetermined, and timely 1
protective measures to be taken with the EPZ as 2
applicable.
So, the time available between 3
recognition of the initiation of a serious accident, 4
and the beginning of the radioactive release to the 5
environment is critical in determining what 6
predetermined protective actions would be appropriate.
7 So, in this draft final rule, the NRC is 8
establishing a consequence oriented, technology 9
inclusive approach to emergency preparedness zone size 10 determinations for small modular reactors, and other 11 new technologies. Next slide please.
12 CHAIR HALNON: Arlon, this is Greg Halnon, 13 can you -- I know that there's a motivation behind the 14 performance based requirements for cost reduction, I 15 mean that's an obvious benefit, but what are the other 16 benefits that you all looked at? I mean it wasn't 17 solely based on cost, was it?
18 MR. COSTA: Right, thanks for that 19 question. Let's go over the next slide, and I'll give 20 a few of those reasons. Okay, so in regards to the 21 regulatory analysis, the final regulatory analysis 22 examines, as was alluded by you, the costs, and 23 benefits of the alternatives in this draft final rule.
24 And that was considered by the NRC. 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
17 regulatory analysis provided with the proposed rule 1
are pretty much in line with this final regulatory 2
analysis, which is undergoing current concurrence with 3
the -- will be available with the final rule package.
4 But the conclusion, and I'm going to get 5
to your point in a section, but the conclusions so far 6
from the analysis, as displayed on this table, is that 7
the final rule, and its associated guidance result in 8
a net saving to the industry, and the NRC of 7.98 9
million dollars when using a seven percent net present 10 value discount rate. So, likewise, looking at the 11 table again, a net present value of 14.9 million 12 dollars is obtained when using just a three percent 13 discount rate.
14 So, now here are the primary sources of 15 benefits of averted costs. They're from the reduction 16 exemption requests, the reduced complexity of the 17 emergency preparedness plans, and the reduction in 18 emergency preparedness license amendment requests due 19 to the performance based nature of the regulation.
20 So, license amendment requests are one of the primary 21 sources of averted costs when compared to the other 22 reductions in emergency preparedness cost in this 23 draft final rule. Did that answer your question?
24 CHAIR HALNON: Yeah, it did, and I 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
18 going to refer back also to the recently issued NUREG-1
- 7285, which has to do with non-radiological 2
consequences from EP, which discusses evacuations, and 3
the potential detrimental effects to the society, not 4
only to physical, but the mental portions of the 5
communities. So, that might be a good read for folks 6
who are looking for a balanced look at what the health 7
consequences could be outside of the radiological 8
piece of it, but the non-radiological piece.
9 So, I just wanted to mention that, because 10 with all the dollars, and cents that you're presenting 11 here, it makes it looks like it's just solely an 12 economic issue, but it's really not, there's a 13 tremendous amount of non-radiological health 14 consequences as well.
15 MR. COSTA: That is correct, and then the 16 public will have an opportunity to see the complete, 17 final draft analysis that will have additional details 18 on all these numbers, and how we came up with them.
19 Which is, like I mentioned previously, a little bit 20 similar to the one that we provided in the proposed 21 rule, but it will be available with the final rule 22 package. All right, thank you for that comment, and 23 now, next slide please.
24 I will turn the presentation to Eric 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 Schrader, who will discuss the draft final rule 1
language, and as Kathy mentioned, the changes 2
associated with public comments, and the outgrowth of 3
the rule. Eric?
4 MR. SCHRADER: Thanks Arlon. As Arlon 5
said, my name is Eric Schrader, I'm an EP specialist, 6
I'm the technical lead for this rule in the Office of 7
Nuclear Security and Incident Response. Next slide 8
please. This part of the presentation, the draft 9
final rule language part, will concentrate on these 10 aspects, the new alternative performance based 11 emergency preparedness framework that you've heard 12 brought up a number of times.
13 The compliance with this performance based 14 will be mostly demonstrated by licensee's drill, and 15 exercise performance program, and evaluation of that 16 program. As mentioned previously, a graded approach 17 to EP is one that customizes the amount of the 18 regulation to the risk presented by the facility, as 19 opposed to one size fits all, as is with the current 20 EP regulation. Ingestion response planning, the 21 ingestion pathway is a longer term concern, it's one 22 that's based on the consumption of contaminated food, 23 and water, and the amount consumed, and whether it's 24 consumed.
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 And this framework also includes a hazard 1
analysis that will be required that an impact of 2
colocated, or contiguous facility operation is 3
accounted for in the emergency plan, and will not 4
negatively impact the licensee's ability to implement 5
its emergency plan. Next slide please. So, this is 6
an overview of the two potential pathways, and the NRC 7
regulation you see to the left, it's defined as the 8
current EP regulatory framework.
9 So, you enter it into the framework the 10 same way, and you would go through 50.33(g)(1), or 11 into the planning standards, and requirements of 12 appendix E. Or, if you're a non-power utilization 13 facility, right into appendix E. But this part of the 14 rule we're going to focus on the 50.33(g)(2) addition 15 to EP regulation as part of this final rule, and this 16 will be the one that will take you to the 10CFR5160B 17 part of EP.
18 So, you see there in the first bubble 19 below 10CFR5160B, there is an EPZ determination that 20
-- sorry, all of a sudden I've got something blocking 21 my screen -- the EPZ site boundary determination that 22 is required by all applicants, and licensees. And 23 that EPZ boundary determination will determine the 24 distance at which one REM over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br /> could 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
21 exceeded, and at what distance that dose could be 1
exceeded.
2 If that dose is not exceeded off site, or 3
outside the site boundary, we move to the left, and to 4
10CFR --
5 CHAIR HALNON: Eric, before you, just real 6
quick, I know that the EPZ determination is one of the 7
key aspects of this rule, will you all be going into 8
a little bit more detail in how that is done, and what 9
the consequences are of being less than, or greater 10 than the site boundary later on?
11 MR. SCHRADER: Absolutely.
12 CHAIR HALNON: Okay, good, thanks.
13 MR. SCHRADER: So, if the EPZ is not past 14 the site boundary, we move over to the left, into 15 10CFR5160B I, Roman numeral I, through Roman numeral 16 IV A, and those aspects are required of all licensees 17 regardless of the size of the EPZ, and whether, or not 18 there's a requirement for a formal offsite EP program.
19 And then following that line down, 10CFR5160B II 20 through IV, and 5160C, those are planning aspects that 21 are also applicable to all licensees, regardless of 22 size of the EPZ.
23 And those parts we'll go over in a little 24 bit more detail later. The EPZ boundary, if it goes 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 offsite, then there are additional aspects to the 1
planning activities of 5160B I, Roman numeral I 2
through IV A, as we discussed just a moment ago, and 3
additionally those in B, which we'll discuss in a 4
minute. Next slide please. So, looking at the 5
performance based framework.
6 5160B establishes the new alternative 7
performance based print framework, and it's based on 8
these four major areas, maintenance of performance, 9
the emergency plan is required to describe how the 10 applicant, or licensee is going to maintain their 11 preparedness to respond to an emergency, and accident 12 conditions, and how the provisions employed to 13 maintain the emergency plan up to date. Said another 14
- way, how will the licensee obtain reasonable 15 assurance?
16 Performance objectives are developed, and 17 maintained as a set of -- to meet the performance 18 objectives, and the performance thresholds to track 19 the licensee's overall ability to implement the 20 emergency response functions in drills, and exercises.
21 Emergency response performance, a set of key emergency 22 response functions required to adequately demonstrate 23 reasonable assurance that lend themselves to a 24 qualitative, or quantitative evaluation 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
23 performance.
1 These emergency performance functions, 2
where both an applicant, and a licensee with, or 3
without a formal off site program include event 4
classification, protective action recommendations, 5
communications, command, and control, staffing, and 6
operations, radiological assessment, reentry, and 7
critique, and corrective actions. Planning activities 8
is an additional set of emergency response 9
requirements that are more programmatic in nature, and 10 do not lend themselves to a quantitative performance 11 evaluation.
12 We'll discuss more about those in just a 13 second, next slide please. So, this is the specific 14 section that we'll be talking about as we move 15 forward. This is just the side leading for an 16 applicant, or a licensee wishing to comply with the 17 5160 performance based technology inclusive rule.
18 CHAIR HALNON: Can you explain who that is 19 applicable to? I mean who is able to do that? I 20 think that goes back to the definition of SMR, and 21 ONT.
22 MR. SCHRADER: Correct. So, to enter this 23 side of it, it needs to be an SMR that is 300 24 megawatts electrical, or less, or 1000 megawatts 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
24 thermal, or less, or an other new technology such as 1
an NPUF, a nuclear plant, and utilization facility of 2
any size. So, those are the entry criteria for 3
getting into the SMR, and ONT final draft rule side of 4
the framework here.
5 CHAIR HALNON: So, Eric, how do you parse 6
out research reactors, which may be new technology, or 7
even a small modular reactor for that matter? How do 8
you -- I know there's a separate portion, reg guide, 9
and other guidance for research reactors, but what is 10 the break line there, how do you figure out which one 11 is which?
12 MR. SCHRADER: How do we figure out which 13 one is which?
14 CHAIR HALNON: Yeah, if somebody comes up 15 with a new technology, and says this is a prototype 16 reactor, how do you parse it between 50.160, and the 17 research reactor path that you contain?
18 MR. SCHRADER: They can go either 19 direction.
20 CHAIR HALNON: Okay.
21 MR. SCHRADER: Currently, research, and 22 test reactors are pretty much the only non-power, and 23 utilization facility that we have out there, but 24 moving forward, that may not be the case. 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
25 existing research, and test reactors would not be 1
under this rule, but moving forward, research, and 2
test reactors would have the option to use this rule.
3 CHAIR HALNON: Okay, so taking the 4
definition to the extreme, if I have a 12 module set 5
of reactors, that they're all 999 megawatts thermal, 6
would that technically comply, and be able to use this 7
rule?
8 MR. SCHRADER: Yes, it would. There is a 9
change to, or revision that added the small modular 10 reactor definition to the rule, and that definition 11 states that it's a reactor -- I'm sorry, the small 12 modular reactor is per module, and so I guess the 13 answer to your question would be that since it's per 14 module, it would qualify to use 5160.
15 CHAIR HALNON: Okay, and I know I'm taking 16 this to the extreme, and there are hypotheticals, but 17 what if the determination for the source term for the 18 design basis accident when they're working on EPZ, 19 what if that comes out to where it could actually 20 involve two modules, or more than two modules that 21 would add up to more than 1000 megawatts thermal, 22 would that qualify as being still under this rule, if 23 each module was less than 1000?
24 MR. SCHRADER: I'm not certain that I 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 understand your question as far as the accident 1
selection. If the accident selection included multi 2
module event, then the source term from that multi 3
module event would be used as part of the EPZ size 4
determination.
5 CHAIR HALNON: Yeah, I guess my point is 6
that if the source term could involve a reactor 7
greater than 1000 megawatts thermal, then it wouldn't 8
apply to this, it couldn't apply this rule, but if it 9
was say two, or three modules were in that source 10 term, but each module reactor was less than a thousand 11 megawatts thermal, it sounds like they could still 12 apply this rule. So, I get -- it's sort of to clarify 13 the use of different modules, I think that that is an 14 interesting topic.
15 We don't really have that issue just yet, 16 except some small module reactors coming down the pipe 17 may use it, but the question always comes back is when 18 is the source term such that it's not really -- I 19 guess the conglomerate of accidents that you're 20 looking at is really not a small module reactor 21 anymore, it's several modules involved. So, anyway, 22 I'm not asking it clearly enough, because I don't have 23 it written down, but as we go forward, we'll explore 24 that a little bit more down the road I think.
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27 MR. COSTA: Greg, this is Arlon, just one 1
thing to help clarify maybe your question, and Eric's 2
answer, is that we as the NRC, we license by the 3
thermal power. So, when they come, there's a lot of 4
stuff that happens before emergency preparedness. So, 5
when they come to us, and we license them at that 6
power level, they cannot go beyond that, and that 7
satisfies the definition that it is per module. In 8
fact the source term is part of that determination on 9
how far they can go as far as thermal power is 10 concerned.
11 CHAIR HALNON: Okay, yeah, I understand, 12 thanks Arlon, appreciate that. I think if I try to 13 ask my question one more time, if I had one module of 14 999 megawatt thermals clearly that I could apply this 15 rule. If I had two modules at 999, and the design 16 base accident had to include both of those, that's 17 still considered two modules less than 999, and 18 henceforth I could apply this rule? And I think the 19 answer is yes.
20 MR. SCHRADER: Yes, that is a true 21 statement, it would be accounted for in the analysis.
22 CHAIR HALNON: Okay, and in sizing of the 23 EPZ, which would --
24 MR. SCHRADER: Correct.
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28 MEMBER REMPE: So, this is Joy, and I 1
guess I have a related question, because we're also 2
considering these transportable micro reactors, and 3
what if you have no place to send them off site, 4
because they've not thought about that yet, on how 5
they're going to take them back? So, is there a 6
situation where they come in, they said okay, yeah, 7
we're going to have a site, and we're going to bring 8
in this transportable micro reactor, maybe they're 9
going to say we're going to have three of them.
10 But then they couldn't figure out what to 11 do with them afterwards, and so you've got this 12 parking lot, because they don't have instances, they 13 can't take them apart on the site, so you're going to 14 have a parking lot of spent micro reactors with 15 nowhere to send them. So, will the staff, have they 16 considered, okay yeah, you can do this, but after 17 three plus, maybe three in the parking lot, that's it, 18 you've got your maximum for your source term that we 19 used to come up with the EPZ. Is that covered, that 20 situation?
21 MR. SCHRADER: I don't think that that 22 would be under the scope of this rule. That sounds 23 like a decommissioning type of an aspect to it, this 24 rule doesn't --
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29 MEMBER REMPE: Well, you're not really --
1 again, we're supposed to look at the whole fuel cycle 2
with part 53, right? And --
3 MR. SCHRADER: Well, this isn't part 53 4
though.
5 MEMBER REMPE: Right, but if you're trying 6
to select your emergency planning zone, how are you 7
going to consider that? So, you're just going to say 8
no, you've got to take off the micro reactor, and get 9
off site before you bring in the new one, or something 10 like that is what you're talking about? Because it's 11 not really --
12 MR. SCHRADER: I would really prefer not 13 to speculate, this is something that I think is truly 14 outside the scope of this rule. As far as -- if I 15 understand your question correctly, there's a
16 requirement that they maintain their plan in effect, 17 and up to date. So, any change that's made to the 18 site as far as source term, and that, would have to be 19 taken into account in an update to what that source 20 term is for that EPZ size.
21 If that source term were to increase, and 22 the new analysis is showing that it would require a 23 larger EPZ, then that change would have to be made.
24 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, so somewhere 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
30 rule it clearly says that you cannot, you're limited 1
by this source term, and if you can't get the old --
2 you don't have to go into that detail about it -- you 3
can't get the old micro reactor that's spent off site, 4
you've clearly bounded this, and it's, because I keep 5
wondering about micro reactors, and how you're going 6
to pick the EPZ if you can't get that old micro 7
reactor off site.
8 CHAIR HALNON: Yeah, and Joy I had a 9
similar question on micro reactors. I was thinking 10 through the process, that if you move, and of course 11 the regulations aren't set in part 53 for it all yet, 12 but if you move a micro reactor to another location, 13 that new location needs to be licensed before you can 14 actually move it to there. But it's the movement 15 portion of it as well. So, I'm not sure that it would 16 be fair for this rule to be applicable to movable 17 micro reactors until we understood how all that would 18 work out in the regulatory process, do you?
19 I mean it's kind of mind boggling to think 20 through it, how an EPZ can be applied when you're 21 moving a reactor down the road.
22 MEMBER REMPE: I just kind of thought I 23 would see somewhere, and maybe I missed it, but this 24 rule does not apply to transportable reactors, 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
31 something, and I guess I didn't see those words in 1
there.
2 CHAIR HALNON: I hadn't seen it either, 3
and that was one of my comments, was that I think that 4
unless there was a portion of the part 53 licensing 5
process for transporting reactors that shoehorned it 6
into this rule somehow, this rule really shouldn't 7
apply to that until we understood fully how the 8
transportable reactors would be licensed. So, I go 9
back to the staff, and Eric, and Arlon, is this rule 10 going to be not applicable to transportable reactors, 11 micro reactors?
12 MR. COSTA: Well, this is Arlon, one thing 13 that I know is that we are contemplating these issues 14 as we're communicating with the commission with second 15 papers on micro reactors, and we're looking at these 16 possibilities. But we also need to keep in mind that 17 some of these things are NMSS issues, because the 18 transportation part of it may have an umbrella towards 19 EP, but I think it's important to know too, that there 20 is a siting involvement here before they go through 21 this process.
22 They have to go through the siting 23 process, in which we require that there can't be any 24 impediments to emergency planning. So, all those 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
32 issues would be studied along the way, and as 1
necessary, they need to be kept separate as people get 2
different licenses for different things, including for 3
the use of special nuclear materials for 4
transportation, or when they're in their factories.
5 So, we will consider all this, but overall, we do not 6
want to say that the applicant does not have an option 7
to come into part 5160.
8 We will consider that, and we'll evaluate 9
when they bring it to us, and I think Eric made a good 10 point, that if changes are made to the emergency plan 11 that they initially provide to us, then it needs to be 12 reapproved by the NRC before they perform that 13 function.
14 MEMBER REMPE: It just would have made 15 things clearer for me if there had been something 16 about this rule does not yet consider this, and it's 17 something we're thinking about in the future, so that 18 there wouldn't be that confusion by folks trying to 19 figure out what to do with this.
20 MR. COSTA: We understand that some things 21 may be unclear, and as we go along, we'll try to 22 clarify, especially as we discuss micro reactors with 23 you, with ACRS, and of course we're working with the 24 commission on papers right now in that area.
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33 MEMBER REMPE: Yeah, and this is the 1
second meeting I've listened to this week where I've 2
heard staff say well, this is something that's coming 3
through, we need to talk to NMSS, and I think ACRS 4
does need to try, and just also be aware of what's 5
happening with NMSS is another comment too.
6 MR. COSTA: Yes, we have a lot of moving 7
parts, as you have alluded to previously on part 53, 8
the licensing modernization project, and so forth.
9 So, we are aware of these moving parts, and they will 10 work together.
11 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
12 MR. SCHRADER: The part 53 rule at this 13 point isn't looking at transportable reactors, so I 14 don't think that -- we don't have anything specific to 15 transportable reactors in the 5160 arena, however as 16 I stated earlier, and I think it answered your 17 question, if the licensee were to bring another module 18 in, and retire a module, that would change the license 19 for that facility, and they would have to redo the 20 source term determinations, and they would have to 21 redo the EPZ size determination based on that 22 increased, that change in the licensing.
23 MEMBER REMPE: That kind of wording would 24 help. And by the way, I'm not talking about 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
34 effort where you have a reactor that really never has 1
a site, and you move it one place, to another, but it 2
is exactly what you're saying, where you bring in one, 3
you retire it, you bring in another to keep 4
electricity around the site, but the problem is, is 5
what if you have a bunch of them that are retired, 6
because you've not yet licensed the place where you're 7
supposed to take them to, because you can't defuel 8
them on the site? So, that's exactly what I'm talking 9
about.
10 CHAIR HALNON: It's a little bit about 11 getting the cart before the horse, like you said, 12 there's a lot of moving parts, and we just want to 13 make sure that everything stays in the same, so that 14 it doesn't put unreal expectations out there in the 15 industry about what you can, and can't do.
16 MR. SCHRADER: Understood.
17 CHAIR HALNON: Go ahead, go on.
18 MR. SCHRADER: Okay. So, moving into the 19 last bubble on the left, on top of reasonable 20 assurance are those aspects of the regulation that 21 are, again, applicable to both off site EP programs, 22 and no requirement for an offsite program. And they 23 include the hazard analysis, the EPZ boundary 24 description, ingestion pathway planning, and then 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 under Charlie there, 5160C, the implementation of the 1
initial exercise requirement for operating licenses, 2
and combined operating licenses.
3 Next slide. So, talking about the 4
scalable approach for determining the plume exposure 5
pathway, the analysis describing the area within which 6
the public dose is projected to exceed 10 7
millisieverts, or 1 REM TEDE, total effective dose 8
equivalent over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br /> from the start of the release 9
of radioactive materials from the
- facility, 10 considering the accident likelihood, and source term, 11 and the timing of the accident, and site specific 12 meteorology.
13 Applicants will provide the EPZ size 14 determination analysis that is design specific, site 15 specific, and uses the source term, fission products, 16 and projected off site dose for the NRC review. The 17 analysis is based on a design specific source term, 18 fission product information from a spectrum of 19 accidents, and site specific meteorology. The 20 spectrum of accidents are based on accident 21 likelihood, and the timing of the accident sequence.
22 The distance to where the off site doses 23 are projected to exceed the 1 REM at 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br />, with 24 the need from the spectrum of accidents combined 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
36 a
need for predetermined protective measures 1
determines the EPZ size. This approach covers the two 2
core attributes of an EPZ, the first being projected 3
dose savings, and the second, a required urgency for 4
protective measures to maximize dose savings. The EPZ 5
is a planning tool, one that bounds the area in which 6
prompt protective measures are warranted. Next Slide.
7 CHAIR HALNON: Yeah, Eric, on the source 8
term, I mean the previous ACRS was very emphatic that 9
the determination of the source term was one of the 10 most important portions of this input to this rule.
11 Can you briefly describe what the agency is doing to 12 ensure that the source term determination is correct, 13 and accurate? I know it's a little bit beyond the 14 scope of this rule, because it's just an input to it.
15 But I think it's important to understand for the ACRS, 16 where we were in 2018, and where we are now relative 17 to source term determination.
18 MR. SCHRADER: Well, after the 2018 19 presentation to ACRS, appendix B was added to the reg 20 guide development of information on source term. So, 21 there's a whole section in the reg guide that speaks 22 specifically to source term determination, and that 23 was generated through a request for user need that 24 went to research, and they did an analysis of 0396, 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 and how the spectrum of accidents was determined. So, 1
all that is captured in a paper done by Dr. Keith 2
Compton, and then summarized in appendix B, and 3
there'll be more discussion of appendix B later on.
4 CHAIR HALNON: Okay, thanks.
5 MEMBER PETTI: Hey Greg, so this is Dave, 6
just for other committee members, it was on our agenda 7
to look at the alternate source term, and I don't 8
remember the reg guide number, but it was supposed to 9
be in October, it's been moved to November, but we'll 10 certainly have a look at it before the end of the 11 calendar year, and it's going to address source terms 12 for, like advanced reactor systems, as well as 13 advanced light water reactors. So, we'll be looking 14 for connectivity here I think.
15 CHAIR HALNON: Thanks Dave. And I think 16 that's where I was going to try to get to, is that 17 there is a larger effort, multi office, multi division 18 effort within the NRC to look at this, and we'll be 19 reviewing that in the future. So, you said it's in 20 November now, right?
21 MEMBER PETTI: November's subcommittee, 22 yeah.
23 CHAIR HALNON: Okay, thanks. Go ahead 24 Eric.
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38 MR. SCHRADER: All right. So, in this 1
analysis, there is two parts to it, that part that 2
determines the distance that the one REM at 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br /> 3
could be exceeded, and then the second aspect of it, 4
the functional criteria, is those areas that would 5
require an urgent prompt protective measure. Next 6
slide. So, with that, that analysis that's submitted 7
under 5033G2, the 5160B3 requires the applicant to 8
take that analysis then, and customize that distance 9
out to which the analysis said that the dose could be 10 exceeded.
11 That distance basically would imply a 12 uniform circle. But then 5160B3 customizes that shape 13 of the circle to take into account local political, 14 and physical land characteristics, rivers, county 15 boundaries, major roadways, things like that. Next 16 slide. Requirements to describe the ingestion 17 response planning. The concept of the ingestion 18 pathway emergency planning zone was created in the 19 1970s.
20 Since then there has been significant 21 improvements in the nation's federal, and state 22 resources, and capabilities to identify, and remove 23 biologically, and radiologically contaminated foods, 24 or produce from the food chain. These capabilities 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 are not dependent on a preplanned action, or a 1
specific area. Federal, and state authorities 2
frequently issue precautionary actions, or implement 3
quarantines, or embargos for non-radiological 4
contamination of foods without a predetermined area.
5 The ingestion response planning 6
requirements under 5160B provide the same 7
capabilities, and availability to identify, and 8
interdict contaminated food, and water in the event of 9
a radiological emergency as required under the 10 existing EP regulations. Federal resources are 11 available upon request to state, and local, and tribal 12 responses for a nuclear radiological incident.
13 CHAIR HALNON: Eric, on this one, in the 14 Reg basis, the ingestion or capabilities were based 15 on, or at least part of the argument was based on the 16
-- on the biological issues like the E. coli and 17 things were.
18 The food supply was protected from -- and 19 by the local officials and by quarantines and 20 embargos, and what not.
21 However, the issue I had with that in 22 making a comparison there, was that those were all 23 reactionary based on somebody getting sick. And then 24 they backtracked it to a place where the source was.
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40 That's different than having a
1 radiological problem. And wanting to interdict prior 2
to getting to the food supply, prior to somebody 3
getting sick.
4 And how did you guys make the comparison 5
between the biological interdiction, which was largely 6
reactionary, and the radiological interdiction that 7
needs to be largely proactionary? If that makes 8
sense.
9 But, it has to have it --
10 MR. SCHRADER: Certainly.
11 CHAIR HALNON: Before it gets in there.
12 MR. SCHRADER: Right. Right. It's not so 13 much that the biological introduct -- interdictions 14 that we're talking about, and those were the E. coli 15 outbreaks and that that has been in the news as of 16 recently.
17 But, it's the -- it's applicable to the --
18 that they're specifically applicable to the ingestion 19 pathway planning.
20 The applicability is that the interdiction 21 was successfully conducted without specific planning 22 or a defined area.
23 As far as the proactive aspect of it that 24 you're talking about is concerned, the ingestion 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 pathway is a long-term concern. And the offsite 1
authorities will have time to take the precautionary 2
actions to inform the public as to what -- what not to 3
consume.
4 They'll know in advance the -- where the 5
potential contamination has gone. They'll know where 6
to potentially go look for it.
7 And they'll have access to federal 8
resources to project, and the location of the 9
contamination and equipment to detect where the 10 contamination is, and to provide advice so that per --
11 The looking forward aspect of it is before 12 it ever gets to the ground, before it becomes a 13 concern.
14 With a radiological release in this 15 discussion, you would know that it's coming. And you 16 wouldn't have to wait for someone to get sick.
17 You'd already have --
18 CHAIR HALNON: So then you're putting the 19 infrastructure behind the ability to communicate, to 20 pass out health orders or whatever the case maybe to 21 these food producers.
22 Is that essentially what you're?
23 MR. SCHRADER: Not just to the food 24 producers, but to the public.
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42 CHAIR HALNON: To the public.
1 MR. SCHRADER: And that's -- those are the 2
same, the same capabilities and resources that we --
3 that we currently have. And we would expect them too 4
continually to be used.
5 And another aspect here is that, you know, 6
these people do this much more -- much more frequently 7
then there are radiological releases, thankfully.
8 And in EP we count on the fact that the 9
- ERO, or the people that are responding are 10 professionals in what they do. And they -- and those 11 people being professionals, we don't need to evaluate 12 what they do on a daily basis.
13 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Well, let's carry 14 that same question and scenario to a plant or a 15 facility that has the EPZ less than the site boundary 16 such that the public is not -- or I say the public, 17 but the local officials are not required to be engaged 18 at the nuclear plant is, is a potential risk to the 19 public.
20 How does that work out? What are FEMA's 21 responsibilities in this relative too less than the --
22 less than the site boundary EPZ when there's a 23 potential release?
24 Especially if there's a
waterborne 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
43 potential there, such as a river nearby or something 1
else that may take a contamination further. Even 2
though it maybe less than the required dose, it's 3
still contamination.
4 So, I guess the question, just to be more 5
succinct is, how does this all work when it's -- the 6
EPZ is less than the site boundary and there's no 7
offsite capabilities even looked at from the 8
standpoint of public information and what not?
9 MR. SCHRADER: Well, regardless of whether 10 there's a formal offsite EP plan or not, the licensee 11 and the applicant are still required to describe in 12 their plans those capabilities and resources that are 13 available for the ingestion pathway and emission 14 planning zone.
15 CHAIR HALNON: Does FEMA have to buy into 16 that piece of it?
17 MR. SCHRADER: No. FEMA will not have any 18 planning responsibilities or involvement with the site 19 boundary EPZ.
20 However, FEMA and other federal agencies 21 will maintain their response rules under the Federal 22 Nuclear and Radiological Incident Annexes that would 23 be available to be called upon in an event like you're 24 describing.
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44 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. So, they're 1
generically available, but they're not specifically to 2
those plans.
3 MR. SCHRADER: Correct.
4 CHAIR HALNON: Okay.
5 MR. SCHRADER: They're the same types of 6
resources that would be available if they -- an 7
offsite had some other type of radiological incident 8
other than the -- other than the site, and was -- and 9
needed additional help or resources to deal with it.
10 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I'm not -- and maybe 11 we'll get more into the guidance portion. I'm not 12 sure it's clear to me FEMA's responsibility for that 13 less standing site boundary EPZ.
14 It sounds like you still have to go to 15 them with your plan.
16 MR. SCHRADER: Yeah.
17 CHAIR HALNON: But, you don't --
18 MR. SCHRADER: No, there's no --
19 CHAIR HALNON: Take it --
20 MR. SCHRADER: There's no involvement with 21 FEMA for a -- when there's no requirement for a formal 22 offsite EP
- program, FEMA doesn't have any 23 responsibility.
24 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I thought I read 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 somewhere in the guidance that they did have some --
1 some responsibility or at least some involvement with 2
a -- with the ingestion portion, even if it was less 3
than the site boundary for the EPZ.
4 MR. SCHRADER: No.
5 CHAIR HALNON: Maybe I -- so, I'll have to 6
go back and look and see. Thanks.
7 MR. SCHRADER: Um-hum. All right.
8 CHAIR HALNON: Go ahead and move on.
9 MR. SCHRADER: So, in looking at the 10 different multi-state outbreak quarantines, the 11 September and October 2006 E. coli infections of 12 spinach, July through December 2010 human salmonella, 13 October 2012 fungal meningitis, in each of these 14 cases, it was a successful quarantine and removal 15 from public access to contaminated food and products 16 in response to the biological contaminant that 17 demonstrates the response to a -- to prevent ingestion 18 of contaminated food and water could be performed in 19 an expeditious manner without a
predetermined 20 ingestion planning zone. Next slide.
21 So, the planning activities, these are the 22 planning activities that are applicable to both onsite 23 and offsite emergency planning zones.
24 They look at -- these are the aspects 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
46 easily lend themselves to a quantitative evaluation of 1
performance. Or don't -- I'm sorry.
2 The planning activities are those required 3
facets of EP that don't easily lend themselves to 4
quantitative evaluation performance.
5 The planning activities described in this 6
section are applicable to both applicants with EPZs 7
onsite or greater than the site boundaries.
8 So, these are -- these are those facets of 9
public information during an emergency, coordination 10 of licensee safeguards contingency plans, so that 11 would be a security event.
12 Communications with the NRC as requested.
13 So, during an event they would still need to describe 14 how they would maintain an open line if requested.
15 And what emergency facility or facilities they would 16 need to support their emergency plan.
17 Site familiarization training for those 18 OROs, those offsite response organizations that would 19 have a role onsite. And then the emergency plan 20 maintenance. Next slide.
21 The offsite planning activities, those are 22 the ones that in 50.160(1), Roman numeral (iv)(Bravo) 23 are required for offsite planning. Those would have 24 a site, a greater than site boundary EPZ.
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47 And you can see that these are those that 1
you would expect to need to reach out. Those compacts 2
and arrangements with those OROs that have a specific 3
response.
4 How you'll make recommended protective 5
measures, evacuation time estimates for those areas 6
within the EPZ. What emergency response facilities, 7
capabilities and equipment will be available to 8
support the emergency plan.
9 The ability to do offsite dose 10 projections, dissemination of public information 11 again, during the -- not only during the emergency, 12 but also annually.
13 Or public information distributed as to 14 what types of evacuation routes, or what radio 15 stations or media outlets would be used to distribute 16 information during an emergency.
17 What actions to -- would need to be taken 18 for reentering once the -- once the event is -- has 19 stopped and is under control.
20 And then a drill and exercise program.
21 What drills and exercises, what groups would need to 22 be a part of that program. Next slide.
23 So, the requirement for hazard analysis.
24 The NRC also considers and has created an approach 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
48 EP, the potential negative impact on a licensee's 1
ability to implement its emergency plan posed by 2
hazards at facilities located on or near the nuclear 3
facility site.
4 The potential impact of hazards may 5
require additional EP considerations, preparations, or 6
arrangements that would otherwise not be needed in the 7
absence of that facility. Next slide.
8 So, the consideration of the credible 9
accidents, and there's a number of examples there.
10 The hazards that may negatively affect the ability of 11 a licensee to implement their plan and/or require 12 additional EP considerations, preparations, 13 arrangements not otherwise
- needed, such as 14 notification of contiguous or nearby facilities of an 15 emergency at the nuclear facility, classification of 16 a hazard from a nearby facility impacting the safe 17 operation of the nuclear facility, and providing 18 protective actions for onsite personnel or 19 recommending protective actions for the nearby 20 facility personnel.
21 Critical hazards include events at a 22 contiguous or nearby facility that would lead to an 23 emergency response at the nuclear facility. Or 24 negatively impact the implementation of their response 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 plan.
1 It maybe appropriate for the SMR or ONT 2
applicant and licensee with contiguous or nearby 3
facilities to consider a quantitative or qualitative 4
assessment of the possible hazards at these 5
facilities.
6 The applicant or licensee EP plan must 7
reflect these hazards and the planning activities 8
needed to address them. Next slide.
9 Regulatory oversight requires applicants 10 and licensees to use drills and exercise to 11 demonstrate their capabilities and demonstrate their 12 compliance with the regulations.
13
Response
functions include event 14 classification and mitigation, protective actions, 15 communications, command and control, staffing and 16 operations, radiological assessment, reentry, critique 17 and protective actions.
18 All of these aspects are functions that 19 are required of both EPZs onsite and offsite. The 20 specifics of how regulatory oversight of the draft 21 final rule would be as -- will be accomplished is yet 22 to be determined.
23 Advanced Reactor Policy branch and NRR, 24 Nuclear Regulatory Regulation branch, has begun an 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 advanced reactor construction inspection and oversight 1
framework project to develop recommendations for 2
development of NRC inspection and oversight guidance 3
to support construction and operation of advanced 4
reactors that is technology inclusive, risk informed, 5
and performance based.
6 And ACRS is also putting out a request for 7
quote, looking to award a contract to start this 8
process of what the EP oversight and inspection 9
process will look like.
10 CHAIR HALNON: So Eric, on the oversight 11 piece of it, you're basically saying that there's more 12 to come on that relative to inspection objectives, 13 performance indicators, types of inspections, 14 observations versus involvement, that type of stuff?
15 MR. SCHRADER: Yes.
16 CHAIR HALNON: And do you know what kind 17 of schedule they're going to be on? Or if you're 18 going to issue this rule without the guidance for 19 inspection, is that going to prevent somebody from 20 using the rule until that gets done?
21 Or what is the -- what is the coordination 22 of these two efforts?
23 MR. SCHRADER: The effort to put together 24 the off -- the inspection and oversight process 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
51 expected to be approximately a two-year effort.
1 And will be available and will have to be 2
available prior to implementation of the rule.
3 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I think the ACRS, 4
probably the subcommittee on plant operations maybe 5
interested in seeing how that project progresses, 6
since verification of the performance of a new rule 7
such as this is drastically different moving forward.
8 And would be very important to make sure 9
that we understand how the rule attributes would be 10 complied with going down the road. And how the 11 performance-based framework of an inspection program 12 fits into such type of rule language.
13 So, --
14 MR. SCHRADER: At this time we're not 15 expecting any applications to come through prior to 16 the ability to have this oversight process done.
17 But, the gist of what you're asking, each 18 licensee, each applicant will have to create a set of 19 objectives that will set them what they'll do to meet 20 that objective.
21 And there will have to be a corresponding 22 threshold established for that adequate performance of 23 that emergency response function.
24 So, those will all be demonstrated 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
52 drills and exercises. And each one of those, you 1
know, there will be an evaluated exercise.
2 And we'll come in and we'll watch that 3
exercise, and we'll continue to do a very similar 4
process to what we do now.
5 We'll be very interested in seeing how 6
they do their critique of their performance. And how 7
they acknowledge and implement corrective actions.
8 And then there will be a direct inspection 9
if you will, aspect of it that looks at the planning 10 activities.
11 But, the way this is -- this is being 12 constructed, is those aspects that are of true 13 importance, will reveal themselves.
And the 14 licensee's ability to perform those emergency response 15 functions.
16 So, it's almost a process where the 17 significance automatically gets assigned too whatever 18 the potential deficiency might be, or weakness might 19 be by the fact that if it's a weakness or deficiency 20 that is truly significant and will reveal itself in 21 degraded performance.
22 And that degraded performance then will be 23 captured by not meeting the objective threshold.
24 CHAIR HALNON: Okay.
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53 MR. COSTA: Yes, and this is Arlon. I 1
just wanted to add to what Eric just said. The fact 2
that this is a technology inclusive of that final 3
rule.
4 And then we have all these different types 5
of potential advanced reactors coming our way. And 6
they have to be tailored specifically to their designs 7
and to their reactors and to their sites.
8 So, that's where it becomes challenging to 9
think so far ahead of time. Especially considering 10 that some of these designs may come or -- may come far 11 and into the future.
12 So, we feel that we need to have an 13 opportunity to see what they're presenting to us for 14 us to come up with these -- with the specific program 15 that fits their reactors.
16 CHAIR HALNON: Yeah. I can appreciate 17 that. And I think that there's also recognition if 18 there's an underlying consistent set of performance 19 objectives for every emergency plan relative to 20 staffing, knowledge, the readiness, those types of 21 things that we've learned from many, many years of 22 inspecting the large light water reactors.
23 So, I
think that from a
backstop 24 perspective, there should be a consistent foundation 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 for every emergency plan that we would want to see.
1 And we want to ensure it was in place and ready to go.
2 And that's a procedure framework, a 3
certain set of performance indicators, a certain 4
protocol for critiquing use of the corrective action 5
program, those types of things.
6 So, that's why as you -- as you establish 7
the inspection framework, I think that we would be 8
interested in reviewing that to make sure that we're 9
comfortable with the underlying framework and 10 foundation of the inspection program, to ensure that 11 the attributes of the performance-based rule are being 12 carried forward into oversight.
13 MR. SCHRADER: Some of that is currently 14 available in the Reg Guide. Such as the establishment 15 of the objectives and how to establish the thresholds 16 and that.
17 So, there is -- there is some of that 18 currently available in the Reg Guide that we can milk.
19 And Charles Murray can discuss a little bit further in 20 detail if you still want more detail on that.
21 CHAIR HALNON: Yeah. I would appreciate 22 that. Specifically, it looks like, to me, that you 23 leave it up to the licensee or applicant to propose 24 certain performance indicators that would do it.
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55 It seems to me that if 20 applicants 1
proposed their own personal desire for performance 2
indicators, you may have quite a few performance 3
indicators, and some very unique ones that the 4
inspectors have to be familiar with and look at.
5 And then how do you compare what's 6
adequate performance versus not if you're not even 7
having consistent foundation of what you're looking 8
at?
9 So, I know there is some stuff in there.
10 But, what I'd like to see are more consistent 11 foundations such that we don't confuse the inspectors 12 who are trying to get out there and inspect these 13 things.
14 MR. SCHRADER: Key to what you just said, 15 is proposed. So, the applicant will need to propose 16 to us, and we'll need to approve those set of 17 objectives.
18 There are a number of different things in 19 the technology inclusive aspect of this rule that 20 there just isn't any way to -- to establish a given 21 set of objectives.
22 Now, will that happen? It's certainly a 23 possibility. There's a possibility that somebody like 24 NEI or even the NRC, once there's more understanding 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 of what the technologies will be, and how they're 1
being implemented to set a uniform set of performance 2
indicators.
3 But, at this point, we don't know what 4
those would be.
5 CHAIR HALNON: Okay.
6 MR. SCHRADER: So, each -- each licensee, 7
each applicant, will have to come in and convince us 8
that the objectives they have set, the thresholds that 9
they have set, are adequate.
10 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Just as a time 11 check, we've got about 10 to 15 more minutes for the 12 staff.
13 So, let's go ahead and move on. And then 14 I wanted to make sure that the members had a chance to 15 weigh in before we took a break, on any questions they 16 may have.
17 So, go ahead Eric.
18 MR. SCHRADER: Right. Next slide, please.
19 So, now we'll start talk -- start to talk 20 about some of the significant changes to the proposed 21 rule and the draft final rule.
22 Revised -- we've revised 50.33(g)(2), the 23 EPZ sizing criteria. In the proposed rule we had one 24 criterion of the one REM at 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br />.
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57 And we revised that, we got a number of 1
public comments about needing more detail, wanting 2
more detail about how that would come about. And so, 3
it was revised to include what the major concerns 4
were.
5 And those are the accident likelihood 6
source term, timing of accident sequences, and site 7
specific meteorology as major considerations.
8 Additionally, as was stated earlier, the 9
staff added a second criterion, a functional criteria 10 if you will, for a requirement that predetermined and 11 prompt protective measures would be necessary as part 12 of determining what the EPZ size would be.
13 50.160(b)(3), that's the -- that's the EPZ 14 size description. And that's the -- based on the way 15 we did the revision to (g)(2), we realized that there 16 was an opportunity that there could be no EPZ.
17 So, in efforts to ensure that that was 18 accounted for, we included an entry criteria that 19 stated that for those required as an applicant that 20 have an EPZ boundary, to describe it in their plan.
21 And then --
22 MEMBER BROWN: Could I ask -- this is 23 Charlie Brown. Could I ask a question back on that 24 subpart?
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58 MR. SCHRADER: Absolutely.
1 MEMBER BROWN: I want to make sure I say 2
this correctly. If you revise a plume exposure 3
pathway -- pathway sizing criteria, that's kind of a 4
general, what does that mean?
5 Does that mean you'll allow more exposure?
6 Does it know the pathway? Does it reduce what part of 7
the population is actually encompassed?
8 I'm having a real hard time with criteria 9
when I went through the Reg Guide trying to find 10 specific objectives. There were no numerical ones 11 other than I believe the one REM.
12 There were probably others. I just don't 13 remember them. And the Table 1 is open. So, there's 14 no existing requirements specified even there, which 15 I thought might still be applicable.
16 So, I'm not quite sure what I'm missing 17 when we start talking about a performance approach 18 which somehow changes something that's been in place 19 for decades. And what the criteria for changing it 20 would be.
21 That's on this first bullet. Is that too 22 not lucid? Or --
23 MR. SCHRADER: I'm struggling a little bit 24 to understand your question. It -- the --
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59 (Simultaneous speaking) 1 MEMBER BROWN: Well, if you change the 2
plume exposure pathway criteria, would you --
3 MR. SCHRADER: Well, we didn't change it.
4 We added to it. We added definition to it. We added 5
detail to it so that -- so that an applicant and a 6
licensee would have more information to provide -- to 7
provide them greater detail as to what it is that they 8
need to include in their analysis.
9 So, that information that we were talking 10 about in the first bullet there, --
11 MEMBER BROWN: Um-hum.
12 MR. SCHRADER: Was -- the EPZ would be 13 determined as the area within which public dose is 14 expected to exceed the 10 millisieverts or 1 REM.
15 MEMBER BROWN: Um-hum.
16 MR. SCHRADER: Resulting from a spectrum 17 of credible accidents, the accident likelihood, a 18 source term, a timing the accident sequence, and 19 meteorology as is -- as the major considerations for 20 this consequence analysis in determining the EPZ size.
21 MEMBER BROWN: And that's different from 22 the existing approach in what way?
23 MR. SCHRADER: It's different in the 24 aspect that the proposed rule simply said the EPZ 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 would be the -- determined as the area within public 1
doses projected to exceed 10 millisieverts or 1 REM 2
over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br />.
3 MEMBER BROWN: And that's going to change?
4 MR. SCHRADER: Only in the aspect that we 5
added the major consideration and greater detail so 6
that the licensee or applicant would know what would 7
need to be included in that consequence analysis.
8 MR. COSTA: So Eric, let me -- let me add 9
to your comments. Maybe we're -- if we use words a 10 little differently, because we got comments and we 11 heard what was said.
12 And we went back and we looked at NUREG 13 0396. And our approach is not different then we did 14 for NUREG 0396.
15 And we looked at it carefully. And then 16 we noticed that attention was also given to how you 17 arrive at predetermined prompt protective actions.
18 So, we felt that it was important to 19 clarify that in the rule. So, but in a sense, our 20 approach is still the same.
21 We see the dose consequences there. And 22 we just needed to clarify that in order to give an 23 opportunity for the applicants and licensee to 24 understand how the rule is supposed to work.
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61 MR. SCHRADER: Maybe a better way to 1
phrase this would be we added clarity.
2 MR. COSTA: That's right.
3 MR. SCHRADER: Maybe our verbiage here was 4
not as clear as it could be.
5 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. All right, thank 6
you.
7 MR. SCHRADER: And then the third bullet, 8
we revised the 50.160(c)(1) and (2) to allow licensees 9
greater flexibility in how they schedule and perform 10 their initial evaluated exercise.
11 And we changed it from within 18 months to 12
-- or no later than 18 months before a fuel load, to 13 within two years before fuel load, or an operating 14 license.
15 And that also brought it into consistency 16 with Appendix E currently. Next slide, please.
17 Some other changes to the proposed rule.
18 We talked about the definition of small modular 19 reactors at the beginning of the presentation.
20 That's where we added per module. We 21 revised Section 72.32, part of the ISFSI requirements, 22 to allow a plan that meets the 50.160 EP requirements 23 to also satisfy the ISFSI requirements.
24 And then we revised 50.160 to state 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
62 reasonable assurance finding required in 50.1 --
1 50.47(a)(1) is also applicable to 50.160 applicants.
2 CHAIR HALNON: Eric, on the 50.47 Foxtrot 3
(f), --
4 MR. SCHRADER: Yes.
5 CHAIR HALNON: That exempted from some 6
very significant attributes that any plan, I thought, 7
should have. For example, 50.47(f) says that -- that 8
you don't need to, if the EPZ does not extend beyond 9
the site boundary, you don't have to meet 50.47 10 (bravo).
11 And 50.47(bravo) has things in it like, 12 you know, providing for unambiguous onsite licensing 13 responsibilities, communication with response 14 organizations, means for controlling exposure for 15 workers, and what not.
16 How are those attributes -- why are those 17 exempted if even though you have an EPZ within the 18 site boundary?
19 It sounds like you still should have 20 unambiguous onsite --
21 MR. SCHRADER: Oh, absolutely. But, the 22
-- the change that was made for paragraph (f) was only 23 applicable to those that are using 50.160.
24 So, if a licensee or applicant -- if an 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 applicant were to come in and use 50.47, then they 1
would need to continue to meet (a)(2) and (b)(2). Or 2
I'm sorry, (a)(2) and (b) and (c)(2).
3 But, for those that come in under 50.160 4
and don't have a plume exposure pathway that extends 5
beyond, there's -- that wouldn't be needed.
6 CHAIR HALNON: So, what you're saying is 7
that if my EPZ is within the site boundary, those 8
important attributes that are listed --
9 (Simultaneous speaking) 10 MR. SCHRADER: And you're under --
11 CHAIR HALNON: Are listed --
12 MR. SCHRADER: And you're under 50.160, 13 yes.
14 CHAIR HALNON: Okay.
15 MR. SCHRADER: Because there's -- all 16 those are covered under the response functions and 17 planning activities of 50.160.
18 MR. COSTA: This is Arlon again. And 19 also, we paid particular attention to the way that we 20 wrote the, in our -- in the FRN, in the statement of 21 consideration that we're looking at the standards, the 22 16 planning standards under (bravo).
23 So, that makes a big difference. And we 24 did not forget what you just said. We will -- we were 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 very careful walking that line.
1 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I need to go back 2
and read the rule language again then. When I read 3
it, at least the first time I went through, it looked 4
like if the EPZ was not beyond the site boundary, that 5
those items were not listed out specifically somewhere 6
relative to important aspects of the E Plan.
7 So, you're telling me that maybe I just 8
read it wrong. And the path is there to get those 9
items in there.
10 I understand it's 50.160, not Appendix E.
11 But, like I said, there are very important aspects of 12 the E Plan that are listed in that regulation.
13 MR. SCHRADER: And they're carried forward 14 in the 50.160 rule.
15 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Well, I'll go back 16 and read it and make sure I can see how that pathway 17 works then.
18 MR. SCHRADER: All right. Okay. Next 19 slide, please.
20 Some other changes that were made, we 21 revised 50.160(bravo)(1) Roman numeral (iii)(F)(1),
22 (3), and (4), which are under the radiological 23 assessment.
24 We revised the language describing 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 response organizations' reporting requirements. And 1
changed it from reporting to the response organization 2
to applicable response personnel.
3 Staff acknowledges that response 4
organization in the proposed rule should be clarified 5
and changed in the language so that the information is 6
reported to applicable response personnel.
7 ETEs, it was noticed that the proposed 8
rule said the ETEs to include -- basically it could 9
have been interpreted to be an ETE from only the site 10 boundary out to the edge of the EPZ boundary.
11 And ETEs need to be from the onsite as 12 well as offsite. So, it was -- that verbiage was 13 revised to say ETEs to include the area within the 14 site boundary. Next slide.
15 We clarified the inclusion of Tribal 16 governments. The staff clarified that the applicant 17 complying with 50.160 needs to submit an emergency 18 plan of participating Tribal governments.
19 A participating Tribal government means 20 it's a federally recognized Tribal government that has 21 decided to participate in FEMA's offsite Radiological 22 Emergency Preparedness Program. And act as an 23 independent entity with its own radiological emergency 24 plan.
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66 This was added to address public comments.
1 And to ensure that Tribal government inclusion in a 2
regulatory process as per our NRC Tribal policy. Next 3
slide.
4 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. At this point, I 5
think that we're going to move into a break. And then 6
we'll come back and start up with the regulatory 7
guidance.
8 Okay. So, I wanted to offer an open floor 9
to the members, if there were any lingering questions 10 about the rule language.
11 I think there will be some more discussion 12 rela -- similar to what we've had, and level of detail 13 when we get into the guidance portion of this, of 14 which, I think it will be a little bit more open.
15 But, is there any member that has any 16 lingering questions about the rule language before we 17 take a break?
18 (No response) 19 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I also wanted to 20 acknowledge that Vicki Bier, a member, was on the line 21 but unable to get on with Teams. But now she's on 22 Teams, so she's been with us the entire time as well.
23 At this time it's five after 11:00 Eastern 24 time. We'll take a 15 minute break until 20 minutes 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
67 after.
1 And we'll start back up with the draft 2
language in the Regulatory Guide. So, we'll be 3
adjourned -- or not adjourned, but in recess until 20 4
after 11:00 Eastern time.
5 (Whereupon the above-entitled matter went 6
off the record at 11:05 a.m. and resumed 7
at 11:20 a.m.)
8 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. It's 11:20. I'm 9
going to call the meeting back into order. Just make 10 sure, I see Jim Cordes, the court reporter, you're 11 here? Okay. I'll turn it back over to the NRC staff.
12 MR. MURRAY: Okay. Good morning, 13 everyone. My name is Charles Murray, and I'm an 14 emergency preparedness specialist in the Office of 15 Nuclear Security and Incident Response, and I'll be 16 covering the draft reg guide today.
17 Just a background note, DG-1350 that 18 accompanied the initial draft proposed rule is now Reg 19 Guide 1.242, same name, Performance-Based Emergency 20 Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors, Non-Light 21 Water
- Reactors, and Non-Power Production and 22 Utilization Facilities. That's just a note in case 23 someone is out there looking for DG-1350 and we keep 24 referring to 1.242.
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68 The purpose of this reg guide, it 1
identifies some methods and procedures that the NRC 2
considers acceptable for the use by applicants and 3
licensees for small modular reactors and the non-light 4
water reactors, NPUFs, to demonstrate compliance with 5
the performance-based emergency preparedness 6
requirements in Title 10 of Part 50, Domestic 7
Licensing of Power and Utilization Facilities and the 8
new rule, 10 CFR 51.60.
9 Next slide, please. Go over some of the 10 items here. Conforming changes. You heard Eric 11 mention some of those earlier, the changes that were 12 made to the rule. There were conforming changes made 13 to the reg guide based on the changes we made in the 14 rule. We've included some additional references in 15 the reg guide, one being, an example, Reg Guide 1.233, 16 which is Guidance for Technology-Inclusive Risk-17 Informed and Performance-Based Methodology to Inform 18 the Licensing Basis and Content of Applications for 19 Licenses, Certifications, and Approvals for Non-Light 20 Water Reactors. One of the other references we 21 updated was NUREG-654, Revision 2, which is the 22 Criteria for Preparation and Evaluation of 23 Radiological Emergency Response Plans and Preparedness 24 in Support of Nuclear Power Plants, and that latest 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 revision was issued in December of 2019.
1 The reg guide also was enhanced to inform 2
the EPZ size methodology, and we enhanced the guidance 3
on accident likelihood, source term, and the timing of 4
accident sequence and meteorology with the inclusions 5
in some of the revisions we did following public 6
comment period on Appendix A and B of the reg guide.
7 We added and revised some of the definitions in the 8
reg guide itself. One of the definitions that was 9
added based on some comments was safe condition, which 10 basically is the return of the facility to "safe 11 conditions," which includes termination of accident 12 progression and return of the facility to within 13 safety limits or tech specs. And that was, again, 14 based on public comments.
15 Next slide, please.
16 CHAIR HALNON: Does that safe condition 17 imply shutdown 18 MR. MURRAY: It could imply that. But, 19 basically, if it's covered for a reentry and that's 20 the path that is chosen for whatever event is going 21 on, it could be safe shutdown would be an option.
22 CHAIR HALNON: Yes, I recall a similar 23 discussion with the Part 53 folks several meetings 24 ago; maybe my fellow members can help me. But I think 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 we were concerned that, without the word shutdown in 1
it or subcritical or something to that effect, that it 2
could be deemed something other than shutdown. If no 3
one is chiming in, we can move on, but I thought that 4
that was a concern we had on another set of languages.
5 All right. Move on, go on.
6 MR. MURRAY: Hearing nothing. That is 7
something we can take under consideration, and we'd be 8
happy to do that.
9 Where were we? Next slide. Right, okay.
10 Appendix A. Appendix A is the general 11 methodology for establishing plume exposure pathway 12 Emergency Planning Zone size. Part of this reg guide 13 and this appendix describes one acceptable approach 14 for determining a plume exposure pathway Emergency 15 Planning Zone, and it's sized based on the area within 16 which public dose defined in Title 10 of the Code of 17 Federal Regulations is 1 rem, is projected to exceed 18 1 rem over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br /> from the release of radioactive 19 materials from the facility, considering accident 20 likelihood and source term timing of the accident 21 sequence and meteorology.
22 Appendix A was revised. We added two new 23 sections to it following the public comment period.
24 One was Section A-3.1, which is event selection which 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 discusses the applicant's consideration of accident 1
likelihood. And another one was at the end of the 2
Appendix A-3.8, which is considerations on whether 3
predetermined prompt protective measures are 4
necessary.
5 Any questions on that?
6 The applicant should, this is -- in 3.1, 7
we list out some of the things that the applicant 8
should consider for accident likelihood, and that's 9
taking into consideration both internal and external 10 initiating
- events, multi-module and multi-unit 11 accidents and interactions, and all sources of 12 radioactive material whose release may result in the 13 need to take prompt protective actions; the timing of 14 the radiological release to the environment, as 15 justified, may be used to determine whether an 16 accident scenario should be included in the 17 consequence assessment to determine the size of the 18 plume exposure pathway EPZ and we listed some examples 19 of those; and the consideration on whether 20 predetermined prompt protective measures are necessary 21 in addition to the consequence analysis to determine 22 EPZ size.
23 The analysis should also consider whether 24 the predetermined prompt protective measures are 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 necessary and the considerations there include the 1
timing from the initiation of the event to the start 2
of the radiological release to the environment for all 3
the accident scenarios that have been evaluated in the 4
radiological dose assessment to aid in the 5
determination of the plume exposure EPZ and the 6
capability to protect the public without needing to 7
develop prompt protective measures.
8 CHAIR HALNON: So, hey, Charles, there's 9
just a tremendous amount of material out there on 10 evacuation times and the most recent NUREG we 11 mentioned earlier and other items. Is there a list 12 for the applicants or is it included in the references 13 the more contemporary resources that you would expect 14 them to be using to determine whether or not prompt 15 actions are required? Because it's a little bit 16 ambiguous if you're not pulling in all the more 17 contemporary information. And since you're not really 18 listing it anywhere, what do you expect them to use?
19 For instance, this latest NUREG we talked about, 7283 20 or whatever I think that number was, is that expected 21 to be used to determine this prompt measure is needed?
22 MR. MURRAY: We do have a list of 23 references in the reg guide that run through a lot of 24 those. The latest one, though, that you just 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 mentioned I do not believe is in there, so we do have 1
about 24 different reference guide documents in the 2
reg guide that could be used for this.
3 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. And those are 4
contemporary studies and guidances? Because this has 5
evolved over the last 40 or 50 years obviously since 6
7 MR. MURRAY: Yes, yes, yes, yes, sir. And 8
like I said, one of the reasons we added 0654, it was 9
that that's the first revision to that document in, 10 like you said, about 40 years.
11 CHAIR HALNON: Okay, all right. Thanks.
12 MEMBER BROWN: Can I ask a question on 13 this?
14 MR. MURRAY: Yes.
15 MEMBER BROWN: It's Charlie Brown again.
16 I notice you go to Appendix B next. That's why I 17 wanted to ask now.
18 Section A-3.7 and 3.8, I guess, the 19 probabilistic ghost aggregation, is this consistent 20 with what has been done before? I couldn't gather 21 that from the first couple of sentences in this when 22 I read it. Or is this new?
23 MR. MURRAY: Yes -- no, that's not new.
24 That is consistent with what's been done before, 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
74 this document here is pretty much generalized 1
methodology using what was used in the NUREG-0396.
2 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. I saw that, I saw 3
that later in the write-up, but, all right, so we're 4
not deviating from anything we've done in the past in 5
terms of determining these particular, in the 6
aggregation of those in the pathway and the plume?
7 MR. MURRAY: That's correct.
8 MEMBER BROWN: Okay, all right. Thank 9
you.
10 MR. MURRAY: And like you just said, 11 Section 3.8 there, considerations on whether the 12 predetermined prompt measures are necessary, we did 13 add a new section for that. And, basically, one of 14 the, I think it was the last sentence in there, it 15 says that, in any case, where the application should 16 include an analysis with a
discussion and 17 justification for the determination that there is no 18 area where predetermined prompt protective measures 19 are necessary. So if the protective measures screen 20 out, then that needs to be justified also.
21 Next slide, please. Okay. Appendix B, I 22 think Eric mentioned this earlier --
23 MEMBER BROWN: I forgot -- I couldn't get 24 my screen changed. Sorry about that. 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
75 predetermined prompt, what you mean by that is a set 1
of planned procedures that are initiated immediately?
2 MR. MURRAY: Yes, within the, within --
3 MEMBER BROWN: As opposed to a more 4
progressive evaluated type circumstance; is that what 5
that means?
6 MR. MURRAY: Right, right. Those are 7
predetermined. They're there, they're part of the 8
plan. And those are initiated upon the need for them.
9 It's completely different than the ad hoc we were 10 talking about earlier.
11 MEMBER BROWN: Okay, all right. Thank 12 you.
13 CHAIR HALNON: Charles, this is Greg.
14 Isn't there always at least one predetermined prompt 15 measure that needs to be done, even if it's within the 16 EPZ, I mean within the site boundary, and that would 17 be to limit access or restrict access to the EPZ by 18 any members of the public or non-emergency responding 19 individuals?
20 MR. MURRAY: Yes, it would be. And 21 that's, like you said, inside the site boundary.
22 There is protective actions for those that are inside 23 the site boundary in case of an event that is always 24 there. That's part of the plan are those, I guess, 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 inside-the-fence protective measures.
1 CHAIR HALNON: So what guidance tells me 2
that that's always going to be at least the minimum 3
plan?
4 MR. MURRAY: That's actually in this reg 5
guide here. We have a section on protective measures 6
for any site boundary EPZ or even if you have a beyond 7
site boundary, you still have the immediate protective 8
actions for the folks inside the fence. And that's 9
listed in the section in this reg guide what those 10 are.
11 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I might have missed 12 that. I'll go back and look at it and read it again.
13 MR. MURRAY: Okay. And that's, you know, 14 when it's necessary to provide immediate dose savings 15 is what we're looking at for the planning zone size 16 predetermined protective measures.
17 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Well, that just 18 raised the other question. Is there going to be staff 19 review guidance that's even more detailed than this, 20 or is that going to be dealt over time as we get 21 applications?
22 MR. MURRAY: It will be built over time.
23 Initially, this is what we'll be using, this reg guide 24 here.
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77 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Yes, I figured that 1
every application will get better experience on it.
2 MR. MURRAY: That's a true statement.
3 Okay. Next slide, please. Now, into 4
Appendix B, like I started to say earlier, you heard 5
Eric mention this earlier. This was developed and 6
added to the reg guide in response to previous 7
discussions with ACRS and, basically, the staff 8
expanded the discussion on source terms by adding 9
Appendix B, which mentioned previously a little in 10 Appendix A. We developed a completely different 11 appendix all on its own here for source term 12 development. And it basically provides further 13 clarifying guidance on the development for that 14 information of source terms and probabilistic risk 15 assessment.
16 This appendix also provides guidance for 17 establishing the source terms that are acceptable to 18 the staff, and they're associated with the technology-19 inclusive risk-informed approach to support 20 radiological dose assessment, which is basically what 21 the rule is here. And such source terms like these 22 can be used in the radiological assessment supporting 23 determination of the size of the plume exposure 24 pathway EPZ size. And there we have five different 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 sections going through that process on how to come up 1
with a source term to be used in association with 2
Appendix A to come up with EPZ size.
3 And that's all I have to say there, and 4
I'll open it up to questions.
5 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Thanks, Charles. I 6
think that, at this point, I'm just going to ask the 7
members, you know, it's almost going to be clear your 8
board. What questions do you have? Go down what path 9
you want to lockdown. I've got a handful of things 10 that we might be able to talk about, but I wanted to 11 open it up.
12 Charlie, you said you had a few questions 13 you wanted to jump in there with.
14 MEMBER BROWN: Yes. If you want me to go 15 first, I will. I'm not so sure mine are always --
16 since I'm not an expert EPZs, you're much better than 17 I am.
18 Let me just hit just a clarification. I 19 take it from all of this, what I've read in the rule 20 changes and all that stuff there are no changes to any 21 of the radiological limits that have been in place for 22 decades, is that correct, in terms of exposures or --
23 MR. MURRAY: That's correct.
24 MEMBER BROWN: Okay, all right. That's an 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 easy answer. Another one maybe not so easy but we 1
talk about we're changing the thing from whatever the 2
traditional approach to emergency planning was, 3
whatever that was before, to now this new performance-4 based approach which is one of the famous words that's 5
used all the time now. Was there a comparison made of 6
an existing emergency planning program, whatever that 7
consists of, with one of today's plants and how it 8
would have been initiated or developed under this new 9
performance-based approach? In other words, what 10 changes or did anything change?
11 MR. COSTA: This is Arlon Costa. Yes, 12 performance-based is not new to us. It's not new to 13 the NRC. We use it with a lot of other rules. And 14 even for our prescriptive way that we do emergency 15 preparedness right now, there is a little bit of 16 performance in it. I'm pretty sure you're familiar 17 with the ROP.
18 So we looked at all these options. We had 19 a public meeting about it. We talked with the public.
20 We reported back to the Commission, and we felt that 21 this was the appropriate way to move forward with a 22 performance-based approach to provide the applicants 23 more flexibility as they look into their plans and 24 they propose their plan to us on how they're going 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
80 meet the requirements for this rule.
1 So to answer your question clearly, yes, 2
we looked at everything we could as far as 3
performance-based is concern and all the literature 4
that we have out there available for the applicants 5
and licensee, and we feel that it's comfortable for 6
them to come up with their program.
7 MEMBER BROWN: Let me amplify that a 8
little bit then. To me, a performance-based approach 9
has to have -- I know the word is used everywhere 10 today and it has been for several years, okay, so I'm 11 not contesting that. But I like to see some objective 12 change in what it does, and I would think one of the 13 objectives is to reduce the burden on the licensees 14 and still achieve the same end result, as well as 15 reduce the burden on the NRC while still achieving the 16 same result. And the only thing I heard in the 17 earlier discussions was the cost reduction that NRC, 18 of any substantive part, that you all recognize and 19 identified in one of your slides. But I didn't hear 20 anything relative to does this provide better, an 21 easier path or reduce effort on the part of the 22 licensees in terms of how they maintain everything.
23 MR. SCHRADER: Well, we provided the 24 framework for the licensees, but one very important 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 consideration, Charlie, is that this is a technology-1 inclusive rule, which means that if you're talking, 2
for example, to a microreactor, if you're talking with 3
one of the newer smaller reactors, some of them are 4
using TRISO fuel, some are using metallic fuel. And 5
the way that these different technologies work 6
provides for us to give them this opportunity to use 7
a performance-based approach. And what is important 8
is when they present their plan to us, when we look at 9
their plans, then that's where it's also their 10 responsibility to see and provide us the adequate 11 information for it to function properly as a 12 performance-based approach as they give us the correct 13 landmarks which we're going to be able to inspect 14 over.
15 So we've got to work together. We have to 16 review it, and we have to approve their approach and 17 their plans for the performance-based approach. In 18 that, we give them guidance and we also provide the 19 correct words, I mean the adequate words in the rule, 20 and it should be, we feel that it's enough.
21 MEMBER BROWN: Well, I'm struggling a 22 little bit as to why -- excuse me, please -- a small 23 modular reactor, if they have to meet the same 24 radiological consequence results that a large light 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 water reactor has, they still got to meet all those 1
requirements. I mean, they can't irradiate people any 2
more just because they're an SMR relative to a light 3
water reactor.
4 MR. SCHRADER: That would be a true 5
statement and --
6 MEMBER BROWN: I'm having a hard time 7
understanding this.
8 MEMBER PETTI: So, Charlie, let me just 9
see if I can help you out. I always view this as the 10 rules are all the same, so the what has to be met is 11 the same. It's the how it can be met is different 12 because it's technology neutral, it allows flexibility 13 on the part of the applicants, given the technologies 14 that they want to deploy that gives them an option 15 that wasn't there before. Is that fair, staff?
16 MEMBER BROWN: Let me make sure, see if I 17 understand. Because I've got a TRISO fuel, I don't 18 have to worry as much about fuel cladding rupture and 19 the dispersal of radioactive material from that fuel 20 that I do from a rotted reactor; is that what you're 21 trying to tell me?
22 MEMBER PETTI: Right. That the source 23 terms from the different fuels are different.
24 MEMBER BROWN: It's all uranium.
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83 MEMBER PETTI:
- But, Charlie, the 1
chemistries are different, the physical forms are 2
different, the reactors themselves and the ability to 3
move heat are different. So when you put that whole 4
picture together, you get a different result.
5 MEMBER BIER: If I can chime in, this is 6
Vicki, and I think this is kind of expanding on 7
Charlie's question. It sounds to me like for the 8
current generation of reactors there would actually be 9
no cost savings or reduction in EPZ from using a 10 performance-based method based on the source terms, et 11 cetera, and that the only benefit would be seen with 12 alternative technologies; is that correct?
13 MR. SCHRADER: At this time, the current 14 fleet, this rule would not be applicable to them.
15 That is a true statement. Only to small modular 16 reactors and the other new technologies moving forward 17 from here would be available to take advantage of this 18 rule.
19 Now, as far as what is a benefit, when you 20 look at the graded approach that we use for EP, we 21 have those emergency preparedness functions and those 22 are applicable to each licensee, every licensee, 23 regardless of their size of EPZ. And as you look at 24 those, they cover all the risk-significant aspects 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
84 EP as they're currently in regulation. And then you 1
look at the off-site planning activities, and, if you 2
have an EPZ that's smaller, then you don't have as 3
- many, well, you wouldn't have any off-site 4
requirements. So there's an ease there, a less of a 5
regulatory burden at that point.
6 MEMBER REMPE: But that does require 7
having a lot of experience or data to support these 8
analyses --
9 MR. SCHRADER: Absolutely.
10 MEMBER REMPE: -- because, when you don't 11 have much operating experience, you could get 12 surprised and, as a guy from Fukushima, a former 13 manager, pointed out, if you don't plan for the 14 unexpected, it's hard to implement a plan in the 15 middle of an accident.
16 MR. SCHRADER: This rule, it's not a 17 priority that anybody that comes in and wants to use 18 this rule will end up with a site boundary or smaller 19 EPZ. That's not a given. They'll have to come in and 20 provide the information and convince us that that EPZ 21 size is adequate, and 50.43 echo talks to a number of 22 additional aspects for first of a kind or novel 23 reactors that would still have to be met. These are, 24 I mean, those types of questions are outside the scope 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 of this rule. However, they're still going to be, 1
it's not just I want to use 51.60 and, therefore, I 2
get a smaller EPZ.
3 MEMBER BROWN: Thank you. I'm still, you 4
know, I'm not trying to question the fact that the 5
different reactor types of the SMRs that are being 6
proposed, as Dave brought up, may have a slightly 7
different source term or whatever. But we've still 8
got a combination of fissionable material that has the 9
potential for being expelled in some way, shape, or 10 form from a plant, depending on unexpected situations 11 which we try to cover in the light water world, maybe 12 successfully, maybe not in some cases.
13 And so making it sound like it's suitably 14 safe, particularly when you combine them with 15 alternative cooling methods of molten salts or lead 16 bismuth or whatever it is, which are highly toxic 17 materials that could get expelled along with it.
18 Right now, in the light waters, you've got stainless 19 steel or steel or carbon steel or what have you plus 20 water, and then you've got the fissionable material.
21 We've added other toxic materials to the mix.
22 So I just think there's other things at 23 play, other than just source term potentially, in 24 looked at this that may not be being thought about 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 relative to the small modular reactors or the 1
microreactors. I understand the need to try to 2
simplify this stuff. I'm just -- I don't want to use 3
the word skeptical -- nervous that we're not 4
considering all the possibilities. I'm worried about 5
the unexpected things, as Joy brought up. I mean, who 6
knew that burying the diesels and the fuel oil systems 7
at Fukushima would create such a problem? Nobody 8
thought of it.
9 MR. MURRAY: Yes. And this particular 10 rule, it's not going to be used in isolation from the 11 other requirements that we have out there for 12 licensing. So it's not intended for that. Our 13 licensing folks and siting and all those guys would 14 be, you know, like I said, it wouldn't be just used in 15 isolation. It would be in combination with the 16 requirements for a license.
17 MEMBER BROWN: Yes, I just, you know, the 18 thing, I look at licensees and what they need to 19 provide. I like to simplify it for them. After 20 developing in my own experience in past nuclear 21 circumstances, you like to be able to handle --
22 different designs or different approaches don't always 23 have to be done the same way and have different 24 considerations. I just would like to focus on 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
87 licensees, as opposed to the cost to the NRC. NRC 1
ought to do what they need to do to make sure it's 2
safe, and if it costs more for a small modular reactor 3
but they have other benefits then so be it. I just 4
like to focus on the reactor itself and the licensees, 5
what they need to do to ensure that they're adequately 6
taken care of and protected and the population.
7 MR. SCHRADER: Just as a point of 8
reference for what you just talked about, if you look 9
at the response features, the response functions, 10 number four, releases, assess, monitor, and report the 11 applicable response personnel the extent and magnitude 12 of all radiological releases, including releases of 13 hazardous chemicals produced from licensed material.
14 MEMBER BROWN: I saw that.
15 MR. SCHRADER: So there's one point that 16 speaks specifically to whatever it is that you have in 17 your technology that can turn out some methyl-ethyl 18 death cloud. You need to understand it and you need 19 to tell us about it and you need to tell us how you're 20 going to deal with it.
21 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. All right. Well, 22 thank you for taking the time to let me -- to inform 23 me a little bit better. I think I had -- we talked 24 about objectives in the Reg Guide, performance 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 objectives and performance objective metrics, but I 1
didn't really see any objectives explicitly defined.
2 Was that the purpose of Table 1, just to handle those 3
particular circumstances?
4 MR. MURRAY: Table 1 is for an EAL 5
description.
6 MEMBER BROWN: Yes.
7 MR. MURRAY: Basically as we spoke about 8
earlier the performance objectives, that hasn't been 9
developed yet. We do go through in Section (b) --
10 (c)(vi)(B), the performance objectives there. We give 11 some examples and guidance on what they should be, how 12 they should be calculated, and a frequency based on 13 that, but we don't have anything defined yet that has 14 not been developed yet.
15 MEMBER BROWN: When you say (c)(vi)(B),
16 you mean Section?
17 MR. MURRAY: Yes. Yes, sir. I would --
18 I think it starts on page 9 or 10.
19 MEMBER BROWN: Oh, of the Reg Guide?
20 MR. MURRAY: Of the Reg Guide, yes.
21 MEMBER BROWN: Oh, that -- yes, that's 22 right above the EALs page.
23 MR. MURRAY: Right, that's what that table 24
-- that's an EAL --
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89 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. Yes, I looked at 1
that. I didn't see any -- so you're telling me 2
specific objectives -- it talks about you have to 3
develop them?
4 MR. MURRAY: That's correct. Yes, that 5
table is just at the end of that section there. It's 6
not for the performance objectives section.
7 MEMBER BROWN: Is the -- from the 8
performance -- is that the licensee is supposed to 9
develop those or is NRC going to develop a set of 10 objectives, or at least an all-encompassing or some 11 type of encompassing set of objectives for the 12 licensee to deal with as opposed to having a variable 13 set of objectives?
14 MR. MURRAY: Yes, that's --
15 MR. SCHRADER: At this point it would be 16 up to the applicant or licensee to determine which 17 objectives they need to adequately demonstrate their 18 compliance with the emergency response functions, 19 but --
20 MEMBER BROWN: So they do the actual 21 objectives themselves then?
22 MR. SCHRADER: Yes.
23 MEMBER BROWN: As well -- how about the 24 metrics? You all had an equation in there 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
90 metrics. Do they have the ability to develop a 1
difference performance metric as well?
2 MR. SCHRADER: Oh, certainly. They always 3
have the ability to come up with something different, 4
but those are the -- that's the information that we're 5
putting out there as what we would accept right now.
6 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. So there's not a 7
fixed set of objectives is what you're fundamentally 8
telling me?
9 MR. SCHRADER: That is exactly what we're 10 telling you.
11 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. That's clear.
12 CHAIR HALNON: Charlie, this was my 13 earlier question relative to it. There seemed like 14 there should be an underlying foundational set that --
15 MEMBER BROWN: Exactly.
16 CHAIR HALNON: So, and I think the answer 17 to the question early on was that there's going to be 18 more to come on that, and I think that we'd be 19 interested in seeing that.
20 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. That was it for me.
21 I gathered those as we were going through and as I was 22 thumbing the Reg Guide, so --
23 MR. MURRAY: Okay.
24 MEMBER BROWN: And we haven't gotten 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
91 regulatory analysis yet. Is that correct?
1 CHAIR HALNON: Yes, it's out there.
2 MEMBER BROWN: Oh, I didn't see it in the 3
SharePoint site for the meeting, so --
4 MR. COSTA: This is Arlen Costa. Yes, you 5
do have the -- from the proposed rule the reg 6
analysis, but we did not provide the current one 7
that's being revised as a final. We only provided 8
some information for you in the statement of 9
considerations or the FRN, and the final one will be 10 with the package to the Commission.
11 MEMBER BROWN: Which actually has the rule 12 changes also?
13 MR. COSTA: Correct.
14 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. All right. I missed 15 a bit then. But the Reg Guide was fine. I got enough 16 of the flavor here about what we were doing. Thank 17 you.
18 CHAIR HALNON: Thank you, Charlie.
19 Vicki, your hand is still up. Is it up 20 from before or do you have more questions?
21 MEMBER BIER: Sorry, it's up from before.
22 I'll take it down.
23 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Any other members 24 have questions?
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92 (No audible response.)
1 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I wanted just to 2
return to two things: One is the emergency planning 3
zones and the requirements for engagement of off-site 4
agencies if the EPZ is less than the site boundary.
5 In the Reg Guide there's several places 6
where for instance ingestion planning which the 7
licensee still has to demonstrate. And this is -- I'm 8
not suer what that means. That's one of my questions 9
is -- it's in I think it's 3a, (C)3a. For ingestion 10 response planning the licensee or applicant should 11 demonstrate that the federal/state/local licensee 12 capabilities exist. And I'm assuming that's with or 13 without an EPZ less than the site boundary. Is that 14 correct?
15 MR. COSTA: No. This is Arlen Costa 16 again. Recall that we -- in Eric's earlier 17 presentation that the emergency plan has to provide 18 those capabilities. So we're not focusing on going 19 back and check on them and verifying that they 20 demonstrate or do things like that. But the 21 applicants and licensees would have that in their 22 emergency plans and then we'll see that the capability 23 is there to support the immediate and long-term 24 monitoring, analysis, interdiction, so forth.
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93 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Because it says in 1
3 above that -- it says even if the exposure pathway 2
is less than the site boundary you must reference the 3
capabilities. And then it goes on to say that -- so 4
the capabilities that you have to be able to talk 5
through is the demonstration that federal, state, and 6
local capabilities exist.
7 MR. SCHRADER: Yes, I think that should be 8
describe, not demonstrate.
9 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. So that word --
10 MR. SCHRADER: I think that was -- I think 11 that needs -- that's something that we could --
12 MR. MURRAY: No, it's -- we got the -- in 13 3 on that section the capabilities are described in 14 the emergency plan, right? Is that --
15 MR. SCHRADER: But in 3a we say should 16 demonstrate and it should be should describe.
17 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Well, that was one 18 of my questions.
19 MR. MURRAY: Yes. I see what you're 20 talking about, yes. And that was basically --
21 CHAIR HALNON: Okay.
22 MR. MURRAY: -- describe should be there.
23 That's correct.
24 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. You can guys can 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 correct that then.
1 And then you're telling me that FEMA has 2
no buy-off or review of those capabilities even though 3
they may be asked to jump in there and do something?
4 MR. MURRAY: If there is no off-site EPZ, 5
that is correct.
6 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. What about public 7
information for off-site if the EPZ is within the site 8
boundary?
9 MR. SCHRADER: The public off-site 10 information would be that during an emergency there 11 wouldn't be a requirement or any type of continuing 12 public information since there wouldn't be the 13 expectation of the -- a need for the prompt protective 14 measures.
15 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I feel uneasy about 16 that. The reason being is that regardless of if any 17 information is required to go out, if I have something 18 in my backyard that's melting down -- I mean I know 19 that's extreme, and pardon me for using that term, but 20 I think I'd want to know about. And I think I'd want 21 to know that if I saw on the news that there's a 22 problem in a reactor and it's less than mile from my 23 house that -- if this is the first I'm hearing that I 24 don't have to worry about it, that's a little bit 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
95 uneasy in my mind.
1 And I go back to there are communities 2
that are used to having nuclear plants around and 3
their level of information and understanding and maybe 4
comfort is different than a reactor or a facility that 5
may be dropped in the middle of town and there's a 6
sign on the front, says don't worry about it; we got 7
it.
8 MR. MURRAY: We do discuss that the 9
emergency plan described the capabilities and the 10 processes to coordinate the licensee's media 11 information during an emergency and support the public 12 information functions of the -- your federal, state 13 and local authorities. We do have that in the -- as 14 a part of the on-site planning activities.
15 MR. COSTA: This is Arlen again. And, 16 Greg, also to clarify, as Eric was going over the 17 graph with you, if you go back and take a closer look 18 to some of the things that apply to both that's beyond 19 the site boundary and site boundary, you're going to 20 see that part of the emergency -- part of these 21 functions, some of them, even if you only have a site 22 boundary EPZ, you're still required to maintain that 23 communication.
24 So the difference is really whether you're 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
96 talking to the off-site for you to recommend 1
protective actions or things like that or the 2
licensee's responsibility to take actions within their 3
purview because the NRC holds them responsible for 4
whatever happens at the site boundary.
5 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I see that and I 6
agree with that. The problem I have, I guess I'm 7
uneasy about is that taking no action in response to 8
a nuclear accident or something going on nearby is 9
much different -- I mean, it's not a whole lot 10 different than having to take action.
11 I would just go back to the -- to surprise 12 of what some people had with the Three Mile Island 13 accident. I was talking to a person who said he'd 14 never seen his dad so scared sitting in the basement 15 of their house not knowing if they should go to West 16 Virginia or stay in place because they just didn't 17 know. And I didn't want to get into a situation where 18 people were in a position of just not knowing or not 19 having confidence that what they're doing, or not 20 doing is the right thing to do.
21 So that level of information given to the 22 local off-site health departments or whoever else is 23 going to be in jurisdiction for the nuclear 24 information aspect is still important, and I think 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 that we shouldn't put the onus on the licensees to 1
continue to talk to the public nearby so that they 2
know and have confidence that one, it's a safe place 3
to be even if something went wrong.
4 MR. COSTA: Right. Yes, so let me just 5
emphasize what the rule itself says. In C, 6
Communication, it says that will establish and 7
maintain effective communication with emergency 8
response organizations and make notifications to 9
response personnel and organizations who may have 10 responsibility for responding to emergencies.
11 So we don't abandon anybody. We just 12 maintain that communication as necessary either for a 13 site boundary EPZ or for the -- beyond the site 14 boundary EPZ.
15 CHAIR HALNON: Yes. And, Vicki, I'll get 16 to you in just a second. Let me continue on just real 17 quick.
18 But that off-site response organization is 19 not even engaged and/or required if the site EPZ is --
20 or the site boundary is the EPZ. So how do you keep 21 that engaged if it's not even required to be there, 22 and then beyond that FEMA is not involved to ensure 23 that the capabilities of that organization is even 24 capable of doing what needs to be done?
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98 MR. SCHRADER: Well, it sounds as though 1
you're expecting EP to go away off site. That is not 2
the case. Even if there's -- if there's a site 3
boundary EPZ or not a site boundary EPZ, FEMA has a 4
process in their comprehensive all-hazards planning 5
guidance. They call it a THIRA process. That's a 6
threat assessment for the areas that whatever 7
emergency management agency is dealing with and it's 8
a prioritization process that takes all of the 9
potential hazards in your area and basically shows you 10 how to rank them and how to prioritize them.
11 So if you're in a area that has a small 12 modular reactor in there, then it isn't incumbent upon 13 you as an emergency management agency or director to 14 perform that THIRA process and determine exactly what 15 type of a threat this small modular reactor is and 16 where it ranks with the other potential threats in 17 that area. And if it is a high enough threat, if it 18 is a high enough priority, then they'll make the --
19 then they need to make arrangements to talk to, to 20 work with, to coordinate with that site and come to 21 some sort of an agreement as to what they'll do or how 22 they'll do it.
23 CHAIR HALNON: So what process kicks that 24 off during the license application process for a small 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 modular reactor?
1 MR. SCHRADER: This is a process that each 2
off-site organization goes through every day, whether 3
there's a nuclear power plant there or not. It's not 4
dependent on whether there's a nuclear power plant 5
there.
6 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. So you're saying 7
that that's an ongoing process and somebody --
8 MR. SCHRADER: It's a continually ongoing 9
process for every city that has an emergency 10 management or an emergency preparedness and public 11 safety organization.
12 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Regardless of if 13 it's nuclear or not, is what you're saying? Okay.
14 MR. SCHRADER: Absolutely.
15 CHAIR HALNON: Vicki, did you want to jump 16 in?
17 MEMBER BIER: Yes, I just wanted to kind 18 of follow up on some of the points that you were 19 making that -- the comment that there is a requirement 20 for community notification or whatever, emergency 21 notification after an accident. After an accident is 22 definitely not the right time to begin communicating 23 if you don't already have a chain of communication in 24 place and a relationship with the community or 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
100 relevant agencies, et cetera.
1 On the other hand, Greg, from your point 2
about gee, do you want to find out about this thing in 3
your neighborhood only after it's melted, there's a 4
question if there is no safety action (audio 5
interference) beyond this at site boundary. Is that 6
a safety issue that ACRS and NRC need to be concerned 7
about or is that just the utility or other company 8
making a poor decision regarding their own PR? So I 9
don't know how involved we want to be, but certainly 10 it would not be best practice to wait until after the 11 accident to say something.
12 CHAIR HALNON: Yes, I agree.
13 MR. SCHRADER: This would truly be no 14 different than any other large industrial complex, 15 whether it's a chemical plant or any other type of 16 process that could be hazardous to the environment or 17 around it. And any type of protective measure that's 18 taken can still be taken. Part of the process of 19 defining a site boundary EPZ goes to the amount of 20 time that the off-site has to initiate a protective 21 action.
22 The current paradigm, if you will, deals 23 with that idea that there's a potential that within 30 24 minutes or less you could have a significant release 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
101 off site, which leads to the prompt protective 1
measures concern. If you have a site and your 2
technology, as -- some of the new designers and that 3
would make the assertion that they have 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> 4
before there's any type of significant damage. That's 5
plenty of time for an off-site emergency response 6
organization to do whatever it is that they need to 7
do, whether that's shelter in place, whether that's 8
evacuate.
9 The type of protective measures that are 10 taken for a nuclear power plant are no different than 11 they would be for say a wildfire or a flood or a 12 hurricane and the timing of how much forewarning that 13 you have. The off-site EP is not going away. It 14 might look a little different, but it's still going to 15 be there.
16 CHAIR HALNON: Yes, I don't think there's 17 any argument with that. I think part of the 18 uneasiness I have is that when I go into the 19 communities of the large light-water reactors, the 20 local emergency management is based -- at least 21 foundationally based on the need to understand and 22 respond to nuclear issues. And then all the other 23 stuff like the tornado sirens, or they jump in and use 24 the nuclear sirens and other things where you 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 communicate to the people, the public is the same and 1
whatnot.
2 So if you don't have that nuclear (audio 3
interference) focus on your emergency management, it's 4
different and it may not be as comprehensive or it may 5
not be the same as what -- robustness that we are used 6
to.
7 But on the other hand you lay that against 8
the potential lower risk and increased safety of the 9
new technologies and -- it's a paradigm shift you have 10 to make in your head. And I think that paradigm shift 11 will come with time, but that's part of the --
12 probably the head winds you see with this rule in the 13 first place.
14 MR. COSTA: Greg, this is Arlen Costa 15 again. I think it's important to also notice that the 16 other criterion that we have as we determine the size 17 of the EPZ that it is important for the public to know 18 how significant this is that for a site boundary EPZ 19 you're talking about levels of radiation that are 1 20 rem over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br />. You're talking about if you have 21 a public -- an individual sitting at the site boundary 22 of the -- which is owned by the licensee or the 23 operator -- you're talking about 10 millirems of 24 radiation per hour. So it's very small.
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103 Now I grant you as my move in towards the 1
site, which is still a responsibility of the licensee, 2
the radiation levels may increase, but as far as the 3
boundary itself those numbers are very comforting to 4
know that we as the NRC will not provide or accept a 5
site boundary EPZ that does not meet those two 6
criteria that we're talking about, namely the 1 rem 7
over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br />, and like Eric explained, if you cannot 8
meet the predetermined prompt protective measures, 9
which is really associated with timing. So that 10 should give some sense of safety as we're trying to --
11 as we will ensure the safety of the public.
12 CHAIR HALNON: Yes, and I completely agree 13 with that. And I think that it's very clear that the 14 physical science will dictate the level of safety, but 15 the public confidence in that, to tell them that 16 you're -- oh, don't worry, you're only going to get 10 17 millirem and if you're not here for 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br /> you're 18 not even going to get a rem, they're not thinking the 19 same. And it's going to be different for different 20 communities.
21 Like I said, the folks in the light-water 22 reactor, large light-water reactor areas right now 23 will be much more comfortable with that because 24 they've seen and they've socialized dose rates 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
104 little bit more often than folks who might just be 1
seeing this nuclear reactor for the first time.
2 So you know I'd term the science -- the 3
social science versus the physical science is 4
important.
And I
think that the off-site 5
communication and off-site education needs to continue 6
to be a -- I guess depth and breadth so that the 7
people will be comfortable with what you just said 8
from the science perspective.
9 So no argument other than the fact that 10 think it's important that licensees consider how much 11 and how far they have to communicate and how often 12 they have to communicate even if the site boundary is 13 their EPZ or less.
14 MR. SCHRADER: Taking your comment about 15 the science of it a step further, what we're talking 16 about here is no different than the science that we 17 apply to research and test reactors in fuel cycle 18 facilities. They're not required to have off-site 19 plans. They're not required to have an ongoing public 20 information process. And we're talking about the same 21 type of risk here, so the science is the same. And 22 we're talking about a risk that is similar.
23 So we're just -- and since we're not 24 talking about a facility of the magnitude of something 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 like the current light-water fleet, the science shows 1
that we can use these same types of processes that are 2
currently in use now.
3 MEMBER REMPE: Except we have been using 4
fuel cycle facilities for a while and the test 5
reactors for a while, right?
6 MR. SCHRADER: Absolutely, but what we're 7
trying to get to here is that the amount of risk posed 8
by these small modular reactors or other new 9
technologies is equivalent to that risk that's posed 10 by a research and test reactor or a fuel cycle 11 facility. So why should there be a different set of 12 requirements or a more burdensome set of requirements 13 for a facility that has the same amount of risk?
14 MEMBER REMPE: As long as you have 15 adequate uncertainty bans on some of the information 16 for which we have little data.
17 MR. COSTA: Yes, and I also would like to 18 add a couple of words here to agree with Eric, 19 actually to all of you, because the social part of it 20 is challenging, but we did not forget to look at 21 several areas. For example, when you look at the 22 medical field, the kinds of radiations that regulation 23 allows can be close to the one rem number, dental X-24 rays, or things like this, but some of them are --
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106 ISFSIs for example. We looked at those numbers and 1
the one rem number falls pretty much within these 2
levels of radiation that we're talking about, that 3
we're actually used to.
4 But I agree with Greg, the public may not 5
see that, but unfortunately that part of the education 6
to the public becomes a little challenging for the NRC 7
because our function is mainly to ensure their 8
protection. And I understand what you're saying, but 9
I want everyone to understand that we did look at all 10 this, where we stayed close to that 1 rem level, 11 including the protective action guides provided by the 12 EPA. So we're pretty much within those bounds.
13 CHAIR HALNON: Yes, I agree, but I think 14 adequate public confidence is also part of that 15 equation. I'm not sure exactly if it's before or 16 after, but in the end you can protect the public, but 17 if they don't feel protected, then we've still got 18 some room to educate and communicate.
19 Anybody else on the ACRS that has a 20 question or comment? If not, then we'll move into our 21 other presenters.
22 (No audible response.)
23 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. I want to thank the 24 staff very much. Comprehensive and well done. I 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 appreciate you hitting those high points. And at this 1
point we'll call -- I think I saw Marc Nichol from NEI 2
jump in there.
3 Marc, you have the floor for your talking 4
points.
5 MR. NICHOL: Great. Thanks, Greg. Can 6
you hear me?
7 CHAIR HALNON: Yes.
8 MR. NICHOL: All right. Great. So just 9
wanted to provide a few comments on behalf of the 10 Nuclear Energy Institute and the industry. My name is 11 Marc Nichol. I'm Senior Director for New Reactors.
12 We strongly support the issuance of the 13 draft final rule. We've been engaging with the staff 14 on performance-based emergency planning for advanced 15 reactors since the issue was first identified back in 16 2010.
17 The Commission Advanced Reactor Policy 18 Statement has encouraged the industry to develop 19 designs with enhanced safety features and we've 20 responded with designs that have these innovative 21 safety features such as smaller cores and source 22 terms, reliance on passive and inherent safety 23 features which reduce potential for accidents, lower 24 the risks to the public, and they result in longer 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 times for mitigation responses. All of these provide 1
a rationale for the EP changes proposed by the NRC 2
staff.
3 The NRC's rule recognizes the enhanced 4
safety of advanced reactor designs, establishes EP 5
requirements that are commensurate with potential 6
consequences to the public from a potential accident.
7 The rule uses essentially the same EP technical basis 8
as the underlying requirements for currently operating 9
reactors and therefore will maintain the same level of 10 public protection. We think that that's the critical 11 thing that where -- somebody had said it earlier, the 12 rule is defining the what. What is acceptable to 13 public protection? That's what we're maintaining.
14 What we're talking about is doing it differently based 15 on the differences in these new technologies and not 16 trying to force fit an approach for large light-water 17 reactors that doesn't work well for these advanced 18 reactors.
19 So there will be no reduction in defense-20 in-depth. Rather, the emergency planning activities 21 are appropriately scaled to reflect the potential 22 hazards posed by a facility. Many of these advanced 23 reactors will have -- will be -- are expected to be 24 able to demonstrate that they would meet the radiation 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 dose protection level at the site boundary or at least 1
certainly much less than 10 miles. In many cases 2
these advanced reactors may pose significantly lower 3
hazards to the public than non-nuclear facilities such 4
as petrochemical facilities and those things which 5
operate under all-hazards plans from FEMA similar to 6
what is being proposed here.
7 The rule provides clear and reasonable 8
regulatory requirements for designers, applicants, and 9
licensees. That's important and we think the staff 10 has done an excellent job in providing that clarity.
11 We support the performance-based approach 12 used in the rule because it does allow for innovation 13 and flexibility in addressing the EP requirements, 14 making sure that we all meet the what and we all have 15 the flexibility to meet the how based on the design.
16 It aligns -- this rule aligns with a paper 17 that we had put forward on a methodology for 18 systematically evaluating the technical aspects, 19 safety aspects of the design and establishing a 20 consequence-based EPZ site. That was a 2014 paper 21 that we put out. And it also aligns with the NRC's 22 prior approval of an emergency planning for the TVA 23 Clinch River ESP. So this has been previously 24 approved by the Commission, the method -- I'd say 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
110 technical basis in a real application.
1 So the codification of the new 2
requirements will provide regulatory stability, 3
predictability, and clarity in the licensing process 4
and eliminate the need for continuous exemption 5
requests, and this makes efficient use of NRC and 6
applicant resources.
7 The rule provisions are consistent with 8
the Commission's policy statement on advanced reactors 9
and past staff requirements memorandums, and so we 10 think there's a lot of good basis there.
11 And then finally it will facilitate the 12 deployment of a new generation of U.S. design reactors 13 while producing carbon-free power, which our country 14 needs in this day and age, as well as contributing to 15 the economy, national security, and global efforts as 16 well.
17 I did also want to add that -- I know --
18 I think it was Greg -- you brought up the public 19 confidence, and I think it was maybe Eric from the NRC 20 staff mentioned that they're focused on the technical 21 safety. And I think that's appropriate, where they 22 need to be focused. And that's not to say that public 23 confidence is not important. We believe that's 24 important as well, but it's really a question of whose 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 role is it earn that public confidence?
1 If the NRC is establishing those technical 2
scientifically-based limits, and I'll just say 3
procedures for demonstrating adequate public health 4
and safety according -- and they're doing everything 5
they need to do and within the Atomic Energy Act --
6 well, it's the owner and operator's responsibility to 7
earn that public confidence that the plant they're 8
putting down that meets the NRC requirements is going 9
to be operated in a way that's protecting them.
10 And so they do that in fact. As the 11 utilities go out to site a plant they'll engage with 12 the local population, they'll explain how the 13 technology works, they'll explain how emergency 14 planning works and how it's going to work here, and 15 they'll earn that public confidence. And if they 16 don't earn the public confidence, then they won't be 17 able to build the plant.
18 And within that there's also a role for 19 the state-level emergency planning -- or emergency 20 management organizations. And even in the case of TVA 21 there's a discussion there where local emergency 22 response -- they may work with them to go above and 23 beyond what the NRC requires in order to earn that 24 public confidence. So I do believe it's addressed.
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112 I don't believe that it's the NRC's role to try to do 1
that social science bit.
2 With that I'd be happy to answer any 3
questions if you have any.
4 CHAIR HALNON: So, Marc, just on that lat 5
point, I guess I'll twist the question a little bit.
6 Do you think it's the licensee's responsibility to 7
give public confidence in the NRC's ability to do 8
oversight?
9 MR. NICHOL: So --
10 CHAIR HALNON: That's a loaded question, 11 by the way.
12 MR. NICHOL: Yes, obviously confidence in 13 the NRC's ability to oversight -- do oversight comes 14 generally with the public's confidence in the NRC.
15 And I mean obviously that comes with a reputation.
16 The NRC has to earn the reputation that they're a 17 credible regulator. I personally believe that the NRC 18 has that reputation of being a strong independent 19 regulator. If there are public concerns that they're 20 not, yes, I think it's an all-of-the-above effort to 21 explain that. The NRC has to explain how they 22 regulate including oversight in an independent and 23 rigorous manner. And the licensee needs to explain 24 it, too, but yes.
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113 CHAIR HALNON: Yes. Okay. And I think 1
you got to the point that I was trying to make. You 2
have to have -- public has to have confidence in your 3
role. Okay? So the licensee has to have the public 4
confidence that they can implement their plan and keep 5
them safe and that the technology is such that the 6
science matches the requirements. The NRC in the same 7
way has to say we are looking at it and they are 8
continuing to maintain that proficiency necessary and 9
we're on the scene ready to take actions if they're 10 not.
11 So it's a full-faceted program. Everybody 12 has to do their role. The public has to have 13 confidence across the board. And that kind of comes 14 with information and education as well. So there's 15 many roles there, I agree.
16 Any other questions from our -- Marc, are 17 you going to supply your talking points in writing or 18 is that --
19 MR. NICHOL: Yes, we'll submit those in 20 writing. Yes.
21 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Send those to Mike 22 Snodderly, the DFO.
23 MR. NICHOL: Will do. Thank you.
24 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Next up is Dr. Ed 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 Lyman from UCS. We invited to come in and provide a 1
presentation on their perspective of the new rule.
2 So, Dr. Lyman, you have the floor. If you 3
want to take control and get your presentation up?
4 DR. LYMAN: Yes, I'm uploading it now.
5 CHAIR HALNON: Okay.
6 DR. LYMAN: One second. I apologize.
7 (Pause.)
8 DR. LYMAN: Here we go.
9 Okay. So thank you. How's the sound?
10 CHAIR HALNON: You're fine, Ed. Go ahead.
11 DR. LYMAN: Okay. Thank you. So I 12 appreciate the opportunity to present comments of the 13 Union of Concerned Scientists on the draft final rule.
14 I'm Director of Nuclear Power Safety at UCS.
15 So overall we would welcome a science-16 based revision to emergency planning requirements that 17 would use the best information -- best available 18 information to better align protective measures to 19 radiological risks while accounting for uncertainties 20 and the need for defense-in-depth.
21 Such a rule would be objective. Such a 22 rule would not presuppose that any applicant pursuing 23 this path would necessarily end up with a smaller EPZ 24 using this methodology because we're talking about 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
115 wide range of potential technologies, different size 1
-- there's no limit to the size of the non-light-water 2
or advanced reactors it would potentially apply. And 3
it certainly could potentially be larger or smaller.
4 So the fact that the rule is written in a 5
way to suggest that it would only go in one direction 6
I think demonstrates there's a lack of objectivity to 7
begin with. So the draft final rule does not meet 8
this goal -- our objective in any way and my sense 9
after observing this process for many years is that 10 its purpose is really largely to provide cover for 11 reactor vendors who have already publicly claim that 12 their designs do not need an off-site EPZ. So despite 13 the staff's protestation that nothing has been 14 decided, the presumption again is that only smaller 15 EPZ would result for any SMR or ONT.
16 And you don't have to go any further than 17 this 2021 Nuclear Industry Council vendor survey which 18 was presented to the -- in an NRC public meeting a few 19 weeks ago where 100 percent of the reactor developers 20 surveyed said not -- they said the appropriate 21 emergency planning zone for their technology is the 22 site boundary. They didn't say -- so this presumed --
23 this was before there was even a rule. They didn't 24 even know what the guidance is. They didn't even know 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
116 anything and they were already starting out with that 1
presumption. And I think this is what's -- this is 2
the tail wagging dog.
3 I had a conversation with a prominent 4
developer of a small modular reactor years ago and I 5
told him we would potentially be much more supportive 6
of what they were doing if they weren't trying to 7
subvert the EPZ requirements by pursuing this site 8
boundary EPZ. And he told me well, his dream was --
9 and this goes to the issue of public communication --
10 his dream was to have a (audio interference) that's so 11 safe that you don't have to tell the people next door 12 there's even a nuclear reactor there. That's the 13 goal. And that again I think is at odds with NRC's 14 obligation to ensure adequate protection of public 15 health and safety and take into account all 16 appropriate uncertainties and ensure defense-in-depth.
17 So what are we talking about here? We're 18 talking about a proposal that would essentially be a 19
-- provide a jackpot or a get-out-of-jail-free card, 20 depending on how you want to characterize it, for a 21 power reactor applicant who wants to avoid any 22 responsibility for providing off-site EP.
23 And what we have here is not a graded 24 approach. It's not a graceful failure. It's a cliff 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 edge. It's a step function. If the EPZ is determined 1
to be within the site boundary, then that entire suite 2
of requirements simply don't apply and the language in 3
the rule and the guidance does not provide any 4
confidence that there's any requirement that the 5
licensees will engage in any meaningful communication 6
with off-site responders or have any meaningful role 7
in -- and they're not required to have any meaningful 8
role in assuring that there would be an appropriate 9
off-site response should there be a radiological event 10 that does impact the community off site.
11 And so that puts the entire off-site 12 burden on these public emergency management agencies, 13 which is essentially an unfunded mandate. And I would 14 direct you -- if you haven't read FEMA's comments on 15 the draft proposed rule, you really should because 16 FEMA itself opposes many of these measures and, to the 17 point of the all-hazards approach that was discussed, 18 itself protested that that does not take into account 19 sufficiently the unique aspects of radiological 20 experience which require special expertise and 21 equipment that local emergency management 22 organizations may not have.
23 And in this day and age when you also have 24 to examine the potential impacts on 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
118 disproportionate impacts of NRC's rules, if you are 1
loading a burden entirely on local organizations, then 2
the question of the resources of those organizations 3
and their training come into play and that could 4
actually lead to a disproportionate outcome depending 5
on local economic conditions and resources. Better 6
resource communities will presumably have better 7
funding for emergency management. So you have to 8
consider that as well.
9 My overall concern -- another concern is 10 how this fits in with the entire suite of potential 11 regulatory relaxations that are being contemplated as 12 part of this risk-informed performance-based licensing 13 for new reactors. And I have a list, not here, of all 14 the different initiatives that stem from the same 15 single point; that is, the PRA and the determination 16 of what's in the licensing basis and what isn't and 17 that -- which would lead to the elimination of safety-18 related equipment, the need for a
physical 19 containment, the need for a
security (audio 20 interference), the need for EP, and then also where 21 you would site the reactor.
22 So you have the single determination which 23 would lead to potentially reducing margin for defense-24 in-depth in all those areas. And outside of 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
119 consistent framework where there's some sort of 1
hierarchy this is just going to lead to chaos.
2 Now Part 53 may provide that, but we're 3
not talking about Part 53. We're talking about 4
essentially these piecemeal rules and I am concerned 5
about the cumulative impact and the fact that they are 6
all depending on the same PRA, which as we know for 7
many small modular and non-light-water reactors is not 8
well-validated or validated at all.
9 So whatever comes out, the rule I don't 10 think could be (audio interference) reactor design 11 anyway, but only after -- over time as features are 12 validated they would have an impact on the 13 radiological -- on the source term analysis that over 14 time they may be able to implement, but certainly not 15 when all you have is a paper study.
16 So a huge concern of mine is this event 17 selection process. So the rule itself I believe 18 should be specific enough to prevent applicants from 19 fine tuning the selection analysis of events to 20 achieve this desired result, which is now off-site 21 EPZ. And you don't have to go any further than the 22 discussions -- and I'm not sure if you've been briefed 23 on the NuScale Topical Report on EPZ size which it 24 hopes will apply for -- or any advanced reactor 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 licensee should be able to use it -- they arbitrarily 1
chose a different cut-off point for external events 2
than for internal events and have (audio interference) 3 explain over the last 18 months or so to the NRC staff 4
exactly why that is, or in a convincing way, which 5
leads ones to suspect that there are external events 6
of lower frequency that may lead them to not -- to end 7
up with an EPZ that's beyond the site boundary.
8 So this kind of cherry picking or the 9
possibility for that means you need to have a 10 framework which is specific enough so that there isn't 11 any room for that kind of back calculating or monkey 12 business. And the proposed rule had this undefined 13 term, spectrum of credible accidents. I think it's 14 very problematic. To introduce into the NRC's rules 15 these undefined terms, especially when they have this 16 long weighted history or how do you define credible 17 accident to begin with. To start putting these 18 undefined terms in the rules is quite problematic.
19 So I was pleased to see the draft final 20 rule doesn't have that phrase, but unfortunately it's 21 been replaced with something even less specific, not 22 even talking about credible or even spectrum, but just 23 saying you consider. And I don't see anything in the 24 rule or guidance that would give me confidence 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
121 there won't be enough room for again this fine tuning 1
or back calculating or however you want to do it just 2
to get the desired result.
3 And the draft guidance refers to licensing 4
basis events. Again this is a term that's not defined 5
in the rules. It's in the LMP NEI-1804, in the 6
associated Reg Guide, but it's not a rule and of 7
course there are still many arguments to be had over 8
what's in the licensing basis for any applicant that 9
comes in under the LMP.
10 Now even worse is that this draft final 11 rule introduced an additional condition for having an 12 off-site EP, which is the need for predetermined 13 prompt protective measures. I have to admit I don't 14 really understand what they're talking about one would 15 expect that using that EPA PAG dose criterion which 16 has a time in it, a timing dose in it implicitly means 17 that that's the standard for when predetermined prompt 18 protective measures would be needed. And reading 19 EPA's Protective Action Guide, it seems pretty clear 20 that's what it is.
21 So this seems like another way where 22 applicants could eliminate accident sequences that 23 they don't like claiming that they would need 24 predetermined prompt protective measures, but again 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 who's applying those protective measures is these off-1 site response organizations who would have no -- a 2
licensee would have no responsibility to know what 3
they're doing or provide the NRC with that for review.
4 So this doesn't make any sense to me at all. And 5
maybe it's because I don't understand it, but it seems 6
like adding this additional criterion is only making 7
things worse.
8 Now I have a lot of other technical 9
objections. The draft final rule, as the proposed 10 rule was, is inconsistent with the previous planning 11 basis for EP because it does not address what are 12 called the worst core-melt sequences; that is, those 13 accidents which were considered I guess impractical to 14 try to prevent lower-dose -- or dose agents from lower 15 doses, so low doses would be expected, but they would 16 be used to prevent acute doses. And that doesn't 17 appear to be in this rule. In the Clinch River ESP 18 and in the NuScale Topical report it is addressed.
19 There is a separate criterion for managing acute dose 20 for this set of worst core-melt accidents, so I'm 21 still mystified why it's not in the draft rule.
22 The other thing that's missing is a 23 separate protective action for protecting children 24 against thyroid -- against radioactive iodine exposure 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
123 to the thyroid. And there's an EPA separate PAG in 1
the early phase for protecting children against 2
getting five rem to the thyroid or more. That's a 3
separate and potentially limiting criterion depending 4
on the accident scenario you're talking about and its 5
omission from this rule is a huge gap that is 6
potentially (audio interference) danger the children 7
or the country.
8 Another question of the scope. I can see 9
why the NRC would not want to include operating light-10 water reactors in the scope of this because -- but why 11 not new large light-water reactors that might have 12 safety features that may make them actually qualified?
13 And I'm not -- but I raise this because I believe that 14 large light-water reactors, let's say the operating 15 fleet, if you applied the methodology of the one rem, 16 that they could well have the EPZs greater than 10 17 miles. So if you apply to the operating fleet, you 18 might end up with EPZs that of 15 or 20 miles.
19 There's no reason to believe that large non-light-20 water reactors could not experience accidents with 21 severe off-site consequences.
22 So just to the first point Fukushima has 23 demonstrated that you can exceed these EPA PAGs at 24 greater than 10 miles. Here are some NARAC 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 simulations. These don't necessarily correspond to 1
what actually happened, but they were based on 2
weather, NARAC simulations and assumed source terms.
3 And they do show that you could have exposures 4
exceeding the PAGs at almost 20 miles.
5 There are other -- what actually did 6
happen led to dose rates far greater than 10 miles 7
which would lead to exceeding the PAGs, but those were 8
more to the northwest, as we know. And Japan as a 9
result expanded its own emergency planning zones to 30 10 kilometers; that is almost 20 miles, based on that.
11 So the other direction. Also for thyroid dose similar 12 exceedance to the thyroid PAG was predicted from these 13 scenarios.
14 Now looking at non-light-water reactors.
15 Well, why would a large non-light-water reactor (audio 16 interference) qualify for a smaller EPZ? Looking at 17 Clinch River, going to the old safety analysis report 18 you can easily find off-site doses that would exceed 19 EPA PAGs. That's 1,000 megawatts. It's a bigger 20 reactor.
21 What about a smaller reactor? Well, 22 PRISM, a metal-fueled fast reactor, less than i not an 23 SMR, but 380 megawatts. This is a relatively recent 24 analysis done by Argonne. And you see again off site; 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 this is at three miles, that you exceed the EPA PAGs.
1 And if you look at the site boundary, there are some 2
pretty horrendous numbers depending on the accident 3
scenario which could potentially lead to acute doses 4
as well.
5 Another issue is the lack of inclusion of 6
sabotage events. Now EP was not explicitly developed 7
(audio interference) sabotage, but it's -- the 8
analysis of sabotage, radiological sabotage. And 9
there are implications of (audio interference) taken 10 into account, the presence of EP. And we know there 11 are hostile action-based events now in the EP 12 framework for new reactors and different reactor 13 types. Hostile actions could lead to changes and 14 assumptions regarding event timing, progression, 15 severity, which could factor into the EPZ size 16 determination. Those are differences with spontaneous 17 accidents. And so by not addressing sabotage 18 scenarios that's another loophole.
19 And again the lack of specifics in the 20 rule and the guidance on how issues like multi-module 21 accidents will be addressed -- it's very, very vague 22 and also very important in that -- or potential 23 sources of radiological release such as fuel storage 24 (audio interference) important because accumulated 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
126 spent fuel storage could be the largest source term --
1 potential source term on a site of a reactor (audio 2
interference) where you have essentially fresh or 3
newly-irradiated or freshly discharged spent fuel 4
going to your pool every two months essentially.
5 There's always a supply of hot spent fuel in the spent 6
fuel pool as the spent fuel pool grows in inventory.
7 So that's my last slide. And I hope I 8
didn't exceed my time, but that's only -- I have many 9
more concerns about this rule, but i hope that 10 provides some detail for my major concerns. Thank you 11 again for the opportunity.
12 CHAIR HALNON: Thank you, Ed. As always 13 well structured comments. Appreciate it.
14 Any questions from the members?
15 (No audible response.)
16 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. We'll now open the 17 public line for comments from members of the public, 18 but please remember to provide your name and 19 affiliation if appropriate so that your transcripts 20 will be accurately reflected for your name.
21 If your comments are off topic I may 22 interrupt you and ask you to get either back on topic 23 or suggest a better venue for you provide your 24 questions or comments. I say this because 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
127 certain experts on EP in this meeting, but this is --
1 EP involves a lot of topics that folks may want to go 2
into that we're not prepared to go into at this 3
meeting.
4 You can always send your comments to be 5
included on the record to the designated federal 6
officer. That's Mike Snodderly.
7 So at this time if you desire to speak, 8
please state your name and wait until you're called on 9
specifically because I want to make sure that we don't 10 have people talking over anybody. So at this time if 11 we could open the public line, I will entertain your 12 comments.
13 (No audible response.)
14 CHAIR HALNON: I don't think there's any 15 specific length of time I'm supposed to wait, but 16 silence says a lot to me, so I'm going to go ahead and 17 move on.
18 MS. FIELDS: Hello, this is Sarah 19 Fields.
20 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. Sarah, go ahead, 21 please.
22 MS. FIELDS: This is Sarah Fields with 23 Uranium Watch in Monticello, Utah. I got involved --
24 I mostly know about uranium mining and milling, 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
128 very dirtiest, least regulated part of the nuclear 1
fuel chain, but there's also a proposal in Utah to 2
site a NuScale designed small modular reactor in -- at 3
Idaho National Lab.
4 I concur with Dr. Lyman's comments and 5
concerns. I also think that the most current version 6
of this final rule and the final guidance should have 7
been made available for this meeting. The slides go 8
over various NRC changes, but it would have been 9
helpful to have the full revised language for the 10 guidance and the rule.
11 I'm concerned that the NRC seems to think 12 everything will be okay if local, state and federal 13 responders have 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> to respond in a situation 14 where the emergency planning zone is the site boundary 15 so there's no real formal emergency response planning.
16 I think it's very unrealistic to think 17 that these agencies will be prepared to respond to a 18 real radiological or toxic release emergency even 19 given three days to do so. I think communities that 20 have recently been hit by extreme flooding, fires have 21 all faced situations where they wished they had had a 22 great deal more emergency response plans in place to 23 deal with these emergencies.
24 I'm also concerned about the use of new 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 types of nuclear fuel. One of the things that is also 1
a concern by the companies and corporations that wish 2
to develop and site advanced reactors and for -- so-3 called advanced reactors and small modular reactors --
4 besides wanting a -- an EPZ that is at the site 5
boundary they want to have the availability of what 6
they call high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU.
7 And I'm not sure if the ACRS is really aware that this 8
is really a misnomer because HALEU is not low-enriched 9
uranium. It's more highly-enriched uranium, up to 20-10 plus percent.
11 And because this is a new type of nuclear 12 fuel and there are many different small advanced 13 designs that would like to use this type of fuel, 14 there's really no long-term experience with the use of 15 this fuel, with the storage of this fuel, with the 16 long-term care of this fuel. And I don't think that 17 the NRC is taking into consideration this type of fuel 18 when it imagines that these advanced reactor designs 19 are basically safe and basically do not need the type 20 of emergency response planning as large light-water 21 reactors.
22 Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
23 CHAIR HALNON: Thank you, Sarah. I 24 appreciate your comments.
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 Mike, do we have any other further public 1
comments?
2 MR. SNODDERLY: I believe there was one 3
other person that was trying to say something.
4 Members of the public have the ability to 5
un-mute their phones now. I took off the mute. So is 6
there anyone else that would like to make a public 7
comment?
8 MR. BECKER: Yes. Yes, I have -- I would.
9 Can you hear me?
10 MR. SNODDERLY: Please identify yourself 11 for the record.
12 MR. BECKER: Yes, thank you, Mike. My 13 name is Gary Becker. I'm with NuScale Power.
14 I'd like to say that at the outset we 15 support this rule. As Mr. Nichol from NEI discussed 16 earlier, it is science-based and it reflects the 17 design-specific safety considerations of SMRs and 18 ONTs.
19 At a generic level I want to note I think 20 it's important to bear in mind, particularly with 21 respect to potential site boundary EPZ, that for those 22 site boundary EPZ licensees the likelihood of actually 23 needing to execute this ad hoc emergency response 24 might be on the order of one in a million or one in 10 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 million, or even less likely per reactor year. And 1
I'll come back to that criteria in a moment here.
2 And the reason to execute that ad hoc 3
emergency response would only be because the projected 4
dose exceeds what I'd call a de minimis threshold of 5
1 rem TEDE over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br />. So this -- all of the 6
discussion about how this emergency response would 7
occur has to be I think kept in context of that very 8
low risk profile, and perhaps that may have been lost 9
in some of the comments made earlier.
10 Now I do have some specific comments to 11 make. Earlier the staff stated that they added clarity 12 to the criteria for EPZ size determination. As has 13 been discussed the draft final rule language removed 14 the phrase spectrum of credible accidents and it now 15 directs an applicant to consider the accident 16 likelihood, source term and timing.
17 Dr. Lyman noted that -- in his comment 18 that this made the criterion even less specific, and 19 on that one point of Dr. Lyman's I would actually 20 agree. I do think that criterion is perhaps even more 21 ambiguous than the phrase spectrum of credible 22 accidents.
23 The draft reg guide does provide some 24 additional information, but still we're left 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
132 quite a bit of ambiguity. The Appendix A -- and I'd 1
like to note that this guidance wasn't discussed much 2
here today, which I was hoping to hear -- but the 3
Appendix A event selection guidance suggests there may 4
be some screening frequency that applies, but we don't 5
know what that screening criterion frequency might be 6
or how it would be determined.
7 And then the Appendix A probabilistic dose 8
aggregation discussion tells us to consider the 9
likelihood of exceeding one rem. And gives the 10 example of NUREG-0396, which identified the distance 11 of exceeding -- the distance at which the likelihood 12 of exceeding dose levels of interest drops 13 substantially. And it uses an example from that NUREG 14 of a five E to the minus 5 accident coupled with the 15 conditional probability of exceeding dose levels.
16 So my specific comments on that point are 17 what does this example mean for the methodology? Are 18 we to copy it? And if so, does that five E to the 19 minus 5 accident sequence somehow relate to the 20 screening criterion that was left out of the event 21 selection guidance?
22 And is the third criterion, the life-23 threatening doses criterion from NUREG-0396 -- is that 24 relevant to the methodology somehow because that's not 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
133 indicated by the rule which directs us only to look at 1
2 So I think we're left with some questions 3
about how to implement this guidance and we'll need to 4
work through this as NuScale continues to pursue our 5
EPZ methodology topical, but just wanted to highlight 6
some of those uncertainties that we're left with from 7
this guidance. Thank you.
8 CHAIR HALNON:
Thank
- you, Gary.
9 Appreciate your comments. I'm assuming that those are 10 written down and will be supplied to the NRC staff, 11 michaelsnodderly@nrc.gov?
12 MR. BECKER: I could do that, yes.
13 CHAIR HALNON: Yes, you went through a lot 14 of numbers, a lot of technical stuff there. I want to 15 make sure we captured it all.
16 Any other public comments?
17 (No audible response.)
18 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. With that we're 19 going to wrap this up. It's 1:00 and this is supposed 20 to be the end of your meeting. Any other ACRS members 21 have any comments or last minute questions?
22 (No audible response.)
23 CHAIR HALNON: Okay. We've had a lot of 24 discussion touching on a lot of topical areas 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 surrounding the future of this emergency preparedness.
1 We're planning on discussing this rule further at the 2
ACRS Full Committee in November. At this time we'll 3
provide our final comments and recommendations to the 4
Commission in a letter report and that will be issued 5
after the November meeting.
6 I want to thank the NRC staff, NEI, UCS 7
and those members of the public who listened and also 8
made comments for your participation.
9 At this time I'm going to adjourn this 10 meeting and thank you again for your participation.
11 Meeting is adjourned.
12 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 13 off the record at 1:01 p.m.)
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 Future Plant Designs Subcommittee 10 CFR Parts 50 and 52 Emergency Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors and Other New Technologies September 21, 2021
Agenda 9:30am - 9:35am Opening Remarks 9:35am - 11:00am
Background
Technical Basis/Regulatory Analysis Final Rule Language 11:00am - 11:15am Break 11:15am - 12:30pm Final Rule Language (Continued)
Draft Regulatory Guidance 12:30pm - 12:40pm Comments on Draft Final Rule (Marc Nichol, NEI) 12:40pm - 12:50pm Comments on Draft Final Rule (Ed Lyman, UCS) 12:50 - 1:00pm Opportunity for Public Comment 2
NRC Staff Presenters
- Arlon Costa, NRR - Business Line Lead
- Eric Schrader, NSIR - Technical Lead
- Charles Murray, NSIR - RG 1.242 Lead 3
4 Background
Background
- Regulatory Basis
- Published the draft regulatory basis with a 75-day public comment period on April 13, 2017 (82 FR 17768)
- Received comments from 57 individuals and organizations with 223 individual comments
- Published the final regulatory basis on November 15, 2017 (82 FR 52862) 5
Background (cont.)
- Proposed Rule
- Published the proposed rule with a 75-day public comment period on May 12, 2020 (85 FR 28436)
- Public meeting was held on June 24, 2020
- Extended the public comment period by 60 days on July 21, 2020 (85 FR 44025)
- Public comment period ended Sept 25, 2020 6
Background (cont.)
- Public comments
- Received comments from 2,212 individuals and organizations, including 2,087 form letters
- Identified 649 unique comments on the proposed rule
- Responses to public comments will be published upon Commission approval of the final rule 7
Background (cont.)
8
Background (cont.)
- Draft final rule schedule
- Currently in concurrence
- Presentation to ACRS full committee during the week of November 1, 2021
- Due to the Commission by December 30, 2021 9
10 Technical Basis and Regulatory Analysis
Technical Basis
- Graded approach to emergency preparedness:
- Performance-Based
- Technology-Inclusive
- Consequence-Oriented and Risk-Informed 11
Regulatory Analysis
- Cost and Benefits/Averted Costs (7% Net Present Value)
- Total Net Benefit (Undiscounted): $31,700,000
- 3% Net Present Value: $14,900,000
- 7% Net Present Value: $7,980,000 12 Industry NRC Costs
($110,000)
($70,000)
Benefits/Averted Costs
$5,730,000
$2,430,000 Net Benefits (Benefits - Costs)
$5,620,000
$2,360,000
13 Draft Final Rule Language
Draft Final Rule Language Overview of Major Provisions:
New alternative performance-based emergency preparedness framework A graded approach to EP Requirement for a hazard analysis of any NRC licensed or non-NRC licensed facility Requirement to describe ingestion response planning in the emergency plan 14
Draft Final Rule Language 15 New Alternative Performance-Based Framework
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
- New Alternative Performance-Based Framework (cont.)
- Section 50.160(b)(1) establishes a new alternative performance-based EP framework (i) Maintenance of Performance (ii) Performance Objectives (iii) Emergency Response Performance (iv) Planning Activities 16
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
17 Scalable Approach to EP
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
- Section 50.33(g)(2) - Scalable approach for determining plume exposure pathway EPZ size
- An analysis describing the area within which:
- Public dose, as defined in section 20.1003, is projected to exceed 10 mSv (1 rem) TEDE over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br /> from the release of radioactive materials from the facility considering accident likelihood and source term, timing of the accident sequence, and meteorology; and
- Predetermined, prompt protective measures are necessary 18
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
- EPZ Boundary and Physical Characteristics
- Under section 50.33(g)(2) applicants must propose their EPZ
- Section 50.160(b)(3) requires applicants to describe in their emergency plans the boundary and physical characteristics of the EPZ 19
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
- Requirement to Describe Ingestion Response Planning
- Section 50.160(b)(4) establishes ingestion response planning requirements
- Applicants' and licensees emergency plan would describe:
- Ingestion response planning
- Capabilities and resources available to prevent contaminated food and water from entering the ingestion pathway
- Facilities with a site boundary EPZ must reference capabilities of Federal, State, and local authorities 20
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
- Onsite and Offsite Planning Activities
- Section 50.160(b)(1)(iv)(A) contains required onsite and offsite planning activities for all applicants and licensees:
- Public information
- Coordination with the licensee safeguards contingency plan
- Communications with the NRC
- Emergency facility or facilities
- Site familiarization training
- Emergency plan maintenance 21
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
- Offsite Planning Activities
- Section 50.160(b)(1)(iv)(B) contains required offsite planning activities for applicants with a plume exposure pathway EPZ that extends beyond the site boundary:
22
- Contacts and arrangements with Federal, State, Local, and Tribal governmental agencies
- Notification of offsite organizations
- Protective measures
- Evacuation time estimate
- Emergency response facility or facilities
- Offsite dose projections
- Dissemination of public information
- Reentry
- Drills and exercises
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
- Requirement for Hazard Analysis
- Section 50.160(b)(2) requires a hazard analysis of facilities contiguous to or near an SMR or ONT facility
- NRC licensed or other facilities 23
Draft Final Rule Language (cont.)
- Consideration of Credible Hazards
- Section 50.160(b)(2) requires a hazard analysis to include any event at a contiguous or nearby facility that would adversely impact the implementation of emergency plans
- Examples of facilities are:
- Industrial
- Military
- Transportation
- Multi modular and other nuclear units 24
Regulatory Oversight
- Section 50.160(b)(1)(iii) requires all applicants and licensees to use drills and exercises to demonstrate their capabilities in the required emergency response functions 25
Significant Changes to the Proposed Rule
- Revised section 50.33(g)(2) plume exposure pathway EPZ sizing criteria
- Revised section 50.160(b)(3) to include entry criteria
- Revised sections 50.160(c)(1)-(2) to allow licensees greater flexibility for initial exercise demonstration 26
Other Changes to the Proposed Rule
- Revised section 50.2 definition of small modular reactor
- Revised section 72.32(c) to clarify that the emergency plan that meets the requirements of sections 50.47 or 50.160 satisfies the EP requirements of section 72.32
- Revised section 50.160(b) to state the reasonable assurance finding required in section 50.47(a)(1) apply to section 50.160 applicant 27
Other Changes to the Proposed Rule (cont.)
- Revised sections 50.160(b)(1)(iii)(F)(1),
(3) and (4) to refer to applicable response organizations
- Revised section 50.160(b)(1)(iv)(B)(4) to ensure ETEs include area within the site boundary 28
Other Changes to the Proposed Rule (cont.)
- Clarified that an applicant complying with section 50.160 needs to submit an emergency plan of a participating Tribal government
- Relocated requirements for site familiarization and maintenance of emergency plan to section 50.160(b)(1)(iv)(A) to ensure requirements are applicable to all applicants and licensees 29
Draft Regulatory Guidance 30 RG 1.242, Performance-Based Emergency Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors, Non-Light Water Reactors, and Non-Power Production or Utilization Facilities
Draft Regulatory Guidance
- Conforming changes to the regulatory guide
- Made conforming changes based on changes to the draft final rule language
- Included additional reference documents
- Enhanced the guidance on accident likelihood, source term, timing of the accident sequence, and meteorology
- Added the definition of safe condition to the glossary 31
Draft Regulatory Guidance (cont.)
- Appendix A, General Methodology for Establishing Plume Exposure Pathway Emergency Planning Zone Size
- Provides a general methodology acceptable to the NRC for the analysis for establishing plume exposure pathway EPZ size
- Added Section A-3.1, Event Selection, which discusses the applicants consideration of accident likelihood 32
Draft Regulatory Guidance (cont.)
- Appendix B, Development of Information on Source Terms
- Provides guidance to develop source terms for plume exposure pathway EPZ size evaluations 33
Questions 34
Acronyms and Abbreviations ACRS - Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards CFR - Code of Federal Regulations EP - emergency preparedness EPZ - emergency planning zone ETE - evacuation time estimate FR - Federal Register mSv - millisievert NEI - Nuclear Energy Institute NMSS - Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards NRC - U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission NSIR - Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response ONT - other new technologies PM - project manager RG - Regulatory Guide SMR - small modular reactor TEDE - total effective dose equivalent UCS - Union of Concerned Scientists 35
NEI Remarks on the SMR & ONT EP Final Rule and Guidance ACRS Future Plants Subcommittee Meeting of September 21, 2021 Thank you for the opportunity to make remarks on the NRCs final rule and guidance for SMR and ONT EP. My name is Marc Nichol, Senior Director of New Reactors at the Nuclear Energy Institute. The comments below are made on behalf of the nuclear energy industry.
We have been engaging with the NRC staff on performance-based EP for advanced reactors since the issue was first identified in 2010 and we strongly support issuance of the final rule.
The Commissions Advanced Reactor Policy Statement has encouraged the nuclear industry to develop designs with enhanced safety features. The industry has responded to this policy goal with designs featuring smaller cores and reliance on passive safety systems - these features reduce the potential for accidents and increase the time available to take mitigation or protective actions. The overall lower risk provides a sound rationale for the EP changes proposed by the NRC staff.
The NRCs rule recognizes the enhanced safety of advanced reactor designs and establishes EP requirements that are commensurate with the potential consequences to the public from an accident. Most advanced reactors are expected to demonstrate that they can meet the dose-based consequence limits for the plume exposure Emergency Planning Zone at distances much less than the 10-mile radius used by current operating reactors. In all cases, the applicant will have to provide the NRC with a site-specific technical justification for the proposed EPZ size. In many cases, an advanced reactor may present a lesser hazard to the public than some non-nuclear facilities, such as petrochemical facilities.
The rule uses essentially the same EP technical basis as that underlying the requirements applicable to currently operating reactors and therefore will maintain the same level of public protection. There will be no reduction in defense-in-depth; rather, EP activities are appropriately scaled to reflect the potential hazards posed by a facility. The rule provides clear and reasonable regulatory requirements for designers, applicants and licensees. We support the performance-based approach used in the rule as it will allow for innovation and flexibility in addressing the EP requirements. It also aligns with the NRCs prior approval of EP for the TVA Clinch River ESP.
Codification of the new requirements will provide for regulatory stability, predictability, and clarity in the licensing process, and eliminate the need for serial EP exemption requests; this makes efficient use of NRC and applicant resources. The rule provisions are consistent with the Commissions Policy Statement on the Regulation of Advanced Reactors and past Staff Requirements Memorandums. Finally, it will facilitate the deployment of a new generation of
NEI Remarks on the SMR & ONT EP Final Rule and Guidance ACRS Future Plants Subcommittee Meeting of September 21, 2021 U.S.-designed reactors, all producing carbon-free power - an outcome thats good for our economy and national security, and one that supports global efforts to mitigate climate change.
In response to an ACRS members question made during the meeting that concerned public confidence: We believe the NRCs role is create regulatory frameworks and requirements that provide reasonable assurance of public health and safety in accordance with the Atomic Energy Act. A facility owner/operator will be responsible for engaging State and local elected officials, and communities to gain confidence in the siting an advanced reactor facility. Engagements with State and local emergency management agencies will also occur. It is these elected and public safety officials who will have the lead in communicating the safety and benefits of a proposed facility to their constituencies. In some cases, this could result in the facility owner/operator working with communities to implement emergency response capabilities beyond what is required by the NRC for reasonable assurance of adequate protection.
UCS Comments on the Draft Final EP Rule for SMRs and ONTs Edwin Lyman Director of Nuclear Power Safety Union of Concerned Scientists Presentation to the ACRS Future Plants Subcommittee September 21, 2021
General comments
- UCS would welcome a science-based revision to emergency planning requirements that strives to use the best available information to better align protective measures to radiological risks, while fully accounting for uncertainties and the need for defense-in-depth
- An objective rule would acknowledge up front that EPZs could be larger or smaller than 10 miles
- Unfortunately, the draft final rule is a far cry from this goal. Its purpose seems largely to provide cover for reactor vendors who have already publicly claimed that their designs do not need an offsite EPZ
- Presumption is that only smaller EPZs would result for any SMR or ONT, regardless of the details of the technology
- Disregards one of the major lessons of Fukushima: the essential value of planning for the unexpected!
2021 Nuclear Industry Council vendor survey (N.B.: The answer is already predetermined!)
No Offsite EPZ, No EP requirements
- The draft final rule would provide a get-out-of-jail-free card for power reactor applicants seeking to avoid any offsite EP requirements
- a step function if the EPZ is determined to be within the site boundary
- Entire offsite EP burden then falls on public emergency management agencies: an unfunded mandate
- May lack the necessary radiological expertise
- Could lead to disproportionate impacts on disadvantaged populations, depending on local economic conditions and resources
Concern: Cumulative effect of RIPB licensing initiatives
- General reductions in defense-in-depth despite the common-cause reliance on the PRA in the LMP, etc.
- The rule should not be an option for FOAK reactor designs, but only for reactors that have accumulated significant operating experience to validate the PRA
Concern: Event selection
- The rule should be specific enough to prevent applicants from fine-tuning selection and analysis of events to achieve the desired result: no offsite EPZ Example: Arbitrarily chosen seismic event frequency cutoff in NuScale draft Topical Report on EPZ size
- But vague rule and guidance language opens the door for back-calculating from desired outcome Proposed rule: used undefined term spectrum of credible accidents for evaluating off-site emergency phase doses Draft final rule is even less specific: considering accident likelihood and source term, timing and meteorology.
Draft guidance: Licensing basis events (is also left undefined in the regulations)
Concern: Additional hurdle
- Draft final rule contains a second vague condition for an offsite EPZ: there must be a need for predetermined, prompt protective measures.
- And statement means that applicants will have another way to avoid offsite EP requirements even if the plume EPZ extends beyond the site boundary compared to proposed rule
Concern: Does not address acute exposures, thyroid dose
- Draft final rule is inconsistent with previous planning basis for EP because it does not clearly address protection from immediate, life-threatening doses from the worst core-melt sequences
- Low-probability, high-consequence initiating events could be screened out completely
- Does not include thyroid dose early phase PAG for infants which could be limiting in some scenarios
Concern: Inconsistent scope
- Why are non-LWRs (such as a fast reactors) of any size in the scope of the rule, but not large LWRs?
- No reason to believe a priori that large non-LWRs could not experience accidents with severe off-site consequences
NARAC Fukushima simulations Nearly 20 miles
NARAC (cont.)
Over 30 miles
Clinch River Breeder thyroid doses at 0.41 miles (1000 MWe)
PRISM (380 MWe) fast reactor doses Grabaskas, D. et al. Regulatory Technology Development Plan Sodium Fast Reactor: Mechanistic Source Term - Trial Calculation, ANL-ART-49, Vol.1., Oct. 2016
Concern: Lack of inclusion of sabotage events
- Draft final rule does not (explicitly) consider the potential for hostile actions as an external event initiator that could affect issues such as event timing, progression, and severity, and thus could factor into the EPZ size determination
Concern: Lack of specifics on site-wide analysis
- Draft final rule and guidance provide no details on how applicants should consider multi-module accidents and interactions, and how to address other potential sources of radiological release (spent fuel storage, on-site processing)
- Important because accumulated spent fuel storage could prove to be the largest single potential source of release onsite (see, e.g.
NuScale)
1 Comments on the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Proposed Rule and Guidance, Emergency Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors and Other New Technologies Docket ID: NRC-2015-0225 Edwin S. Lyman, PhD Director of Nuclear Power Safety Union of Concerned Scientists Washington, DC September 25, 2020 The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) strongly opposes this fundamentally flawed and technically unsound proposed rule, and urges that the NRC withdraw it. This proposal sinks to a new low in the NRCs ongoing effort to dismantle its current nuclear power plant licensing framework and replace it with a house of cards with a rotten foundation. This foundation is the unproven and absolutely false assumption that any application for a new power reactor that falls within the scope of the proposed rulethat is, any small modular reactor (SMR) or non-light-water reactor (of any size)and potentially even conventional large light-water reactorsis automatically qualified to apply for broad exemptions from current safety requirements. This draft rule, together with other ongoing efforts by the NRC to greatly weaken safety, security, and emergency preparedness requirements, only serves to further undermine the NRCs credibility as an independent regulator that makes decisions in the public interest based on sound science, instead of misleading industry public relations sloganeering and undue political influence.
In requesting that the NRC terminate the rulemaking, UCS does not think the current rules that specify emergency planning zone (EPZ) sizes themselves are technically sound and should be set in stone. In fact, the technical basis for the current 10-mile plume exposure EPZ is dated, vague, and has been demonstrated to be insufficiently protective by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident. We support a technically sound approach for determining EPZ size that can be informed by mechanistic source term information, assuming that sufficient safety margin will be provided to fully account for the large uncertainties associated with such analyses. As the NRC knows, the RASCAL code calculations performed by its staff following the Fukushima Daiichi accident found that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) early phase protective action guide (PAG)1 rem total effective dose equivalent (TEDE) in 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br /> would have been exceeded at least 20 miles away from the site, even assuming only a single reactor experienced core damage.1 Aerial monitoring results days after the accident also indicated dose rates high enough to exceed the EPA PAG well beyond ten miles. Similar results were found by the National Atmospheric Release Monitoring Center (NARAC) in its modeling of the accident.2 NARAC also found that the thyroid dose to a 1-year-old child could have exceeded the 5 rem PAG for potassium iodide (KI) prophylaxis as far as 150 km (over 90 miles) from Fukushima, depending on the chemical composition of the release. Thus the current plume EPZ size for large light-water reactors is most likely too small to comply with this proposed rule. This also 1 https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1211/ML12111A247.pdf 2 https://narac.llnl.gov/content/mods/publications/op-model-description-evaluation/LLNL-PRES-650086.pdf
2 challenges the presumption that a mechanistic source term approach for determining EPZ size for SMRs would necessarily result in EPZ radii smaller than ten miles. The NRC needs to start with a clean slate and not assume a priori that a mechanistic source term evaluation, with full accounting for uncertainties to provide sufficient defense-in-depth, would result in smaller EPZ sizes for SMRs and non-LWRsor, for that matter, for large LWRs, if the scope is expanded to include them.
UCS largely concurs with the thoughtful and cogent comments on the proposed rule submitted by Jay Tilden, Deputy Under Secretary for Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation at the Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). We acknowledge the highly irregular and disturbing request made the following day by the NNSA Administrator, Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, that the NRC disregard the Deputy Under Secretarys comments. As Mr.
Tilden is a seasoned bureaucrat who presumably knew exactly what he was doing, we assume that his comments were meant as a signal to the NRC and the public that there is internal disagreement between the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy and some NNSA officials regarding the risks that the proposed rule would pose to domestic national securitya disagreement that the NRC must fully take into account. We think that the NRC should give Mr. Tildens recommendations on security and emergency preparedness matters as an individual far more weight than those of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, whose views are tainted by its promotional mission. We are attaching Mr. Tildens comments and request that the NRC consider them in full as part of our submittal.
Specific concerns with the proposed rule are below.
- 1. The proposed rule would require that applicants consider doses from a spectrum of credible accidents and determine the size of the plume exposure EPZ boundary as the distance beyond which exposures exceeding the EPZ early phase PAG would not be expected. However, the term spectrum of credible accidents is not defined in the proposed rule text, or elsewhere in the NRCs rules, guidance, or previous planning standards for emergency preparedness for power reactors. The term is only defined parenthetically in the Statement of Considerations (SOC) of the proposed rule at 85 FR 28445 as design-basis accidents, less severe accidents, and less probable but more severe accidents.
This vague and subjective term is extremely problematic because it allows for applicants to cherry-pick a spectrum of credible accidents that would enable them to meet the dose criterion for a reduced (or no) off-site EPZ. This would likely lead to negotiations between applicants and the NRC staff as to whether all credible accidents were considered, but without a clear standard upon which to base decisions--opening the door for arbitrary and inconsistent implementation of the rule. Applicants would have a strong incentive to fudge their analyses to ensure the plume exposure EPZ would remain at the or within the site boundary, because the proposed rule would then exempt them from a large number of regulatory requirements. The NRC staff would then have the undue burden of searching for accident sequences that could exceed the PAGs off-site and then determining whether or not they were credible.
3 The proposed rule states that this process would afford the same level of protection of the public health and safety as the current regulatory framework, implying this is the same definition that is used in the current EP planning basis. However, the definition in the SOC is not equivalent to the full spectrum of accidents referred to in NUREG-0396 or the spectrum of radiological incidents referred to in NUREG-0654, Revision 2. Thus the relationship between the level of protection defined in the proposed rule and the current level of protection in the planning basis for emergency preparedness is unclear.
Compare this to the first three criteria in NUREG-0654, Revision 2:
- a. Projected doses from the traditional design basis accidents would not exceed Federal PAG levels outside the EPZ.
- b. Projected doses from most core melt sequences would not exceed Federal PAG levels outside the EPZ.
- c. For the worst core melt sequences, immediate life threatening doses would generally not occur outside the EPZ.
Presumably, the spectrum of credible accidents referred to in the proposed rule would correspond to categories (a) and all or a subset of (b), but not (c), since only (a) and (b) reference the PAG standard. One cannot draw a straightforward correspondence between the definitions because it is unclear whether most core melt sequences is equivalent to the less severe accident category described in the proposed rule.
What is clear is that the current protection level for accidents in the (c) categorythat is, the worst core melt sequences that must be accounted for in the current EP planning basis is not included in the proposed rule. This appears to be an oversight. On page 7 of the Regulatory Analysis for the proposed rule, the description of the alternative proposed by the staff includes a requirement that applicants would also need to show a substantial reduction in risk to public health and safety at the chosen plume exposure pathway EPZ outer boundary for very severe accidents similar to the evaluation in NUREG-0396. However, this requirement does not appear in the proposed rule itself. Thus the proposed rule is not only inconsistent with the current planning basis but also with the Regulatory Analysis developed to support it. This technical error alone is serious enough for the NRC to withdraw the proposed rule.
We note that the original division in NUREG-0396 between less severe and more severe beyond-design-basis accidents was based on a distinction between basemat melt-through accidents, which would result in relatively small atmospheric releases, and accidents resulting in containment failure or bypass causing relatively large atmospheric releases. It is not obvious that this distinction makes much sense today for non-LWRs or even for todays LWRs. However, the Fukushima meltdownswhich involved both basemat melt-through and some degree of containment failure but only an intermediate level of atmospheric releasewere by definition credible accidents because they actually occurred.
4 The task of defining a valid and conservative spectrum of credible accidents for any reactor design is non-trivial. The NRC should do its homework and develop a solid technical basis for such a term, supported by robust independent peer review and extensive public engagement, before incorporating it into its regulations.
- 2. The term spectrum of credible accidents, as defined, excludes core melt and large radiological release sequences induced by hostile action. This is not consistent with NUREG-0654, which refers to radiological incidents that clearly could be caused by sabotage as well as accidents. Moreover, hostile action could result in very severe radiological consequences to the public that might not be considered credible if accidents alone are considered. Thus the proposed rule should also require that a spectrum of sabotage attacks resulting in core melt and containment breach be considered in determining EP requirements and the EPZ size.
- 3. The EPA early phase PAGs include a separate standard for limiting thyroid doses due to inhalation of radioactive iodine by administration of potassium iodide (KI), especially for children (EPA-400/R-17/001, 2017). Specifically, the EPA recommends KI administration when the thyroid dose to a 1-year-old child is projected to exceed 5 rem. This recommendation is absent from the proposed rule and should be included as a separate criterion for determining EPZ size. The aforementioned NARAC Fukushima analyses show that a 5 rem thyroid dose to children from plume exposure could be exceeded at greater distances than a 1 rem whole-body dose, so the whole-body dose criterion for determining EPZ size is not necessarily limiting. The rule should ensure that children and other sensitive subpopulations will receive a level of protection commensurate with their increased vulnerability.
- 4. The NRC also needs to ensure that its rules do not cause disproportionate impacts on communities of color and economically less-advantaged groups. The proposed rule fails this test because it exempts applicants who are able to meet the proposed rule criteria for a site boundary EPZ from all requirements for off-site emergency planning, thereby putting the entire burden on protecting the public from off-site radiological releases on public entities such as State, local and Tribal authorities. Jurisdictions with fewer resources and weaker infrastructure will be in a worse position to cope with a radiological emergency than more affluent communities. For this reason alone, the NRC should not authorize any option that would relieve licensees from all responsibilities for off-site emergency planning.
Also, using a single dose-based criterion as a surrogate for radiological harm does not take into account disparities in health care and other factors that could make a significant difference not only for cancer survival rates, but also for a range of other harms resulting from cancer morbidity, such as the ability to keep ones job and to provide child care. These issues are not currently addressed anywhere in the NRCs entire regulatory safety framework, but this is a good place to start.
- 5. We believe that the proposed rule should not eliminate the requirement for an ingestion planning zone, which is an essential component of timely and effective post-accident emergency response. In addition, the proposed rule should include a new provision requiring that licensees define a long-term relocation planning zone, which would include areas where the EPAs
5 intermediate phase PAG of 2 rem in the first year would be exceeded following a credible accident or terrorist attack. Such accidents would likely result in substantial off-site areas that would exceed this criterion even if they would not cause the early phase PAG to be exceeded off-site. Licensees, working together with Federal, Tribal, State, and local authorities, should then develop contingency plans to help ensure that timely and safe long-term relocations of the public within these zones can be carried out.
- 6. The rule itself, and not only supporting guidance, should specify the parameters that must be used in conducting the radiological assessments in sufficient detail to ensure consistency, clarity, and a sufficient level of conservatism with regard to source term composition, release, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition. As noted in the references on dose assessment methodology cited in the Federal Register notice, assumptions that may be conservative with regard to one exposure pathway may be non-conservative with respect to others. Thus it is critical that a wide distribution of site-specific atmospheric conditions be analyzed and that the peak individual dose value over this distribution be used to determine EPZ size. Alternatively, a safety factor could be applied to the criterion itself to ensure uncertainties are accounted for say, a 0.1 rem value instead of 1.0 rem.
Below we respond to certain additional issues on which the NRC requested comment in Section IV of the Federal Register notice.
- 1. Terminology: Since the proposed rule would fundamentally base EP requirements on dose, it would be misleading to remove the phrase dose-based from the description.
However, in order to ensure that the level of public protection for operating and future large LWRs does not decrease, the minimum plume exposure EPZ radius should remain at 10 miles.
As explained above, it is likely that applying a technically valid methodology to large LWRs would result in a plume exposure EPZ greater than 10 miles.
From:
Becker, Gary To:
Snodderly, Michael
Subject:
[External_Sender] Comment for 9/21/21 ACRS future plants subcommittee meeting on EP for SMRs and ONTs rule Date:
Tuesday, September 21, 2021 1:51:25 PM Attachments:
image001.png
- Mike,
As you requested, here is a written form of my verbal comments made in todays ACRS meeting. This is not a verbatim restatement, but essentially what I attempted to convey verbally. Thank you for consideration of my comments.
NuScale supports this rule. We second Mr. Nicols comments that it's science based and reflects design-specific safety considerations. There were significant discussions today on the ability, including communications with offsite authorities and FEMA resources, to execute an emergency response without preplanned offsite emergency actions. At a generic level, I believe its important to bear in mind with respect to potential for a site boundary EPZ, that for those site-boundary EPZ licensees the likelihood of actually needing to execute such an ad hoc emergency response might be on the order of one in a million, one in ten million, or less per reactor year (and I'll return to that criterion in a moment). And the reason to execute an hoc response would be because the projected dose exceeds what I would consider a de minimis threshold of 1 rem TEDE over 96 hours0.00111 days <br />0.0267 hours <br />1.587302e-4 weeks <br />3.6528e-5 months <br />. This very low risk profile may be lost in some of the comments made earlier.
As to my specific comments. Earlier Staff stated that they added clarity in the draft final rule regarding the EPZ determination criteria. The draft final language removed the phrase "spectrum of credible accidents." While we were uncertain on exactly what credible meant and commented as such, at least there was a threshold established. Now the rule simply directs us to "consider" accident likelihood, source term, and timing. As Dr. Lyman commented, that change made the rule "even less specific." I agree.
RG 1.242 provides some additional guidance on that issue, but still leaves us with considerable uncertainty. Appendix A, Event Selection, directs us to consider Licensing Basis Events as candidates, and then we may be able to screen at some unknown frequency.
In the context of an LWR, I'm not clear on what LBEs are because that is not a defined term prior to or with this guidance. And we have no indication of what an acceptable screening criterion would be within those LBEs. (For a non-LWR, LBEs are defined as sequences above a 5E-7 frequency per the RG 1.233 approach, which at least defines the set of LBEs. Although it is unclear if further screening for EPZ determination is acceptable.)
Then the RG guidance on Probabalistic Dose Aggregation in Appendix A directs us to consider the likelihood of exceeding the 1 rem TEDE criterion. It gives the example of NUREG-0396 identifying the distance at which likelihood of exceeding dose level of interest dropped substantially. It uses, by example, a 5E-5 frequency accident coupled with the conditional probability of exceeding certain dose levels.
- What does this "example" mean for the methodologyis it implying that we can and
should follow it? If so how does the 5E-5 accident sequence relate to the aforementioned screening criterion? If a core melt accident is substantially less likely (lower baseline risk for the design), how is the conditional probability applied to that baseline accident frequency?
- Is the third criterion from NUREG-0396 (the life threatening doses) relevant to the determination, even though its not included in the rule?
- Regards, Gary Becker Regulatory Affairs Counsel email: gbecker@nuscalepower.com web: www.nuscalepower.com office: 541.360.0549 The contents of this email are intended only for the person to whom it is addressed. If you received it by mistake, please inform me by reply email and then delete the message and any attachments. This email may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged material, which doesn't change if it is sent to an unintended recipient. Unless you have my consent, please do not copy, forward, or reveal the contents of this email to anyone.